Why I Love Fairy Tales

I’ve adored fairy tales since I was a little girl, and they may be one of the reasons I write sweet romances.

I had several collections of them, and my mother read the stories to me at bedtime. The only one I didn’t like was Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid” because it had such a sad ending. The first time I heard it, I cried and cried, and forbade Mom to ever read it again. Years later, I reread it, and still found the ending tragic. When Disney released the cartoon version, I was delighted with the revised happy ending.

Of all the stories, I loved “Cinderella” the most. It was probably because I related so strongly to her.

My father died when I was seven, leaving only enough money to bury him. Mom was left to raise my younger brother and me by herself as a single mother in an era when there were few of those. It was several years following my dad’s death before I actually knew anyone else with only one parent.

Mom had to go to work in order to provide for our basic needs, so I became responsible not only for myself, but also for my brother and many of the household chores.

By the age of twelve, in addition to the other tasks around the house, I had sole responsibility for meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking. That had to be accomplished on an extremely limited budget.

Until I was married, I wore nothing but hand-me-down clothes, and few of them. There was rarely enough money for extras. A special meal eaten out was a hamburger from McDonalds perhaps once a month. The first real sit-down restaurant I can remember going to was when my aunt and uncle took us to dinner to celebrate my sixteenth birthday. I’d never felt so awkward. I had no idea what to do or how to behave.

I first spotted my own prince across an empty schoolyard when I was about ten. I recently shared that memory with Larry, and he immediately incorporated it into the story of Tiffany in his latest book, Lakeview Park.

He was my first date at age fourteen, but we went out with other people until I was seventeen when we began dating again. We married the week after my nineteenth birthday, and I’ve never regretted that decision. In fact, the license plate holder on my convertible reads: “DON’T BOTHER ME, I’M LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER.” And it’s true.

He wasn’t rich, but he certainly was—and still is—very handsome. And I never took him for granted. I was all too aware of just how tenuous life can be.

We have shared an amazing life for over forty-six years, traveling the world, making friends, and laughing a lot.

Even during the past year, filled with the loss of so many family members and close friends, I am still able to focus on the blessing of having known them.

My brother, the world’s greatest pessimist, always grumbles that I see the glass half-full. He’s wrong. I usually see the glass filling to overflowing.

How did I learn to expect happy endings? From Cinderella, of course.

When Machines Turn Rogue

I swear some mechanical devices have it in for me. I always take it personally when something I’m trying to use stops working or, even worse, simply refuses to function correctly for me in the first place, even though other people don’t seem to have similar problems.

Computers always have minds of their own. I worked for seven years in IT, and whenever I’d call the Service Desk with an issue, it seemed as though my machine had it in for me, since no one else shared my experience. But most people already know that those particular devices have quirky personalities. They’re like friendly dogs who suddenly turn and bite without warning. Cell phones are a similar breed.

But computers and phones are not alone in selecting targets and attacking.

I’ve always been very mechanical. When I was about twelve, I took apart a broken toaster and fixed it. I still can’t tell you how I knew what to do, but I did. And that’s been a pretty common experience throughout most of my life. So why is it that some specific mechanical items are determined to make my life miserable?

One of the vilest of these was the little station wagon Larry insisted on buying many years ago. Our old car had reached over 100,000 miles and, although we’d had no real issues with it, was beginning to show its age. Repairs were clearly in our immediate future. Expensive repairs. At that time, I was playing Super Mom, doing PTA, Girl Scouts, etc. I needed a car with more room to stow gear and kids, so a mini-wagon seemed like a good idea. Just not this particular one.

I hated it on sight. It was yellow. Larry bought it because it had faux wood trim reminiscent of his old 1954 Ford Country Squire woodie. That particular vehicle tolerated me and behaved pretty well when I drove it. Not so the yellow beast!

I ran out of gas twice before I figured out that the gas gauge was defective. Then I used the trip meter and always filled up at least fifty miles before I knew I’d run out. Years later when Kim was driving the car, she used the gas gauge, and the dumb car ran on fumes, even when the gauge read ‘Empty.’

And that was not my only difficulty. The back lift gate never opened for me. Larry and Kim could open it easily using only one hand, but when I’d try, it stubbornly refused to budge. I asked them for the secret, but neither of them could tell me what I was doing wrong. The car just hated me. The feeling was mutual.

