Blessed Christmas, One and All!

The Day has arrived.  Christmas!!!!

Christmas is a time for family — beginning with the story of a very Holy Family (so now you know where I stand on that ;-).  The story has been modified in interpretation over time, for who’s agenda we’ll never really know.  But today, sitting in the stillness of my own home and reflecting on what I know of birth, co-generational families and culture, I offer this version, taught to me 20 years ago by a Presbyterian Minister who’d lived several years in the Middle East.

Joseph was neither a procrastinator nor a goof.  He had family in Bethlehem, and he needed to return there with his pregnant wife, so they could be counted in the census.  It is unlikely that they left so close to her time that Mary was in labor while they traveled, and likely that they stayed in Bethlehem with family for some time.  It is probable that many branches of the family gathered together from distant parts, all there to “be counted”, filling to overflowing the modest home — built as was the custom with the “barn” connected to the inside by an adjacent wall.  The word for Guest Room is, I understand, the same as for “Inn”.  Perhaps, in this version, the guest space was previously occupied, and Mary and Joseph were given to rest in the common area, near the animals and the outdoors, the fire, the food and well – things comforting for a woman heavy with child.

Instead of the cold and lonely version —  colored by language and sensationalism and the idea that an entire culture would turn away a young laboring woman — let’s entertain for a moment a different first family gathering, the one we have actually come to emulate as we greet our own family from far and near during this festive week.  Imagine a rustic house overflowing with aunties and uncles, cousins and babies, everyone boisterous and contributing what they had to the meals, to the work, to entertaining themselves while the interminable census was conducted.  Family slumbering in all corners of house and stable, or outside in tents, making good use of this reunion to catch up with each other.  A celebratory air of family gathering together and the anticipation of a much prophesied Birth.  Men seated around table or fire, talking politics in hushed voices and pondering the Light in the sky and what it could portend.  Let us imagine the Elder Women in the family watching Mary with curiosity, knowing her time was drawing near by the way she moved, by the tired resignation in her countenance.  Wise women would recognize her early labor and begin to shush children and send them out with older siblings and cousins, away from the house.  Her back would be rubbed, her efforts encouraged and eased by the Aunties and Grannies,  Midwives in the family.  Those who knew would be waiting with anticipation the Birth of the King, foretold by prophets of old, and by those in Mary and Joseph’s own families.  This was not a birth to be taken lightly, not when Joseph’s entire family was gathering in Bethlehem to “be counted”.  It was a celebrated event, in the family and in the countryside and in Heaven, where choirs of Angels sang of the wonder.

I don’t think the vision of Jesus’ birth as much anticipated and welcomed, of Mary’s labor attended by women who loved and honored her as a sister, of the family having what they needed — clothing, food and shelter (and a warm, fresh manger to lay the baby in), diminishes the Miracle at all.  In fact, it brings more Love, more Light, more Peace, more consolation.  A King was born from very humble beginnings, but was much loved already — by angels and shepherds abiding, and by family greeting Him in celebration.

And so, maybe, this event didn’t happen around the Winter Solstice.  Perhaps as many believe, it happened in the summer and was later co-opted by the church to coincide with the return of the Light in the dark of midwinter (but hello! if you live in the Southern Hemisphere, it IS celebrated in the height of the summer! We are such snobs here north of the equator).

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

This phenomenon of days shortened and lengthened made me consider how we refer to life passing.  As in the Christmas story, we shift words and meanings to somehow minimize our love and connection, our delight in and mutual support within family and society.  We refer to our days as growing shorter at the end, but really, they don’t.  Whether we have 16 hours of daylight or dark, our days remain the same — 24 hours in a day, 7 days to a week.  Every day, we have the opportunity to embrace each minute and hour to the fullest.  Our actual days do not grow short.  Our patience might.  Our abilities may change and wane, our family and social circles ebb and flow, but our days — our wonderful, magical, glorious days — continue to have 24 hours, 1440 minutes, 86400 seconds (if you check my math and find me in error feel free to leave a comment).

