Things My Grandmother Taught Me: The Power of Patience

Recently, I’ve become more aware of a growing epidemic amongst our children: they’ve either never heard the words “excuse me” before, or have not been taught how to use them by their parents. Now, I am NOT a parenting expert. Those people don’t really exist, anyway. But I’m a huge advocate of common courtesy and manners. And there is never an age too early to teach manners to our kids.

I’ve been working with my daughter (6) and son (4) in regard to waiting their turn to speak and how it’s rude to interrupt two adults speaking. As far as I see it, they have it pretty good. If I ever attempted to barge in on a conversation being had between adults, as a child, there was no “polite” explanation about how such behavior is rude and unacceptable. There was only “The Look”….often times accompanied by a “So help me, God… something or other” through grit teeth. Now that I’m an adult, I look back on these memories with fondness. My parents and grandparents were absolutely correct to admonish me this way. For what kind of world would we live in were it not for the glue that holds us together: manners?

So when my little girl runs to me with very “important” information that needs some telling right away and I’m already speaking with someone else, my finger goes up. If she doesn’t get this hint, I remind her she MUST say excuse me. Then, since I’m the PARENT…(we’re in charge, here, folks. let’s remember that.) I will decide if her information is an emergency situation. If it is not, she must wait her turn for my attention. For example: I’m not ending my conversation with someone else if she can’t get a dress on her Barbie doll. I will, however, give her my full attention of she or a friend is bleeding from some part of the body. This will teach her some things: What is an absolute emergency situation, and what can wait…the importance of realizing that the world revolves around no one and that we all…even adults…must wait our turn.

Lately, I noticed, while I am in the middle of conversing with other parents, my child will try to interrupt and as I remind her to say “excuse me” the other parent will ALWAYS say: “Oh, it’s ok, honey. What do you need to say?” This is when I have to control my eyeballs from rolling into the back of my head. Please don’t do this. It’s very nice of you to be sweet to my kid in this way. But I’m teaching her something: The Power of Patience. So, the next time you see me hold up my finger at my kids and you are filled with all kinds of disgust that sound like this in your head :”How can she be so mean to this poor little girl?”, remember who her mother is and how she is devoting her life to raising polite, courteous kids.

 

Le Divorce

Doesn’t it sound so much more sophisticated in French?

ahhhhh…yes, I am putting it out there – as if you didn’t already know. My husband and I are getting a divorce. Actually, to be correct my husband has decided to divorce me….because we don’t have any more “fun”. That is all the background information you are going to get, you greedy little monkeys. True, I am airing my dirty laundry, but even a classy woman draws the line somewhere.

Honestly, this post is brought to you by the knowledge of Anne Cimerola, my grandmother, and Joe Schieve, my father…I dare you to try to find anyone on this earth wiser than these two. While neither of them have ever divorced, they do know a thing or two about a thing or two.

Joe is the hardest working man I’ve ever known. Although he may not have made millions, his work ethic is solid. And he applies this work ethic to everything…even his marriage.  The thing Joe impressed upon me more than anything, besides trying not to be such a procrastinator, is to never give up. Once you start something, anything, you never quit. I guess that is why I hung in there as long as I did with my marriage. I was wasn’t going to be a quitter. I never was before, and I wasn’t about to start now.

Now, that being said, we have a very different point of view from my grandmother to consider. Anne also never believed in quitting. But she definitely drew a line in the sand regarding how much bullshit she would take. Her famous words were always: If you’re not happy, there are two doors in this house…one in the front and one in the back. Choose one, and don’t let it hit you in the ass on the way out.

My only regret throughout all of this, is that I didn’t say those words sooner.

As for my father…when asked what he thought about this whole divorce situation, he only had one thing to say: Anne, he’s nothing but a quitter.

(now a quitter with a dodge viper.)

Things My Grandmother Taught Me: Look Them In The Eye

“For God’s sake, Annie, stand up straight. Never look down at the ground.” It was Sunday and we were just leaving Mass. I was hunched over as usual…my shoulders rounded forward. (From my education in yoga I now know that people take this posture in order to protect their heart from any pain. These people live in fear and close themselves off from love.) For many reasons, I was hiding from the world….folding myself in half so no one would notice me. This was unacceptable to Anne.

Anne walked perfectly straight, shoulders back…her heart available to anyone who might need it. She did not walk in fear. After all, what was there really to be afraid of? She had looked so many situations dead in the eye. She was powerful this way…with just one look.

Anne never walked folded in half by fear. She did not bend to an abusive father…he had met his match in her. Instead, she straightened up and protected her brothers and sisters from him, hiding them in her room when he came home from the mines. She squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye. I wonder what he saw there. My guess is power. Toxic people can smell weakness in others. Then they prey on them, like a hawk diving to the earth for a mouse. Anne’s father could not sense weakness in her. He could not prey on her. I suppose that’s why he never had any real use for her. And that was fine with her.

Anne knew about heart-break. She  lost a sister at a very  young age (Philomena), she would also lose two children, later. She went four years without seeing my grandfather’s face because he was in Europe fighting in the war. And though they loved each other madly until the very end,  she admitted he was never quite the same when he returned home to her. And yet, in every picture I have of her she is smiling…not  a bashful, timid smile, but a brazen “just dare me to look away” smile.

Looking someone in the eye, especially during a difficult time, might be the hardest thing to do. But it must be done. You must walk straight. You must square your shoulders and hold onto the ground beneath you like it is prime real estate and it is in your name. This is what Anne taught me: Look them in the eye and they cannot ignore you. Look someone in the eye and you are a force of nature. Look someone in the eye and most of the time, that is all you will need to do to be heard.