Because the body had apparently not been undercoated correctly, it soon began to molt yellow paint, followed by rusty chunks. My brother dubbed it the “Yellow Rust Bucket” or YRB for short. I swore it was trying to escape from me, one small piece at a time. Unfortunately, we owned this car longer than any other we’ve ever had.

My experiences with mechanical revolt aren’t limited to the United States, either.

Our washer and dryer in Japan were supposed to be the best in the world, made by a highly-respected German company. The washer took nearly an hour per load. And sometimes it would overheat, ruining several favorite pieces of clothing over the time we lived there. It was also a ‘one-sheet wonder’ since it would only hold a maximum of one sheet at a time.

The dryer was a different story, but a beast of a different genus. It worked like a salad spinner, capturing the water in a reservoir. When that filled up, the machine would stop until it was emptied. One load of clothes took hours to dry. The dryer didn’t heat, but the washer did—and overheated. To top it off, there was no heat adjustment on either machine. We had it serviced and were told it worked as designed.

I called these monstrosities many unpleasant names—especially when yet another favorite garment had been melted by the washer or when I needed something and it wasn’t dry. I also took the refusal of these monsters to work properly personally until a friend from California visited and attempted to use them. “How in earth do you live with these things?” she asked after trying to do a small load. The answer was we formed an uneasy truce. But the mutual loathing was always just beneath the surface.

When we returned to California after nearly three years in Japan, I hoped my days fighting rebellious household appliances were over. Wrong! I had not anticipated dealing with the new top-of-the-line double ovens we bought when we remodeled our kitchen.

We chose this particular brand because we were assured by the salesperson that it was the best. WRONG! Although installed per the manufacturer’s instructions, whenever I tried to use both ovens, the breaker tripped. And the heat was so uneven that nothing I baked turned out right.

I called the store, and they told me to contact the manufacturer since the appliance was still under warrantee. Unfortunately I was never actually able to talk to a real person on the manufacturer’s Customer Service line. Instead I was fed into a continuous loop of recorded suggestions, none of which addressed my problems. I finally called the manufacturer’s authorized service number in our area.

The service person arrived and checked the oven. When I asked why the breaker always tripped, he responded, “You’re supposed to use only one oven at a time.” WHAT? Why would I buy a double oven if I only intended to use one at a time?

When I questioned the twenty minutes required to get to preheat, his answer was,  "I recommend at least half an hour.” HUH?

And when I asked why it didn’t keep an even temperature, I received a long lecture on how ovens determined temperature. He told me everything was working as it should. Yeah, maybe in his warped parallel universe! He charged me a small fortune and left. Nothing had changed.

The worst happened when I had about eighteen people for dinner and tried to use the ovens to reheat a frozen entrée. The breaker tripped three times. The oven never came up to temperature. Dinner was eaten an hour late after I removed individual portions and heated them in the microwave. We ate in shifts. And I stopped cooking.

A couple of years later, I replaced the nearly-new ovens with another brand recommended by a friend who is a gourmet cook. I no longer have cookies with raw tops and burned bottoms. I can now prepare a meal for twenty and have everything on the table at the same time using both ovens simultaneously. And preheating now requires only five minutes. The best thing is that the previous unlamented ovens have gone on to that great appliance graveyard.

My most recent nemesis is the sewing machine. This one belonged to my mother. When she moved in with us over twenty years ago, there were three in the house. My daughter took my old Singer Featherweight, a little workhorse that still functions beautifully. My other portable was the same brand as Mom’s, but hers had all the bells and whistles. When a friend gave birth to a little girl and mentioned that she’d like to make clothes for the baby, I decided to give her my portable. Big mistake!

This mechanical demon loved Mom, but it hates me! I’ve never been able to get it to function properly doing even the simplest tasks. I’ve had it refurbished several times, but needles and thread still break with painful regularity. It knots and refuses to zigzag. The stitches are uneven; the bobbin comes loose; and the bobbin never holds enough thread to finish a project. It’s nearly impossible to thread the needle because the mechanism prevents grasping the thread from the back of the needle.

I spent two days in an all-out war with this devil recently and ended up throwing a full-blown tantrum A huge cloud of cursing hung over the room. My husband took refuge well away from the battle. I finally struggled through the nine simple seams. Casualties: two needles, one bobbin, many broken threads, lots of knots, two destroyed days, one vile temper.

But in the end, I won. No mere mechanical device will get the better of me. At least not for long. But the sewing machine has been given notice. It’s next on the destruct list.