What grows short is our ability to take each of those days for granted.  How many seconds have slipped through our fingers — seconds when a kind word or a smile would have changed an encounter with someone?  How many minutes spent thinking about the ways we could show love and attention, but didn’t?  How many hours spent in futile endeavors that didn’t add value to our — or anyone else’s — life? As we embrace this Day, and the morrow, as family arrives or leaves or calls or writes, as children laugh or get fussy; Elders participate or rest, let us remember that each moment is an opportunity to add value, ease a burden, encourage with a word or smile, laugh out loud together.  We have infinite opportunities to “Be the Love in the World” that we celebrate this day.

It is only in looking backwards that we can measure the length of a life or the impact it had on those it touched.  Looking forward, we only have this moment to share the Love, Joy, Peace, Hope and humble service that this Holy Day represents.  My wish for all of you, dear friends and family (and much appreciated readers), is that the Love Light that shone on our Planet that day so many centuries ago, shines on you and your family, from the youngest to the Eldest, and fills you with Peace beyond all understanding through every trial you may encounter in the next year.  Peace to you, and Goodwill to all,  and a very, Merry Christmas.

Katherine

 

 

Aging Happens…

Aging Happens…

…and will involve our parents, ourselves, and our children. In this new millennium and with the tide of Baby Boomers surging forward, it is time to see past the cultural invisibility of Aging and engage in conversation about values, needs and positive, family inclusive solutions for Elder Care. The sentiment “Failing to plan is planning to fail” more acutely accurate when we neglect to anticipate the predictably changing needs of our parents. In “Holding Hands: Journeying with the Aging Family” you will learn:

• How the “nuclear family” model made our Elders invisible, and how to we must begin seeing them again

• The Co-Generational model: assessing each generation’s strengths and developmental tasks to help you envision an integrated network of support for all the family members in a maturing family system

• Strategies for initiating conversations between three generations to promote balance through planning

• Addressing the six core human needs (Thank you Tony Robbins!): certainty, uncertainty, significance, love, contribution, spiritual and personal growth and why we must help our Elders reconnect and stay connected with them

• Identifying resources so you know where to turn for support on a moment’s notice

• Creating “life plans” for the most common “unexpected” life events so small curves in the road don’t become critical collisions!

When uncertainty is the rule (and it becomes moreso as we age) Love is what remains at the core. Here’s to all the things that let peace and dignity blossom at such a challenging and transitional time: Validation. Respect. Empathy. Kindness. Thinking outside the box. Holding Hands: The Art of Parent Care provides an integrated approach to navigating the Journey of the Aging Family.

 

To reserve your copy of Holding Hands: The Art of Parent Care, please fill out the contact form below, and keep an eye on the blog for more exerpts of the book to be posted in the upcoming weeks!

 

[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Shipping Address’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’City%26#x002c; State%26#x002c; Zip Code’ type=’text’/][contact-field label=’Comment – What issues are of greatest concern to you?’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form]

Happy Memorial Day (weekend)

Tribute to a family of participants:  The Ledford Loughead clan (my father is the baby), Oliver P. Ledford with Sea Bees on Tinian, WWII, and with support staff in Viet Nam; Eva Heineck and Katherine Heineck, USCG Spars.
Tribute to a family of participants: The Ledford Loughead clan (my father is the baby), Oliver P. Ledford with Sea Bees on Tinian, WWII, and with support staff in Viet Nam; Eva Heineck and Katherine Heineck, USCG Spars.

Holidays are a time for establishing and maintaining rituals. This last weekend in May is generally harkened as the first weekend of “summer”, play time, fun time, get-outside-in-the-sun time. We think of beaches and blankets, the smell of sunscreen and water and how there really is sand in sandwiches. The boat goes in the water, the tent gets popped up, someone gets too drunk and spoils the whole affair. Memorial Day!

Holiday rituals connect us to family gone before us. Some rituals we keep, some we let go, some adapt in collaboration with a lover or mate who brings their own with them. My father kept holidays well, though I didn’t always appreciate that. With Christmas, of course, the better kept the happier the children are, and my dad could keep Christmas very, very well! Memorial Day was harder for me as a child.  While friends would be camping or playing and enjoying the three day weekend, and he loaded us up and drove to a town I was unfamiliar with, spent time talking to people 5 decades my senior (oh how I wish I had that time back now!) and took flowers to his parents’ gravesites. I recognize now that like Christmas traditions, my father also kept Memorial Day… very well.

