Notes from the Preacher's Kid: Remembrance Day

The Bush daughters give the Obama daughters a
tour of the White House.

 [Link to the article is in the photo.]

Most of you that know me know that my father was a United Methodist minister (as is my maternal uncle, sister, and brother-in-law), so I grew up a "preacher's kid." I'm sure that this conjures lots of images in your mind of holier-than-thou kids and hellraisers alike, but I think I speak for both my sister and me when I say that we were fairly normal kids.

I mean, as normal as you can be when you are moving around from home to home every four years or so (by the time I was in high school, it was seven years or so between moves). I have likened my upbringing to military kids, only it's still not the same because you are much more in the spotlight as a preacher's kid.

For example: When I was in high school, my father's sister Ruby came to stay with me and my sister Susan while our parents went to a minister's retreat of some sort. I was driving by that time, so I remember being pulled over by the chief of police with my aunt in the car. Now I knew him fairly well - we lived literally across a street and some railroad tracks from the police station and my dad had been called out at all hours when someone needing help ended up over there. So he gets out and walks to the window - I was sweating and she was seething - and when I rolled down the window he told me he'd pulled me over to tell me to tell Hoyt (my dad) to put the new sticker on his tag soon. Before I thought about it, I said, "You pulled me over for that? You just scared me to death!" He laughed and went on his way. 

My aunt, by the way, was still furious and had to let that anger out, so I got a three-point sermon on the way back home on how we did and did not speak to the police.

I wanted to post today after seeing the picture above circulating on Facebook this week. Jenna Bush Hager, one of President George W. Bush's daughters and current personality on NBC's Today Show has been featured recently in the discussions about the smooth transfer of power that happens in the US after a presidential election. Well, it's supposed to, anyway.

The picture above has the Bush daughters and their mother, First Lady Laura Bush, showing the Obama daughters around the White House before they moved in with their family. The letter that the twins wrote to Sasha and Malia reminded me so much of moving into a new parsonage - though I don't remember meeting any kids that lived in our new home before we did.

“Malia and Sasha, eight years ago on a cold November day, we greeted you on the steps of the White House. We saw both the light and wariness in your eyes as you gazed at your new home,” they wrote. “The four of us wandered the majestic halls of the house you had no choice but to move in to.” 

It also brought home the fact that my sister and I are in a rare club - UMC Preacher's Kids - and that some of my closest and dearest friends have come from that group. We understand each other - we get the weirdness and the odd memories - and we cherish that sameness that helps us be the best and most authentic versions of ourselves, wherever we ended up after we left the houses we called home, no matter how briefly.

So today, on Remembrance Day, I'm thinking about a UM preacher (who also served in the Army) and his wife and their two daughters moving into a new house, a new church, and a new life, and I am thankful. The grace that they showed, not unlike that shown to the Obama girls by the Bush daughters, guides my life, even today.

I'm the bigger one, 1977ish.

Apparently in Louisiana, 1983.

Notes from Exile: Week Eight

Mary Louise McDonald,
September 11, 1929 ~ April 15, 2020

So we are into the eighth week of whatever this is - lockdown is incorrect if you compare it to what other countries are doing. Quarantine is incorrect unless you are sick and forced to isolate to prevent infecting others. Shelter in place doesn't even seem right because to me, that response is more apt for an ACTIVE threat like a tornado or a shooter. We are staying at home and working from home, but it will not necessarily injure us if we walk outside our doors. We are staying at home because we care about others in our neighborhoods, our towns, cities, states - our country.

This kind of selflessness does not come easily to a great number of Americans. We are taught from birth to depend on ourselves. Work hard and you will be rewarded. Sharing is good, but saving is better. There isn't an adage about helping your neighbor pull up his bootstraps. The American Way often feels like The Everyman For Themselves Way. So this self-isolation is hard on us. We are a people who value hard work but also are interested in instant gratification. After six weeks of mixed messages from all levels of government, a distrust of the media that comes from the highest levels, and a frankly terrifying resistance to trusting proven science in favor of unproven talking points, we the people began to become restless. There were armed protests at statehouses and armed, inflammatory discourse on social media. We had overshot the mark for caution and were treading on civil liberties.

Everyone seemed quick to forget that, thanks to those very overblown measures, they were still alive to make their irrational and selfish arguments. Anyway.

Why have I attached a picture of my aunt, my mother's older sister who died last month, to this rant about the overbearing vocal majority intent on disbelief until they actually are infected? That sweet woman, Mary Louise McDonald, died after an intraparenchymal hemorrhage. She was 90 years old. Her birthday was Sept. 11, 1929 - and she was a typical McDonald, just like my mother and all of her siblings. We joked that Mom would apologize for breathing too much air if someone else was in the room - and she clearly came by that honestly because Aunt Mary was the same way.

I hope that this is where I learned how to survive the isolation, the restlessness, the loneliness that this Exile has brought. Their example taught me to value the lives and health of others as highly - and sometimes more highly - than my own. Their example taught me that there are things we do that we do because it is the right thing to do. Their example taught me that doing for others shows your love for them.