Let the Decorating Begin!

Yesterday I put away Thanksgiving. Today the marathon Christmas decorating effort begins.

I’m an unrepentant Christmas junkie. And I want it all: the Bible story, nativity, Santa, cartoons, the Hallmark channel movies, and the music—all the music.

It’s in my genes. I inherited the passion from my maternal grandfather. He adored the holiday!

This was my grandparents’ house in West Hollywood sometime in the 1940s. Grandpa built the sleigh after he brought the reindeer home from the Broadway Department Store in L.A. He worked there, and they were going to be thrown out. I remember them well. They were made of concrete over rebar and were heavy. I ‘rode’ them when I was little. One of them survived in our garage through much of our childhood until it finally disintegrated.

I suspect Grandpa cut out the Santa on the roof from the same wood as the sleigh and painted it himself.

On the low wall behind the sleigh, you can see three of the ‘little houses’ he and my dad made. They eventually had nearly a dozen in various stages of completion, many of which were replicas of real places. Their ultimate intention was to create a miniature Christmas village on the lawn.

The grass was covered in Ivory soap flakes. I’m not clear how they removed them after New Year, but it must have been messy in the days before blowers. And I hate to think what happened if it rained.

Eventually, Grandpa and Dad made yards of miniature white picket fences they intended to put around the little houses. They were like the larger one in the photo, but only about three inches tall.

The two of them spent months in the garage together shredding their fingers cutting up tin cans and fashioning them into tiny street lamps. This was long before the days of strings of twinkle lights. Somewhere or other, they found miniature bulbs and wired each tiny lamp separately.

Unfortunately, nearly all of these decorations were lost in a garage fire at my grandparents in the early 1950s, caused by a frayed wire on a radio. The greater loss was of Grandpa himself when I was twenty-six months old and then Dad when I was seven.

But the Christmas gene survived in my mother. She loved the holiday, and even on a very limited budget, she decorated. Every year, she used Glass Wax to add ‘snow’ to the corners of our windows. Later, we had Glass Wax stencils and created trees, snowflakes, and other designs.

So today, Larry will reluctantly put up the tree. It’s fake since, although I love the scent of fresh pine, my allergies don’t. A couple of years ago, he replaced our ancient tree with a new one. The appeal was that it had the lights already on the branches. It opens like an umbrella, so his job is pretty easy.

His other job is hanging the outside lights. For years, he put them up on Christmas Eve and took them down the day after. Now that he’s retired, he doesn’t have a really good excuse for putting it off. But that doesn’t mean he won’t.

We have hundreds of ornaments, and it takes hours just to find spots for all of them. That’s my job. Each one is unique, and many are hand-made. Not a single plain glass ball among them. Every year I vow to downsize, but I haven’t figured out which ones I’m willing to part with. Maybe this year…

I don’t wait until after Thanksgiving to start playing the music, however. I have hundreds of Christmas albums, and all the music is on my iPod. If I select the shuffle mode, they show up from time to time in the over 9000 songs I have loaded. (Nearly all of them are from my CDs—another addiction.) Of course, I can only listen that way when Larry’s not around. His preference is to wait until after Thanksgiving. So let the music begin!

I don’t want to miss any of the stories, either. The Christmas movie marathon has begun, and I’m thrilled. In addition, we have to read the Bible story from Luke. Actually, I don’t read it. I recite it.

When I was about six, our Sunday school class memorized the entire passage for the church Christmas pageant. Each of us was responsible for one verse. But, overachiever that I am, I learned it all. And I still remember it. When we visited Israel at Christmas in 1984, the verses all came back as I tried to picture the story in the actual locations.

Another family tradition is reading Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales. It is some of the most beautiful writing in the English language, and we all adore it.

I’m too excited to sleep. I can’t wait to haul out all the old, familiar decorations and put them in their accustomed spots. I wish all of you could stop by and see them. Since that’s unlikely, I can wish everyone a blessed and joyous Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Remembering Our Veterans

Today is November 11, Veterans’ Day and I started thinking about my dads, both of them: Larry’s dad, whom we lost on January third of this year, and my own who died fifty-eight years ago. Both were veterans of World War II.

I think of Larry’s dad often. Make no mistake about it, he was mine for forty-five years, and he was my Dad as well.

I don’t think of my own father often. He remains something of a cypher in my life. He died when I was seven, and like most men of his era, spent a great deal of his time working. I have very few actual memories of him, and those that remain exist mostly in old photos.

