Mother's Day: Of generations fading, generations rising -- and tiny miracles

Mother's Day 2015 was sweet and melancholy, affirming even as it brought the aching of, and blessings of memories.

 Barbara received lovely cards, flowers and heartfelt calls from the kids (and me), and we reached out to our daughter and daughter-in-law with what we hope were the same levels of love. That was the sweet.

But it also was a melancholy day, with some tears. Barb's and my memories of her mom, who also was one of my best friends, are fresh and a little less painful years after her passing.

And there's my mother, in the final stages of Alzheimer's, no longer knowing or remembering me or my sister, or my dad. When I check on her, though, there's this: the nursing home staff says her loving, if now nonsensical attempts at speech are for her two baby dolls.

Sad, but I also smile at this: both her dolls are babies of color. So are her two most recently born grandsons.

Somewhere in her shredded memories, is there an inkling of this next generation? I don't know.

But the nursing home staff says she specifically chose, and constantly holds those two specific dolls out of the assortment of mostly white babies.

I always smile when my daughter sends me the most recent video of newborn Nate and toddler Gabe. This Mother's Day, I was able to smile a bit broader.

In so many ways, I have lost my mother as much as Barbara has lost her's. The mourning is different, but feels very much the same . . . and yet, there was this "miracle of the dolls."

I'll take it.

Life: Is it what happens to us, our how we happen to live?

A friend and longtime journalistic colleague of mine asked the other day why I hadn't blogged recently.

My answer was that life had been too complicated of late, that I had been reticent to write more about the downward spiral of Alzheimer's and dementia with my parents, the disappointments of work, loss of perceived purpose, etc.

In short, I have been waiting for something more positive, uplifting to write about.

The arrival of my second grandson was, without a doubt, the best of a trying beginning to a new year. My daughter and son-in-law send pictures, and we video chat (Skype) frequently, to see little Nate, his big brother Gabe, and our only granddaughter, Lela.

Another: This past week, after six years of hard work, my wife, Barbara, earned her B.S. in Accounting from Western Governors University. Her joy and glow of success has been a treasure, and for her an indescribable mix of elevated self-worth, victory over the odds, and meaning.

Those are the brightest moments these days. Those are the sailboats we choose to crawl aboard -- yes, choosing to sail toward the sun rather than sink deeper into the darkness of choppy seas.

Life goes on, in all its exhilaration, the laughter and tears of a new generation, and unavoidably, the sorrow and ongoing losses of the last generation.

It  dawned on me, then, that if I waited for some dramatic turn in fortune to blog again, I would be doing Life a disservice. And, I would be waiting a very long time.

We humans like to divide what happens to us into "good" or "bad." We are blessed, or cursed; loved or hated; appreciated or dismissed; relevant or discarded, relegated to less-ambitious roles by younger superiors, etc.

If you maintain the usual human linear assumptions -- our finite, fail-safe manner of thinking and experiencing life -- all of that seems true.

But nothing truly is linear. Matter, energy and our souls are alike indestructible. Mountains erode into sand; sunlight is absorbed by plants to feed and, when they flower, amaze us higher life forms; and corporeal bodies are born, age, break down and eventually decompose to their base elements, only to return as the elements of new life.

The "Breath of Life," that profound, ethereal and yet reassuring expression of creation and existence and rebirth into an infinite existence, exposes as woefully inadequate that linear view of Time, or Being, or Purpose.

We are in error if we do not realize that Reality, according to physicists and theologians alike, extends far beyond the meager dimensions in which we live and perceive.

We attempt to grasp at an understanding of the Creative Intelligence, visualizing human-like super beings holding sway over our lives. But in our hearts, we know that "God" is a Presence both horrifying in its difference from us, and in its iinfinite nature, and as wonderful, and awe-inspiring in its limitless embodiment of what we call "Love.”

And when it comes to Love, we perceive even that with only a microscopic, fragmentary understanding.

We see beginning, middle and end, and think we understand the nature of things. He sees all Time, all its permutations, alternate outcomes – and Space, what we perceive and the wilderness of endless stars, planets, life forms beyond -- as One.

Ultimately, we have two choices. 

 

We can, in our human arrogance, close the inquiries of our finite minds to the Infinite, to Love, Creation and Purpose beyond grasping; we can conclude that what WE cannot understand cannot exist.

Or, we can accept, embrace and trust the Creator and creative process that led to what we are -- as a species, as well as individual souls.

When intellect reaches its limits, there is nothing more than to surrender to the limits, and thus errors of our knowledge.

And, always, the proper response to Love is to live in it, allowing it to flow through us to others.

Miracles: They come in small, squirming, grunting and wide-eyed packages

My last installment from the Beltway trip is the best.

