Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade. TouchSections were settled on the edge of a workspace. Informative but not newsworthy, they’d be spread on my kitchen table and looked at when I wanted; the first segment of the paper was political, or eventful, or reportage insisting on attention.
As the milk was making my cold cereal slightly soggy, I read worldly incidents and continued to wonder why only the years are different as people hurting other people plus power were not really changing. The methods from bows and arrows to nuclear seemed to show that one finger on a button could eradicate en masse without even having to look into the eyes of a targeted person. My husband’s breakfast news comes from the voice of Alexa; this pretend-human briefs him on local and national occurrences. I continue folding the large newsprint bending into smaller segments; often, with some editorial’s words, I use an orange-color highlight pen to later discuss with him. A ballpoint plus a highlighter are included in my routine as I discard the universal news and pull out the Arts, for example. I’ll notice, then remember the color photo from my Art Minor days in undergraduate school. I tint many sentences knowing I’ll discuss them with my younger sister, a docent at an established museum. In a margin, I’ll note that this was not impressionist work and why was the artist considered part of that genre! Pulling out decades-old art books, with black and white pictures, I’ll look up the painter. Oh, he was friends with impressionists and, therefore, part via association. I’ll mark up the margin again with my thoughts. That old textbook is also marked in margins but no highlight pen existed then so only my underlines in South Sea blue liquid ink denotes what seemed important or needed to be questioned. A play is being reviewed; the person traveled to another state to see it performed and wondered why it had not been revived on Broadway. He seemed to want readers to know if any were in driving distance that the trip was worth the effort because the production plus subject matter was so excellent. I’m remembering summer stock theatre so very long ago, just about the time that television was beginning to appear in some homes. A venue in the Pocono Mountains accepted my older sister, then a teen, for her talent. A barn was the theatre; I went horseback riding not far from the barn during an afternoon we’d driven to see an evening performance in which she appeared. Names that were destroyed later by McCarthy were fine actors and accessible people. The place even performed a musical called “Good News” although dramas or comedies were easier to stage. I might have asked my older sister now if she remembered, had she been alive. As these sections, selectively saved, lower in height, a new batch begins weekly and, in many cases, I tear out a complete page putting it aside for more detailed reading, and, of course, arguing or agreeing in the margins near each paragraph. I do embrace technology when it either enhances my life or makes me more physically comfortable. If it helps tasks, or offers emotional security, it, too, is welcome. I taught myself to use the first IBM-PC in 1981-82. As a writer, and then college teacher of English Composition, it was worth the struggle, and the 9-pin dot matrix printer was as much a wonder as the very first television set that came into my parents’ home. My students knew nothing yet of this device. An untethered land-line phone, that had a speaker enhancement, allowed me to cook a meal while speaking to someone. The pager my husband carried at work meant instant communication even though it was merely a signal to call home. Air conditioning stretched comfort, and hard-drives with laser or dot-matrix printing altered computer’s difficulty. Who could have imagined useless 78 rpm records, or pay telephone booths being obsolete? Yes, the traditional newspaper is on Artificial Intelligence. But I can’t ‘save’ the data, or write on that device, or tear out a page with sections so important for the moment that I want to share them. Still able to be delivered to my door, print, for me, is still...well, tangible.
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Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade. Sewing together“Why is that called a Sampler?” I pointed to a framed hand-stitched picture with words under a designed basket of fruit.
The small museum room with a musty smell reminded me of my elementary school tour of a 17th century place; I liked the aged Weeping Beach tree outside rather than the physical dwelling. “Want to learn to do that?” My mother could do anything with a needle. I said I could draw a ‘Sampler’ and hand-paint scenes with words rather than sew it, but wanted to know why there many on these walls. An exhibition-guide, dressed in period costume, informed me that young girls learned necessary needle skills while showing they had patience and talent working elaborate images. And did I know Loara Standish is recorded to be the first woman who made one in America, around 1645; she was the daughter of Miles Standish, a Mayflower passenger. Of course I didn’t know that as I didn’t even learn the man had children! “Teach me cross-stitch and I can decorate my pillow cases!” A wood hoop held the cotton in place. My mother showed me yarn, insertion of thread into an eye of a metal needle, and a personal handwork-journey was starting. With tiny ‘x’s’‘ on linen, I went from bedding to table and I was shown how to make even the back of a cloth look pleasing and not a jumble of threads. Ironing the linen was okay with a card-table size, but when I moved into dining room length I gave my mother the ironing chore. Never without a project in her hands during the hours she sat listening to her daughter’s piano and singing lesson practice, or family time around the radio programs, I wanted to learn everything she did. I hand sewed an apron. The stitches to hold the seams were different from the hem, and I learned to make hem ones so tiny that they were almost invisible. Skirts with gathered waistbands were different from pleated ones, and we sewed together often. I began to design my own creations, and she taught me how to make a pattern; the mahogany dining room table became a tabloid in Braille as my marks were made from shears and such that recorded life. By high school, I’d created special half-aprons as was the custom for women to wear such when entertaining. Satin formed the waistband and bottom, and I’d sew tiny beads on sections. I created eyeglass cases from pieces of wool-felt, then adorned with accents of glitter. Knitting came next. Sharing was part of the pleasure. I had trouble with the grosgrain