I wrote about him once, though. In 1993, I wrote a Christmas musical, The Giving Season, which I was blessed to see performed five times at our church. During the story, a young man pauses to reflect on his recently-deceased father. This particular song was the first-act finale and always made everyone cry. That may have been because it was written not for the play specifically but from my heart about my own father.

I share the lyric today for everyone who has lost a father who was a veteran.

The Man I Never Knew
©1993 by Lorna Collins

Who was this man, this stranger,

                This man I never knew?

I called him ‘Dad’ and ‘Father’

                But Father, who were you?

Did you ever have a special dream

                That never did come true?

Did somebody break your heart?

                Did someone prove untrue?

What were the things you cared about?

                What goals did you outgrow?

What were your childhood wishes?

                And how could I not know?

What special songs could touch your heart?

                What beauty pleased your eye?

Did you ever shout for joy?

                And did you ever cry?

Why did you always try to hide

Yourself behind a mask?

And why, in all the years we shared

                Was I afraid to ask?

Who were you my father,

                And what am I to do,

To try to find the secret of

                The man I never knew?

I hope all your memories of the veterans in your lives are sweet today. Honor them and all the other brave men and women who served our country so that we could enjoy all its blessings.

Loss

This has been a year of loss—many losses. From Dad’s death on January 3 through the loss of my mother on July 26, and so many others in between and since, the year seems to be whittling away friends, family members, and the families of friends. I had counted 28 of those deaths before the end of February, when I stopped counting. But it didn’t end then. There’s been at least one a week since.

Losing those I love provided some powerful reminders for me.

Don’t take anyone for granted. My father died when I was seven. I went to second grade one morning, and when I came home that afternoon, he was gone. Forever. It was a powerful lesson I never forgot: People die. You never know when or how.

This is the reason that Larry and I tell each other, “I love you” on awakening each morning. We try never to part without a kiss, and reunite the same way. And we can’t go to sleep without another kiss and the words, “I love you.” When Larry traveled, he’d usually call home just to say goodnight. On a couple of occasions when he didn’t, I’d call him. If we couldn’t get through or were unable to make contact for some reason, we didn’t sleep well.

Youth doesn’t insulate you from death. People can die at any age. My father’s death taught me that one, too. He was thirty-seven. His mother was twenty-three. His grandmother, thirty-eight. And my maternal grandfather was fifty-four. All far too young. 

This point came home last year when our dear friends’ daughter died very suddenly at forty-two. Erin practically grew up in our home. I used to tease her that even though her parents thought she was theirs, she really belonged to us. On my birthday last year, among many other notes was one from Erin which said, “Happy Birthday Mama! Have a great day!” It told me that she knew she was loved. What a gift that was the next day when we received word that she was gone.

I was creating a movie for her folks’ 50^th anniversary this week and added family photos including Erin. I wept when I saw them. I miss her very much. But at least I knew that I loved her. And she knew it as well.

Tell the people you love that you love them—often. Years ago, another daughter of dear friends died at thirty-one after an illness of a couple of years. Several months before her death, I saw Peggy. Our conversation ended with a hug and my saying, “I love you, Peg.” She stepped back, looked me in the eye, and said, “I know you do.” What a gift!

Far too often the people we genuinely care about either don’t know it or don’t believe it. I keep hoping the repetition of the words will eventually reinforce the very genuine affection I have for the people in my life.

Many years ago now, another dear young man died in his early thirties. Looking at the large assemblage at his memorial service, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had any idea how many people cared about him. I doubted it. John just never seemed able to accept that others cared about him. And that has always made me sad.

There is a ritual I indulge in with many of the people in my life. Whenever we part, I always tell them I love them. I mean it. I wasn’t able to say goodbye to my father or to tell him I loved him. As long as I have breath, I want my loved ones to know without a doubt that I do.

My niece and goddaughter both caught on to this early. Whenever I talked to them on the phone, I’d end with, “I love you.” And they’d answer, “I love you, too.” However, as they got older, both of them would try to sense the end of the conversation so they could say the words first. They still do, and I love it that it still matters to both of them.

Life goes on. Even with the pain of loss, life continues for the survivors. Hopefully it is richer for the presence of all the special people in our lives—including those no longer living. My personal belief is that we will see them all again when we join them and that the love we shared in this life will remain between us. In those moments of grieving and sadness, this confidence is a great comfort.