My father passed away 36 years ago. He’d be 99 this year (so if he’d survived the heart attack at 63, he’d still be gone by now). Memories don’t do “time” though. He is as alive for me this Memorial Sunday as he ever was, and I get to go visit him today. My 21 year old daughter will be with me to hear the stories, see the place, walk through old neighborhoods, clean the headstone, admire the cherry tree and with love and attention, place flowers and a flag. It took thinking I couldn’t go this year (and I’ve  missed 25 due to relocating far from my home town and his resting place) for me to realize how imperative it was that I go. Through all the automotive travails we have had in the last three days I thought it impractical to make the 3 hour trip “home”. I tried to console myself with setting up a small Memorial Day alter for my parents, but the thought of this man — who voluntarily served in two wars — having an empty headstone struck my heart and I realized that…. I had to go.  I had to make my love and respect for him made visible on this Memorial Day.

Through the ritual my father taught me all those uncomfortable childhood Memorial Day weekends ago, I have a cellular imperative to honor him the same way, to take my own daughter, who never knew this wonderful man, and make him real to her. My mother, whose ashes remain above ground as yet, will one day rest with him, and a more complete family reunion will take place, at least this one day a year. Hopefully, there will always be a child there to hear the stories, for it is in our rituals of remembering that we share our oral histories with our offspring. Through ritual, we teach those that come after us the values we cherish.

I never knew my grandparents, both died before I was born. I understand better the love and respect my father had for them, demonstrated by honoring them, publicly, at least this one weekend a year. They made him the man he became and through him, helped craft me into the woman that I am today and the man I see my own son becoming.

We are not disconnected from our family histories. They live in us and through us, are passed to our children whether we attend to their memories or not. Similarly, while our families are living, whether we ignore their needs, put off the phone calls, imagine that everything is “alright, or they’d call me”, we are not disconnected from them and their influence upon us.

The Post War (that would be WWII) cultural shift away from extended family and to the ‘burbs has been an interesting social experiment in fracturing the family, and it hasn’t worked out so well. When denied the comfort and company of multiple generations, aging has become isolating and demeaning, where too often Elders feel they are “less than” if they require assistance from others.  By ignoring rituals and connectedness (my mother made Sunday dinner for us for years, that became “our time”), we forget to teach our own children the importance of family connection, those generational bonds that sustain us when the world shakes beneath our feet.  Cooperation and collaboration support multiple generations of family so knowledge is saved and wealth is condensed.  I hope that as a unique American culture, we will come again to defy the idea that we are all independent, autonomous islands, sustainable on our own. This Memorial Day, I call you to remember, and then to share.

Blessings to you and yours,
Katherine

Welcome to Holding Hands, a map for the Journey of the Aging Family

My name is Katherine Davis.  I am a nurse, mom, retired midwife and passionate advocate for families.  In my younger years, this meant supporting attachment parenting and assisting families with preparing for the birth of their children.  In my current life, I have taken that philosophy of attachment in the family and applied it to the most fragile members, our Elders, as they transition from independence to interdependence in their aging.  Daily, I hear about the challenges the middle generation (my generation) faces trying to balance parenting their children and being advocates for their parents’ changing needs.
I know this struggle, this dance on a tightrope of needs, having raised my teenagers through the last 6 years of my mother’s life, much of that punctuated with medical visits, hospitalizations, unexpected behaviors, and generally a lack of planning and a lot of “crisis” reactivity.  In retrospect, I can see how I could have set us all up (3 generations) for success, but didn’t have the tools to anticipate the needs of my loved ones.  Now I take that knowledge and wish to share it with you, fellow travelers.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts.  It is my fondest desire that you find support, hope and maybe a pearl or two of wisdom that is of use to you in your own journey with your aging family.
Many blessings,

Katherine Davis, RN, BSN, CCM