Childhood Experiences

Finding my Son’s Kerry Whipple

/ ginamowill / 1 Comment

My memory, or lack thereof, is pretty horrendous. Nevertheless, I believe it was the end of the 3rd grade when I began to have my first big challenger. I know that the deal was sealed by 4th grade, and life was forever changed by then.  What happened?  There was a new student at Mt. Pisgah Elementary, and that student was Kerry Whipple.

Up until the time Kerry came to town (and yes, she was a Force, so I will refer to her accordingly), I had been able to easily establish myself as a head-of-the-class student pretty early each school year.  I was a teacher’s daughter, so supplemental learning at home with items designed for those several grades ahead was the rule.  However, the drive to be the best in the class was innate, and didn’t really require any external pressure from the Parentals.

So when Kerry came on the scene towards the end of my 3rd grade year (a year when I recall receiving my first ‘B’, which was pretty catastrophic within itself; geography has never been my thing), I had no idea that I was about to face quite the formidable opponent at our classroom academic standoffs!  I don’t recall exactly what they were, but we had some sort of competitions revolving around math or conjugation or something that involved completing challenges first, and Kerry Whipple and I went head-to-head.  She beat me in a few of those, and this was not something to which I was very accustomed, so I remember learning what intimidation was right then and there! And, by virtue of the competition, I decided she was my academic enemy – lol.

However, in a rather short period of time, we shared classes, and once I spent any meaningful time with her, I realized we had far too much in common to be anything less than good friends.  We eventually ended up with about the same amount of wins and losses in our different competitions, but I am grateful that she helped me to learn how to ‘up my game.’ Pictured above is a scene from our induction into the National Junior Honor Society, or something along those lines (please see the earlier reference to my memory!)

Over 30 years later, despite our lives diverging in very different paths and only keeping up on social media sporadically, I still consider her a treasured friend.  As a Southern communications specialist, I am constantly amazed by the voice that she gives to social justice in a place where I can’t imagine her opinion to be wildly popular.  What a blessing it is that she is one of the people who has been placed in my journey of life!

My son is not even close to the third grade yet, and is unfortunately at that age when he is failing to appreciate the merits of the kindergarten naptime.  However, as each school year brings a new group of classmates and friends, I share in his excitement for learning about each new teacher and student, and most certainly, who will be the class BFF and partner-in-silliness for the year!

What I am starting to realize, though, is that my son and I are very different.  Whereas my primary objective was to always demonstrate to my new teacher each year that I was going to be the star pupil of the class, I don’t think this is going to be my son’s major goal.  He is a very bright and energetic child, and he loves school.  But, he is far more interested in garnering laughs, being gregarious, fun-loving, and politically correct than “beating” his classmates in academic pursuits.  He would much rather make the teacher and his classmates cards when they are sick or sad than to be the one who wins at the big contest.

In all this time as he has been growing and as he has progressed from preschool to formal school, I have been anxiously waiting for my son’s Kerry Whipple.  I have been excited about the possibility of the person who will push him to push himself to strive harder, work faster, think more efficiently.  However, it’s enlightening to learn that this person may not come or even need to come and impact him in the same way that Kerry needed to be a part of my life.

One of the most sobering things about being a parent is that you really are responsible for shaping this little person’s experiences, and your influence has a lifelong impact.  As a pediatrician, I have purposefully sought out training on adverse childhood experiences and am considered ‘trauma informed’ about the long-term effect of adversity on children.  With this in mind, I’m particularly sensitive to everything to which my son is exposed; in this particular era, I am very sensitive to his exposure as a little black boy in the Southern region of the US.  But what I have realized more recently is that I don’t always have to get lost in the weeds.

Sometimes, I don’t have to be the one doing the teaching, and I can actually learn from him.  What does he want to learn?  Who does he want to be?  What is important for him in his class as he relates to his teachers and fellow classmates?

Maybe for my son, it will be a fellow athlete who runs faster or dribbles better; maybe it will be a classmate who designs a bridge in an unorthodox way.  Perhaps it will be a girl who challenges everything he has ever thought he knew about time, space, and dimension.  Who knows?  The lesson I am learning is that my son may not need the same Kerry Whipple that I needed, and that is perfectly fine.

All I Ever Really Needed to Know about Life, I Learned from My Grandfather

/ ginamowill / 2 Comments

My Grandfather was my buddy. I loved him tremendously, and my memories of him are abundant and quite fond.  As the 15th anniversary of his death approaches this December, I have had an epiphany.  I realize that, besides my parents, he has had the greatest influence in my life.  I don’t know how or why it happened, but I do believe that I have more personal characteristics that can be attributed to him than just about anyone else in my life; the good, the bad, and the ugly.