ribbon needed as a backing for a cardigan sweater’s buttons, and said that was her job. We laughed. She was doing needlepoint for a chair. Heavy wool yarn was used to go through a grid-like large piece that did not need more than repetition of a stroke, but I just had to learn that and started with the canvas for a footstool. Once completed, we bought an oak footrest. My mother taught me to stretch my completed needlepoint canvas, and to mount it on top of the fabric that was already on the stool. Basic thumb tacks adhered my work to the stool’s top. She always had, with what was on-hand, a solution to any problem! She crocheted. I just seemed to have trouble with just one little metal item the size of a pencil, so I decided I’d learn crewel embroidery by myself and tell her about it. She’d have one needlework I couldn’t do and I’d have one she preferred not to do but, of course, could! In college, as I knit argyle socks for male friends, she crocheted afghans, and knit hats/ mittens/ sweaters for me using bright colors to compensate for the often sunless days as I walked to classes in the cold. I recently saw a Sampler in an inn that was once a stop on the Erie Canal; a historic-preservation structure, it made me smile with remembrance of the first Sampler I’d ever seen in a building similar to this one. A granddaughter asked for a tablecloth I’d embellished with cross-stitch during elementary school; I was showing her items I’d made and used over the decades. I mentioned that linen would need starch to look crisp; she wanted it. Her sister noticed my two of my framed crewel-embroidered pictures showing vases of flowers; I loosened them from their hooks. She wondered about a large needlepoint I’d made; I had considered using for a chair but, at the time, with then three small children, I decided to frame and work on other needle-projects smaller to handle. These belong to her now. I designed the dresses I wore for each of my three children’s weddings, and hand-work has been satisfying and fulfilling all of my life. One of my great-grandchildren has the crib-size afghan my mother’s fingers so long-ago crocheted; her afghans continue to be the warm blankets on her unseen descendants’ beds. Isn’t family history often written in needle and thread than in pen and ink? Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade. Dignity Is the Choice Any One Can Make I've read about Living Wills and death with dignity. I've heard of hospices, wondered about brain waves and respirators, argued with friends about moral vs. legal laws. But I hadn't really addressed dying with self-respect --until it became an emotional reality.
Technically, my mother's 1980 open-heart surgery was successful. She handled the body's pain with her usual optimism and gratitude. How was she to know that the transfused blood was a silent killer? Into her arm dripped fluid that infected her liver: Chronic Active Hepatitis, Non-A, Non-B. There were no tests ahead of time to determine if a blood donor was a carrier of such. I knew that Chronic Active meant death within five years; if only she’d had Chronic Persistent Hepatitis! I didn’t tell her what I knew. My moist palm clasped my husband's as we talked during the 3000 mile trip to California in November 1984. Our weekend meant letting my parent complete her life as she'd lived it---never calling attention to her ailments, real concern for others, having a sense of humor, believing she can work/fight to survive any misfortune, sending her family away with no guilt always thinking to ease THEIR pain and not her own. I wanted to discuss her dying, my anger, say goodbye. These were my needs. She wanted me to see her cheerful. Years before, while on a trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco, she had a massive myocardial infarction coupled with pulmonary emboli.(blood clots in her lungs) In the San Francisco Coronary Care Unit, she displayed a smile, admired my blouse, wondered why I'd come all the way to see her in a hospital bed. When I left for some sleep, I looked at the hills and bay and felt confused that anyone could possibly be dying when so much light and beauty was outside. Blood clots in her lungs and a massive heart attack were survived, yet open-heart surgery was eventually a necessity. The surgery was successful. How was she to know the transfused blood she received was a silent killer? My husband, an internist, wondered how he’d answer that question, if she asked; she didn’t ask. In the Los Angeles hospital, I saw a fragile woman with a swollen abdomen too toxin-filled for her deteriorated liver to process. The healthy, 1925, Miss Pitkin Avenue, Brooklyn, beauty queen whose shapely legs her daughters inherited had wasted from the disease's devastation. She strained to get on her feet. She forced herself to sit to have her hair done. She talked about the trip she'd make to my son's wedding that May, worried about my bad back during the forthcoming flights home. My mother, widowed for thirty-two years, set an example of cheer, endurance, snap-back after falling with life's shoves; she needed to continue to play this role while dying. I had to grant her this for had I whispered "why you" she would have responded "why not?" I understand the concept of death with dignity now. Terminally ill people should pick how they want OTHERS to treat them plus how THEY want to act. As I stroked my spouse's finger, I allowed myself the luxury of tears knowing, shortly, I'd bury my mother in sandy Long Island soil--beside my father. She was placed there January 1985; I never saw her again after that November journey as I was to carry out the charade that she’d be well enough to come east for her grandchild’s wedding. Had I flown back, we would have had to speak of her illness causing me to fly another 6,000 miles round trip, and she wanted to share life and hope. I accepted what she needed. In 2004, my older sister had sustained, just in her last couple of years, strokes, heart attacks, open-heart surgery, two cancers of the stomach, heart failure, pulmonary emboli; she was frail and confined to a wheelchair but kept a sense of humor, interested in others, would not talk about her condition. She spoke of the future with wonder and enthusiasm. Once again, I had to accept, this time with a sibling, what she expected of me, and allowed her to choose. My personal need to display tears had to be controlled. She insisted on dignity, as our mother had done almost two decades ago. For ‘why me’, she also would have replied, ‘why not’. ©1991 The San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Page August 10, 1991 reprinted (with the 2004 paragraphs) by The Humanist in Jan.-Feb. 2005 issue reprinted by Clear Mountain 2009 |