Aunt Mary was encouraging. She was loving and gentle and quiet - to us. My uncles said that she was bossy and could be stubborn and sassy. I witnessed the passive-aggressive way that she and my mother would argue over kitchen duties at Thanksgiving and the way she always knew the exact gift to give you at the exact time you needed it. She and Hubs bonded over her fudge which was a staple at family gatherings. The last time I spoke to her on the phone was so quiet, only the sound of the ventilator on the other end in response to my weepy promises to look after Hubs and my sister and to learn to make her fudge for all of us.

So when we were under a mandatory stay at home order in South Carolina and we lost Aunt Mary, and the funeral home and my sister and brother in law prepared for a quiet burial, socially distanced and only attended by family - I thought about what she would have done for me, and Hubs and I went to Georgia. We drove by and saw the house in Pendergrass where my Aunt Mary lived with my grandfather until his death, and I thought about her life and how much she sacrificed because it was the right thing to do - and I hope that she forgave me my hesitation and that she was proud of who her niece has become.

And I hope that I can learn to make that fudge - goodness knows I have the time now.

Navigating the Post Holiday

Written on the back of this is "33 or 34" - meaning 1933 or 1934. My mom, as a toddler.

Well, I'm back at the DayJob and so far, no one has died, exploded, or been left (for too long) without the accommodations they are supposed to have in class. So far. I mean, it's been less than a week, so fingers are still crossed.

I'm getting back into the WritingJob slowly but surely. I'm in-between works in progress at the moment, so I'm back to investigating marketing, working on the Other Stuff involved in being a writer, and making sure all my ducks are actually ducks and are heading toward a row, at least. Ads on Facebook, Amazon, and elsewhere. Keeping up a daily appearance on Twitter keeps me grounded and writing at least 140 characters a day, if not more.

I would be lying if I said it was easy, though, navigating this new normal without my mom. When my dad died in 2018, that year's holiday season was tough. The last Christmas we tried to have at their house in 2014, when he caught the flu and was in bed, asking me if I knew his daughter Susan and if I could find her for him was awful. But after he died it was more tough for me because I could see how much my mom missed him. 

I didn't have the same relationship that my sister had with our parents. She was much closer to them in many ways - she and Daddy shared a profession, a passion, and a calling to ministry that I didn't and still don't understand. She was there for Mom, doing all the heavy lifting after Daddy was forced to stop doing it by his illnesses. But Mom was my confidante, my "ride or die," my go-to when I didn't know where else to go, and her absence is heavy - her silence is deafening.

But these three little pictures of her as a little girl - out in her Sunday best for a photo - remind me to keep moving forward. There is always another bonnet that needs putting on - metaphorically speaking. They also remind me that I'm not really as alone as I feel right now. If you look at the picture on the right, there is the slightest image of a man in a flat cap, probably tying little Martha's shoe - I have no way of knowing, but I like to think that is my grandfather because it gives me hope. Mom was a little girl with a daddy that tied her shoes, just like I was, and she weathered so many more storms than I ever will. 

Not really a New Year's Resolution - more of a reminder. It's never as bad as it seems, and if so, it can only get better.

Thanks, Mom. 

Today, on Twitter...

Mom, probably high school age, 1940s

What wouldn't I give

For your voice in my ear

The stern looks as needed

A #sliver of your pound cake

With a cup of coffee

And  advice

What wouldn't I do

For a hug, a smile

Our smile

I still see it in the mirror.

I miss you, Mom. ❤

#vss365 #amwriting #vss365poetry #buspoetry

@nancy_dwrites

The Treasure Hunt of Family Photos

3 May 1976

8 May 1976

I often say that I had 4.5 years of only child bliss, and then Susan happened. But in truth, I had 4.5 years of blindly navigating the world alone and then I got a cohort (even though I didn't think so at the time) that would know me better and longer than any of my friends, and would always be in my life, regardless of how many churches Daddy served/how many times we moved/how many groovy plaid sofas and pumpkin orange shag-carpeted parsonages we lived in as we grew up. Sure, there were times that I convinced her to hide in the laundry hamper with a 5lb lid (we were playing hide and seek and I was it) or I sent her down the stairs in the laundry basket (because it didn't have wheels that got stuck like the big wheel that nearly flipped her over and off), but there were also times that we slept in the back of the station wagon on the way to see family or got tucked into the sofa bed at my Grandmama's house - in the room with the clock that would make you INSTANTLY fall asleep. We jumped off the back porch into the billowing smoke from the leaves Daddy was raking up, pretending that we were Wonder Woman and Wondergirl (I will let you figure out who was who), diving into the poisonous smoke to save the day.

Little did I know what a gift I had in my lap in that second picture.

My mom knew, but that's why she is hanging onto the cushion Susan is sleeping on - to keep me from rolling her off on the floor.

Susan has been finding old pictures as she goes through Mom's stuff (along with recipes for more congealed salads than ANY United Methodist Clergy Spouse should have had in the 70s and 80s), and it has been an amazing trip down memory lane as well as a window into what Hoyt and Martha's lives were like before they became Nancy and Susan's Parents. More to come as Sooz continues to find these gems and post them on Facebook.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for giving me Susan.

Thanks, Susan, for giving me a warning before you post (but posting anyway).

Where did I leave that laundry basket?