Everyone suffers loss. Everyone grieves. The only way we can honor those we have lost is to live the remainder of our own days well. And that’s what I’m attempting to do now.

Remember, friends and family, I love you.

Reunion Blessing

I hadn't seen my cousin, Margaret, for at least fifty-five years! Her parents were abusive and she had a terrible childhood. My parents had absolutely nothing to do with hers. But a couple of summers when we were kids, she and her brother were sent from their house in Redding to visit relatives in Alhambra where we lived. They stayed with us a few days. It was clear that Mom loved 'Margie' (pronounced with the g as in gag).

After those two summers when we couldn't have been more than ten, we never saw the cousins again. I had four other cousins on that side of the family I hadn't seen since I was three. Their mother, my aunt, Mary Evelyn, tracked us down about twenty years ago, and I adored her. So did my Mom, as I discovered when they met again. But I had still not reconnected with any of those cousins.

I finally located Mary Evelyn’s four through Facebook! And Suzanne, the one closest in age to me, re-connected me with Margaret. (She's not on Facebook.)

On Memorial Day weekend, I actually got to meet two of the four cousins at a barbecue Roger and his wife, Ingrid, held at their house. Roger, Suzanne and I had a wonderful reunion, and discovered we had a lot in common.

Margaret was supposed to be there, too, but she had to come to Fountain Valley for a family crisis. I invited her for a visit the following Sunday. We were finally able to answer long-standing questions about our lives. Because of Margaret, I finally discovered why my mother had kept us away from some of my dad's relatives, even though they lived in the same town. We didn't even know about them until we were adults, by which time they had died.

I'd always believed that Mom's prejudices were the reason. (They were Catholic, and she was anti-Catholic.) Now I believe she was actually protecting us from them. (The empirical evidence that supports this is that my dad also kept us and himself from them when he was alive.) Suddenly, many of the missing puzzle pieces fell into place for both me and my brother, Ron.

Margaret enjoyed worship with us, and then we went to visit my mother.

She has been under hospice care again for the past few weeks. (She had hospice a year ago February but was removed when she dramatically improved.) She’d been sleeping most of the time, and we were often unable to rouse her when we visited. When we were, she’d mostly opened her eyes, obviously without understanding anything we said. When my aunt and uncle went to see her about a month ago, they were also unable to wake her.

But that Sunday, after a little prodding, she stirred. One of her caregivers had put lipstick on her as if in anticipation of Margaret's visit! (They don't usually do this.)

She opened her eyes, and I said, "Your niece 'Margie' is here to see you." She smiled! She always said she loved 'Margie' and had babysat her before I was born.

Margaret began to talk to Mom, telling her how much she’d always loved and admired her. Mom smiled again. Then Margaret told her she hadn't followed her dad's abusive religion, and Mom actually laughed! She doesn't make any sounds these days, but it was clear that she not only understood but was amused and pleased.

When Margaret told her she'd married a younger man, Mom grinned. I explained to Margaret that it was because she, too, had married a much younger man. My stepfather was sixteen years younger than Mom. They were married for six years, and then divorced. But the age difference had absolutely nothing to do with their separation. The marriage was a total disaster, but the divorce was a smashing success! They remained best friends until his death about twenty years later. And as far as he was concerned, the divorce never happened. She was his wife until the day he died. And they loved each other very much.

We were both able to reassure Mom (again) that when it was time, she could let go, we'd be okay, and were confident that she'd be with God. I hoped the reassurance from Margaret might have been the permission she needed. Larry and I have both told her this several times, but so far she hasn't been ready to give up on life. She has little quality left and it’s painful to see her continue.

As we left, we each gave her a kiss and told her we loved her. When it was Margaret's turn, Mom turned to her and mouthed the words, "I love you, too."

What amazing joy for all of us. Margaret's visit brought a huge ray of sunshine into Mother's seemingly perpetual darkness.

I can only pray that perhaps seeing Margaret again was necessary for her to feel that she had completed her job here with us. But the gift of the time we spent with her that day was absolutely priceless and an amazing gift.

We enjoyed lunch with Margaret and then spent several hours looking at pictures and comparing stories. I called my brother, and he was able to have a chat with her. He called back later and was obviously thrilled to have talked to her.

It may have taken all of us many years to reunite, but what a joy that reunion has been! And what a terrific blessing!