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Friday, March 18, 2011

Sam I Am

So I watch him, this man Sam who is my youngest son.  My baby.

He is a fine specimen of a male.

So beautiful, in appearance & in his soul.

And always irritated with me.

In his defense, I have been a difficult & complicated mother.

But I have loved him from the beginnings of his existence.

From the moment his elder brother & I sat in an emergency room in DC,   

Nick next to me as I sat there bleeding.  Praying the baby that would be Sam would survive.

Nick leaning against me.  Talking to his brother.

Sam survived. 

He still does.  Magnificently.

In spite of me, in spite of his father’s absence.

The world needs old souls, souls like Sam. 

Sunday, March 13, 2011

An Open Letter to Philip John Paul Gagan

Dear Philip,

Sometime during the spring & fall of 1989, we made a baby.  A son.
And now that son is about to turn 21. 
 
When he turned 18, he indicated that he would like to find you.  

So I researched.  While I did not find you (it seemed at the time that everything was listed in your wife’s name), I found your mother.

Whose response to my request that she contact you about your first born was less than enthusiastic.  Actually, your mother’s response was devastating.

I tried to explain that Sam’s birth had nothing to do with your marriage, predated it.  I tried to reassure her that I was not calling about money or names but because this incredible 18-year old had a right to confront you.  I tried to appeal to her as a grandmother – this was, after all, her first grandchild.

She refused.

Afterward, for a while, I wept.  

And then I thought, I am not sure that your family deserves Sam.  I never told him of his grandmother’s rejection. 

I know for certain that you have known for over twenty years that Sam was your son & you have done nothing.  NOTHING.

Through your attorney, you claimed that you could not be sure Sam was yours because you were traveling.  An interesting ascertain – I assure you I was faithful.  I had opportunities, perhaps I should have taken advantage of those opportunities. 

You, however, were not so monogamous.  Shortly after I gave birth, I received a call from a woman who told me that you had given her venereal warts & that if I wanted anything from you, I should go for it.  I laughed & told her that you had nothing except an iron that belonged to me.

Then I went crazy & called my mother & Sam’s pediatrician & had Sam tested.  We were clear, but how dare you expose your son to that without telling me?

If Sam does meet you one day, I think he will have a lot of questions.

I hope he punches the hell out of you.  Believe me, he can do it.  If not him, then his brother & his uncles & his aunts & his cousins.  All of whom have taken up the slack left by your absence.  We will not go into Sam’s extended family.

I would so enjoy that.

Bottom line, Sam is so much better than you could ever hope to be.  An amazing, beautiful, old soul.  

In my opinion, a better man for your absence.

That assessment, however, is up to Sam.

If you are an honorable man, you should try & contact him.  He may tell you to go to hell.
 
Or not.

Jaki

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Conservatives, Liberals, Jack & Jaki

I have written before about my relationship with my father Jack & politics.  It is a recurring theme in my life.

But a recent discussion on Facebook caused me to review that experience & share it again.

My father Jack was a passionate Republican.

His father, John Simpson Alexander Ettinger, was a passionate Democrat.

What I want to write about is that this passionate supportive of Republican/Conservative thought was a mentor for a passionate supporter of Democratic/Liberal thought.

I grew up watching every Republican  & every Democratic convention from the time I could write.  From Kennedy / Nixon.  One of the few times I could stay up past my bedtime those days.    

We watched with bated breath, believing that the final outcome of each nominee depended on the vote.  We did not believe in certainties or done deals when it came to the nomination of either party’s candidate for the Presidency of the United States.

In elementary & middle school, no one asked me if I was  a Democrat or Republican, if I was politically liberal or conservative.

But in high school, something happened.  An awareness of Vietnam.

A friend lost her brother.  Shortly before he was due to come back home to marry his fiancĂ©.

My perspective changed.  I began to listen more to people opposed to the war.

I turned 18 the year the right to vote was granted to 18-year olds, who previously could be drafted & fight & die in a war without the right to vote.

As many of you know, one evening my father Jack asked me for whom I would vote in the 1972 election.  I told him that I was voting for McGovern-Shriver & he looked at me in dismay.

This man, who had never told me how to think, who had sat with me watching all those conventions, looked at me in dismay.

Then he told me that was the most stupid thing he had ever had heard out of my otherwise intelligent mouth & threw his plate of spaghetti across the room in what I can only interpret as frustration.

We really never did discuss politics again.  Something that grieves me to this day.

He knew my views.  I knew his views.  And we respected the difference.  He never disparaged my choice but we did not exchange ideas & those views

What I regret is that either of us did not know how to talk to one another about those differences.

Without throwing, or fearing the flight of a plate of spaghetti.

I would take the throwing, the flight of the plate, just to talk to him again.

And ask him what the hell was he thinking,
 

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Really ? Really, Meadows Place?

So today I go out to the mailbox & retrieve the one offering, the City of Meadows Place (Your Place for Life) March 1011 City Newsletter.

The mayor’s column focused on the new “Current marquee Message”.  And there was another paragraph about a paint project designed to keep us all up to code.

I will ignore reporting about the “Did You Know” column the mayor started writing when he was just a councilman.   Mostly to tell everyone what his sons were accomplishing.  Still included one of his sons at the end in this latest column.

Then I turned to page four & the “Code Enforcement” column.

It seems that here in Meadows Place, we need to adhere to certain codes about our mailboxes.

The author quotes Section 304.3 of some city code – Premises Identification.

I am thinking of everything that has happened in this house, since 1971.  How the paramedics arrived when my father was suffering cardiac arrest, how the fire department arrived when I thought the house would burn down because the oven caught on fire, how the police arrived when Sam called 911 because his brother Nick was having a severe reaction to an asthma medication.

Amazing how the people we need arrived outside of Premises Identification.

So, with everything that is going on in the world, in Wisconsin, in our state, in our area, in our country, Meadows Place is worried about Premises Identification.

Rebel that I am, are you serious Meadows Place ?

Really?