This is the sad truth about your life: most people you meet throughout it, will try to take advantage of you somehow…try to invade your space and breach your boundaries. Don’t bow your head and eyes to the ground. Don’t submit. Once you begin the process of giving up, it will never stop. Do what Anne did. Look into someone’s eyes and dare them to make you look away. You will always win.

Things My Grandmother Taught Me: Transcend

Anne met Rosa Malloy in the very early 1950′s. Rosa was and still is black. They began working side by side as nurses, their friendship defying all the norms of society for that time period. And when it was Anne’s turn to be cared for later, Rosa nursed her. Besides Anne, Rosa is the strongest, classiest, human I have met.

The “issue” of Rosa’s color or Anne’s color never came up in conversation between them. It did, however, for the neighbors. Perhaps it was because Anne had been an outcast for most of her life, as well. See, Anne was “white” but not “white enough”. She was a little too dark for the people of Mercer County, NJ during the fifties and sixties. One neighborhood actually got together to form a petition to keep my grandparents from buying a home near them. They were told that they were too dirty and would probably end up raising chickens or something distasteful like that. Well, they found a different home in a different neighborhood and DID raise chickens. And they were delicious.

Rosa’s presence among us was natural…like she had always been there. I loved it when it was time to visit her or time for her to come see us. I don’t ever recall thinking to myself: I am white and Rosa is black. Because of their friendship and utmost respect for one another, I never felt apart or distinctly separate from any race. I would run into trouble with this later on life. Unfortunately, in 2011 most people still are not able to reconcile within themselves what Anne and Rosa had long ago overcome in terms of race. These were two women way ahead of their time.

They put the complications of difference behind them. The two of them focused on what they had in common. Anne and Rosa were both a minority…they were women…the largest group minority still to this day. The bonds that women form together, regardless of creed, or race, are something to marvel at. When all is said and done, no man really wants to get under the skin of any strong woman. We may seem separated by our differences, but women of all colors are sisters. That is what Rosa and Anne’s long friendship taught me.

Rosa’s daughter, Ida, was the first black female to attend the Pennington School in Pennington, NJ. Years later, Ida and my mother would work side by side together at that school…just as their mothers had done so long ago as nurses.

Right down to the very last minute of my Anne’s life, Rosa was there in the role of nurse. She made sure Anne was not neglected by hospital staff, that she was bathed every day, and fed on time.

When I imagine Anne in her Heaven waiting to greet all of us, I see her smile nicely at all the brothers and sisters she had as they meet. But I know in my soul, she will be happiest to see Rosa. I feel in my bones, that she waits for her every day. And I imagine that will be the happiest reunion Heaven has ever seen.

Things My Grandmother Taught Me: Connect

I’ve been writing since I was seven….in some form or another. I announced very proudly at the age of ten that I was going to go to school to be a writer. The looks of horror from around the table that I received were not encouraging. I took another route with my life. But that’s another story. I wanted to start this by saying that the most consistent advice I had be given about writing, was to do it…all the time. Everyday. And to write about what you know. I don’t KNOW much…mostly because I’m too busy questioning things. But I do know some things. I know a lot about a lady by the name of Antoinette Cimerola….my maternal grandmother. So I have decided to start writing a series of blog entries about her….partly for my sister, Allyson, who doesn’t remember much about her and partly for me and everyone else, so that we don’t forget. From this point on, I will refer to my grandmother as Anne. Grandmother is a long word and also does not fully encompass all that she was to so many people.

I was Anne’s shadow from day one in my life. My mother told me that when she first brought me home from the hospital, she was so overwhelmed she immediately placed me in Anne’s arms. That was it. The transfer had been made. It was a very prophetic moment. From that time on, I was never too far away from her. So, when I speak about Anne, I speak from experience. But I realize that the woman I knew, was not at all like the woman my mother and her brothers knew growing up. That’s just the way it is with grandparents.

On we go: My first memory of Anne is of her swinging me by the arms back and forth over the breaking of the waves under my feet. We are at the beach. We were always at the beach. But the beach to us, as a family, wasn’t just a day off. Everything had a lesson in it when it came to anything Anne did. The beach was her Heaven. She worshipped it….she respected it. The ocean was a source of spirituality for her. It wasn’t just a place to go to read a book and drink a beer. Sitting there in the sand, beside one of nature’s most mysterious sources of life, was a ceremony.

Anne would sit in silence…eyes closed and face uplifted toward the sun. She smiled. She sat and smiled for what seemed like an eternity for a five year old. I asked her once what she was doing. She told me she was listening to the waves speak to her. I was amazed! The ocean could speak?! I wanted to speak to it immediately, I told her. She told me to be quiet, shut my eyes, be very still and listen. This was the first thing Anne taught me. To be silent and listen to what the universe was trying to say to us. After this moment, we spent many hours together siting next to each other either on the beach or on a bench on the boardwalk, speaking through our hearts to the ocean, and more importantly, listening to the stories of the breaking water. This is when I learned listening is, above all, much more important than speaking.

I witnessed Anne create magic with the universe. She fed seagulls and deer from her bare hands. She took in a wounded bird once that slammed into her front window. Anne placed it in a box and told me all it needed was some rest. Standing on her porch an hour later, the bird flew away from her open hands. She plowed the earth and made things grow. It was more than just throwing some seeds into the dirt. She taught me that every seed had to be planted into its home carefully and then one had to give it several loving pats once the soil was covering it. Her gardens resembled jungles and she cared for each vine like it was one of her children. I took over most of the gardening when she was older and her legs stopped cooperating. But she was there beside me the whole time, leaning on her cane, instructing me…teaching me.

This was Anne’s religion: connecting with the living things around her, being amazed by and grateful for a thunderstorm, and being thankful for a moment to sit in the sun.