Showing My Roots

After several recent atmospheric fits and starts, it finally feels like summer: the weather’s generally cooperating; the kids’ routines no longer require constant calendar consults; and a recent breast biopsy came back benign.

Every summer I feel as though I hold on for dear life, waiting for things to settle back into normalcy. But honestly what IS normal?

Growing up in the northwest suburbs of Illinois, I thought “normal” was everything but my life, constantly noting others’ similarities as a way to justify my misfit, unusual self. I was the shortest kid. The kid with divorced (and remarried) parents. The one who often left on weekends to visit her dad while the neighborhood kids hung back and played normal, neighborhood games. The one who cried all the time.

I couldn’t have known then what I know now: that my mother and stepfather saved me (and my sisters) from untold nightmares by providing a stable, dependable, no-frills life, emphasizing family, education and personal responsibility. Dining out was a rare endeavor, as were vacations and material possessions.

We’d sometimes drive to my stepfather’s childhood home in Hammond, Indiana (holding our noses through industrial Gary), where his mother, my grandma, taught us how to make her famous chocolate peanut butter balls. She loved sewing clothes for our Barbies while Grandpa let us feed Punky -- their ginormous cat – fingerfuls of Vaseline to keep the hairballs away. Occasionally friends asked why we didn’t have more “real” Barbie clothes or spend more time hanging around the neighborhood. The questions weren't easy and ours was a unique existence -- but my parents instilled in us such a strong sense of belonging that we grew up recognizing the importance of every person in a community.

Flash forward to my current life as a mother of three, just having wrapped up a school year filled with unexpected milestones of tragedy, confusion and worry. These weren’t the experiences I knew growing up. I’ve often felt adrift in my ability to explain such circumstances to my children who, just as I always had, ache for “normalcy”. Gun violence has infected our community's sense of stability. We're often asked if we like it here...if we plan to stay...if we’re worried for our safety. Just like the questions my friends asked when I was growing up, these are now the questions others cannot help but ask, because ours is not their existence.

The truth is, there is no “normal”. Our society is filled with everything that makes us human: from celebrations and loss and everything between. There is  no one right way to handle the ride. Humanity dictates that we face our joys and sorrows from different perspectives. But in sharing those perspectives, we find our way through even the most unbearable losses and help one another recall the highlights. 

During those weeks I spent at the end of this school year wondering if I had breast cancer, I was beside myself with anxiety, torn between telling the world about my worries to wanting to dive under the covers.

While walking dazed around the house, I took inventory of all the family photos we'd collected over the years – a mishmash of frames and sizes and eras and memories – but the thought of organizing them into a collection or gallery felt staggering. Then I started asking myself the crazy questions:

“What if this is cancer and my kids don’t know who some of these relatives are?” “Who will explain the family history?” “How will they understand their roots?”

Staring at the pictures I’d spread all over the dining room table, my husband and kids started asking their own questions:

“Who is this?” “How old was I when this was taken?” “Where were they when they were married?” “When did he die?” “Why don’t we ever hang these up?”

That last question did it for me. After 15 years living in the same house and telling myself I’d find the time to hang up family photos, I finally found the motivation. Call it irrational. Call it overreacting. I just knew I had to hang those pictures. They were the unspoken stories of our family. 

The majority of the frames were dark, so I went to the local Ace Hardware and bought some black spray paint. Pretty soon, all the frames were dark. I’d made some progress.

I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning the glass on all those frames, but I knew it had to be done. It kept me busy and – most of all – it kept my mind off the waiting. Once that was done, I felt even better. 

Then, another trip to the hardware store: I needed a tool leave a chalk line on the wall.

I traced every damn frame on craft paper and put the sheets up on the wall with painter's tape. Every step I took made me feel better. Stronger. More normal. 

Finally, when I was happy with the paper placement, I used another device to mark the proper spot for nail holes.

As the photos went up, my anxiety went down. Whereas doing nothing had driven me crazy, doing something – even unrelated to my worries – inspired me to do even more. It wasn’t rocket science, but I felt on top of the world. 

My picture wall symbolizes many things to me. It’s what got me through a terrifying time. It’s a testament to the love and endurance of family ties. It illustrates the mixed up, crazy, uneven history that is part of every family tree. 

Most of all, I'm reminded how important it is to acknowledge one's roots. It took me 15 years to hang these photos. As I look at them now, I feel strength and a sense of belonging. I just hope that when my kids come home after hard days and even tougher questions, they'll feel the same sense of security my parents instilled in me...