One of my grandmas wrote an 8-page single-spaced response to that Salon article, but since today is President’s Day, I’m going to save that and show you instead my Grandma Ora Mae who served as a registered nurse in World War II. Tonight I got her all to myself for a few minutes and she asked me what a wiki is. I introduced her to the joy of getting lost in wikipedia, where you keep clicking on hyperlinks halfway through each entry and suddenly you’re trying to figure out how you got from Joseph Smith to alfalfa.

She coed over Molly and since I am turning into that stop-the-clocks mother I asked if she was sad when she realized that her tenth child in 14 years would be her last. She said she had two miscarriages after him and the doctor said she better take care of the kids she had.

I could tell you how well she did that, how much we all love her, how even my husband gets a softer tone in his voice when we speak of her, but it would probably sound unbelievably rosy, more like a fairytale than real life, and then we’re back to the question of whether my grandma’s life as an army nurse in Okinawa and then as a Mormon wife and mother could possibly have produced someone who glows from within so steadfastly brightly that it’s a pleasure to be anywhere near her, doesn’t she know how hard life and faith are?

I think she knows it all.

Dick’s family was not the big Mormon family I’d always hoped to marry in to. They were better than what I had imagined, just as Dick turned out to be better than I expected. Probably I should be disappointed to have so little in-law angst as fodder for the blog.

Grampa is smart, interesting to talk to, a good guest, well-read, and totally incapable of surviving a Utah winter. We’ve adjusted our thermostat so that he feels better about getting out of bed in the mornings.

At restaurants, Grampa talks to the waitress and tells the hostess as we leave that Mallory sure was friendly and helpful today.

When a clerk finally finds the jarred mincemeat pie filling for us, Grampa thanks him effusively, and regrets not getting his name so he can praise him to the manager.

Grampa bought the girls a trampoline for their birthdays and Christmas. It came with all the safety features, and the girls are pretty excited.

Though they might have been satisfied with a large plastic bovine and some chocolate rice cakes.

Some of the things that I’m most grateful for are things or people that I never anticipated would so important to me. My father-in-law, and my relationship with him, unexpectedly make my life much richer in ways that I never imagined.

Jane

I wasn’t going to admit that I was excited that we got to order in (free) lunch from that deli on Broadway because we were all so upset and of course I couldn’t even think of eating at a time like that. I think I ate a spinach salad, with bacon and hard-boiled eggs, and a vinegary-sweet dressing.

Earlier that morning my shoulder dislocated while I was using the thera-band from my physical therapist. Wasn’t the first time, or the worst time, but, oh! did I feel sorry for myself as I rode the subway to work. As I took the 1/9 to 116th and Broadway and walked through the quad at Columbia University.

Someone had a TV on in the lobby of the SIPA (School of International and Public Affairs) Building, and the rest of the day was a Kafka-like nightmare of helpless surrealism. We sat around the Economics Department with the lights half-on. We made plans to give blood, and then we heard that no blood was needed.

I wondered if Dick was okay and if I’d be able to make it home to The Bronx, if the bridges and tunnels and subways would be reopened soon. He was home with one-year-old Sally back then. Every day at four he dropped her off before going to class, and I took her home after she’d gotten lots of attention from Angela and Sharon and Leslie, and polite disinterest from Laura.

I had visited the World Trade Center for the first and only time two weeks before the attacks. My brother was visiting from Utah and wanted to see everything. I’ve got pictures of us with Sally in her MacLaren stroller. We have pictures of her, a little older, in the same stroller, in front of the photo and ribbon-festooned plywood barricades that ringed Ground Zero (and probably still do, for all I know).

I felt so stupid that day, for feeling sorry for myself about my dumb shoulder. Even stupider when reports of the bravery and desperation of the “Let’s Roll” people came out of Pennsylvania.

It was probably only weeks or days before I felt sorry for myself again, over something even dumber, like too many poopy diapers in a twenty-four hour period. Or a husband who liked to play basketball in the evenings instead of rushing home to be with us.

And then I’d remember to be glad, and immeasurably grateful, that he would be coming home at all.

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Here’s my story of shame and degradation, humiliation and redemption:

I was born to a 19 year-old mother and a 25 year-old father who had near-identical backgrounds: same race, same religion, same political party, many siblings (5 and 9) and parents who are, 52 and 63 years later, still married. (My parents are still married 32 years later).

Mom graduated high school early to get married and attended university until I came along. Dad started medical school, joined the Navy and served six months in Okinawa, where he read his scriptures at night, wrote home every week, and sent us home videos of himself and the island. My little sister was scared of him when he first came home, but that passed.

I skipped third grade because the other kids hadn’t been read to compulsively as children. And my teacher was a serious under-achiever. I repeated fifth grade when we moved to Oregon where the hippies read compulsively to their children between teaching them to weave sweaters and make tabbouleh salad.

I ended up with two brothers and two sisters. Mom likes my brother better than me, but I don’t blame her for that. He is much easier to like. I got my ears pierced at 8 and couldn’t wear makeup until I was 14, by which time I’d pretty much lost interest, which is while I won’t be linking up to the Fight the Frump carnival anytime soon. Embrace the Frump, I always say.

My dad had a stressful job, back when they made residents and interns work 45 days straight. He was a harsh disciplinarian sometimes. I think my husband (who is a complete softie) doesn’t blame him for that. He still protests (unsuccessfully) when I swear in front of the kids. (I always feel bad afterwards, just like my dad felt bad twenty years ago). We (my dad and mom and I) went to family therapy and moved to a bigger town with more doctors. Now that Dad is a Grandpa, the mellowing process is near-complete.

I went to college and rebelled: stayed up late, got addicted to Mountain Dew, played pool in dingy pool halls (Trouble with a capital T, that rhymes with P, and that stands for Pool.), went to a dance club or three. Dad asked me once, after I’d been up all night and imbibed three 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew, then drove the 30 minutes home to use their computer to finish a paper, if I was on speed. I was not. I got a C+ that semester and generally under-achieved for awhile.

I met Dick, who is sometimes a geek and too addicted to his computer and basketball; he also has a toe fungus and a strange bump under his right sideburn. He is a much better husband and lover and father and friend than I ever imagined, if I had been imagining getting married. We have the same goals, same religion, similar political sensibilities. Enough compatibility to be comfortable and enough conflict to not get bored.

I had a baby. I got so tired that I thought, as I lay awake at night listening to her scream in the next room, that if she had been adopted, I would have taken her back. Would have said, Sorry, changed my mind. We recovered enough a few years later to try again. I had a miscarriage and that was stinky. Got pregnant the next month and had another girl. Another one came two years after that.

Other things happened, but frankly, I’m falling asleep here just writing this, my agent wants me to save the juicy stuff for when she’s clinched the book deal. Maybe I could sue my parents for not providing me enough angst in my formative years. I mean, it felt really angsty at the time, especially from 1989 to 1992 and 1996 to 1998, but some people might think it was, overall, well, a tad unexciting.