Gettysburg, D.C., Fort McHenry, etc., were all on my "bucket list," to be sure.

The best part of the trip, though, was one I had frankly given up on ever happening: holding a grandchild who would carry on our crazy, good, bad and indifferent gene pool to another generation.

I have two other grandchildren I love deeply. Joshua and Lela. I like to say they were "born in my heart," though not my bloodline.

And I mean that with all my heart.

Holding Gabriel was precious, though, in a way I had not expected to experience.

I marveled at all those ancestors -- now including my wife, Barbara, and myself -- who culminated genetically in that tiny, grunting, squirming bundle of boy I rocked in a Towson, Md. townhouse for two weeks.

Add that to the generations of his father, Idal, represented. . . men and women stretching back into the mists of West Africa's nation of Cameroon.

Gabriel's heritage, then, spans three continents and most people groups, other than Asian. Amazing. A lot to put on a (then) 7 pound, 5 ounce infant, though.

And if there is such a thing as generational healing, perhaps it culminates in Gabriel's advent, too. A couple centuries ago, some of my relatives bought West African slaves and used them to gain wealth on plantations throughout the Deep South.

When I visited Gettysburg, standing on Little Round Top, I mused that I trod ground where my southern ancestors fought and died, ultimately losing a decisive battle that ushered in the demise of slavery in America. 

And at the end of that Civil War, a Maj. Mims was a signatory of the Appomatox surrender registry for the defeated Army of Northern Virginia.

Standing in the rows of Union troops witnessing that surrender likely were other relatives, the Sprouls from Maine, and not a few runaway slaves who enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops divisions, men who signed up under the name "Mims," having long since lost their own names.

Irony. And justice. All those historical metaphors.

But the best part of Gabriel was inexpressible.

How do you describe the warmth, peace and fulfillment of holding a newborn grandson?

God bless you Gabe, Lela and Joshua.

May the heritage this grandfather passes on to you be one of faith -- in God, your family and yourselves.

And Gabriel? Never forget your parents named you so for a reason. Your name? 

It means: God is my strength.

I'm a grandpa . . . for the first, and the third time.

So, I am a grandpa. For the first time . . . and for the third time.

Let me explain.

I already had two grandkids. Joshua, now in his 20s, and Lela, 6, are what I call grandchildren born in my heart. They came to us through marriage from our daughter-in-law and son-in-law, respectively.

But there are ties and bonds of love that will last or eternity, nonetheless. My wife feels the same way -- and that is how we will treat them, now and, well, forever.

This past Friday, though, my daughter gave birth to Gabriel Idal Mims-Tchoundjo. Gabe came about six weeks early, so he will be in the Neo-natal ICU for several more weeks. But the prognosis is excellent: he is active, alert, breathing on his own, gaining weight (born at 3 pounds, 3 ounces) and strength daily.

On Saturday, my wife Barbara and I were able to "Skype" with the proud mom and dad from their hospital in Baltimore to the proud grandparents (us) in Salt Lake City.

It was about a half an hour of watching Gabe thrash around, dine on pumped breast milk from Brenda (thank goodness, the pumping was not part of this "live" broadcast!), and respond to his mother's and father's caresses.

Gave me a totally new feeling of . . . completeness. It's a father-daughter thing, I suspect. And it wasn't just about the survival imperative, i.e. DNA being passed on to forge ahead in Time.

 

 It was, more I think, seeing her happy with her own family, and watching how tender and attentive my son-in-law was to her and his son.

 

 Think of the last time we smiled seeing a mother, father and infant huddled together in a mall, airport, train, bus, etc. There was just something "right" about it all . . . then multiply that feeling 100 times.

Sort of like that. 

Grandfetus revealed (and how). It's a he, and his name shall be Gabriel

Since my daughter, Brenda, and her husband Idal told us she was expecting, I've been calling my future grandfetus "Critter."
This was tolerated, barely, by the future parents.
Now, halfway through the pregnancy, a sonogram snapshot confirms that "Critter" is a male.
Captured for all to see are the appropriate . . . accoutrements to the male gender. Let's just say, without bragging, that the evidence is impossible to miss.
Even if the viewer suffered poor eyesight. Just sayin.
Moving along . . . 
So, the child's name shall be . . .  Gabriel Mims-Tchinang Tchoundjo.
I suspect, as the years come along, I will be calling him "Gabe."
After all, it took me nearly a year to get the pronunciation of my son-in-law's name (he's originally from Cameroon) correct.
It is nice they included our family name in there, though.
And, who knows . . . I might even have a special nickname for little Gabe down the road.
Hmm.
Maybe . . . Critter!

P.S. Not sharing the aforementioned sonogram, at the parents' request.

P.S.S. I'd have to include a viewer's warning, after all.