My Grandfather was strong, brave, somewhat cantankerous, compassionate, mischievous, sensitive, bold, crafty, and honestly, downright stubborn on many fronts.  He was not an educated man, having to abandon formal education in the third grade to toll on the family farm; his father was hard on him and on his brothers, and this harsher treatment was woven into the very fabric of his being.  He couldn’t read or write, and one of the ways that we did grow so close over the years was when I would accompany him to the old Collierville Town Square to assist with his banking, and then to help as he would go shopping, once my grandmother was ill from dementia and could no longer help him with reading the grocery list and picking out the items without pictures on the labels.

Our relationship was often punctuated with little “spats” in which one of us would say “No, that’s not what that is, that’s this!” and the other would yell back “Well, whatever!” In his case, if he was really annoyed, he would scream “GAL, I SAID…”  So there was a degree of animation to our communication, and after any kind of significant debate, there would be a rolling of eyes, shaking of the head, followed by a grin with a knowing nod that said ‘we are of the same spirit, and I love you, you ridiculous person.’

Here are a few of the things he taught me, in no particular order of importance:

  1. Most things that you really need to get done, can be done with a few people in a few places (even in a small town) – We grew up in rural Shelby county on my grandfather’s family’s farm, and the closest town was in Collierville. The town square, years ago, had a People’s Bank, a gas station, some small shops, and a feed store; my grandfather could take care of just about everything in that little town square, and often, he did.  We would often take care of the business at the bank, drive a little bit to the grocery store, then back to the gas station, cross over the railroad track, and go to the feed store, where he would get animal feed and possibly a few cute and fuzzy chicks (yellow baby chickens, that is – lol.)  There was virtually never a need to wander into the big city.
  2. Blood is thicker than water, but family will not always have your best interest at heart – Though I didn’t fully understand when family issues would come to the surface and even boil over into family gatherings as a child, I did understand when my grandfather was upset because of something a family member had done.  He was not one to mince words, and he was quite vocal when he was hurt by someone.  In fact, not only would that person know, but everyone around them would also know. This is probably one of the most challenging lessons that he had to teach.
  3. Laughter is the best medicine, but liquor doesn’t hurt – This one is pretty self-explanatory, and for anyone who knew my grandfather, it’s pretty spot on.
  4. Happiness is found in the simple things – Grandfather was a farmer, and if you’ve ever spent considerable time looking out on the beauty of God’s creations like he did, be it the land, water, or sky, you’ve likely found the joy that can be found in taking in the awe of them all.
  5. He who finds a virtuous woman (or man) has found a good thing – My grandmother was truly a ‘salt of the earth’ woman, and my grandfather knew it.  Whether he always told her that is between the two of them, but he was fully aware of the prize he had landed, and did sing her praises, particularly when she had passed away and he reminisced on how they had built their home and family together.
  6. Being practical is more sensible than being showy – Grandfather wore overalls almost every single day.  In fact, he is wearing them in the picture above, and I think it is hilarious that he has on a suit jacket over them, almost as if he thought he should dress them up a little bit to pose for this pic with me.  Nonetheless, he just didn’t believe in being particularly flashy.
  7. If it didn’t happen to Pa, Hoss, and Little Joe, it probably wasn’t that entertaining in the first place – Bonanza was everything/the be-all and end-all in my grandfather’s eyes, and anything else paled in comparison.  When we tried to get him to watch other shows that we thought would catch his interest because they were also westerns or dramas, he would blow us off and say “awww, that’s a repeat,” to which I would many times say, “but Grandfather, it’s a premiere, it’s never been on before.” And then there would be a back and forth over that because…see above about our spats – lol.  Thus, if he didn’t see Lorne Greene or Pernell Roberts after a couple of scenes, it probably wasn’t worth his full attention.
  8. There are many ways to show people you love them – Grandfather didn’t say things like “I love you.” It just wasn’t how he was raised. However, he loved and trusted my father, his oldest, and made it known by putting him in charge of his estate and the management of the farm decades before he was too old to keep farming himself. But the funniest thing he did was to name animals after people he loved. Yes, there was a dog named Gina at some point. The most well-known animal on the farm, however, was a horse named after his beloved daughter-in-law (and my mother), Marge.  To this day, we laugh because he was so proud to honor her with her own animal namesake, who incidentally was the one horse that actually was able to be tamed for horseback riding by the family and had amazing longevity.
  9. There’s something to the concept of yin and yang – Two bitters and one sweet…this was my grandfather’s recipe for snuff.  Yes, he dipped snuff, and when he would run low and ask us to pick some up, he would always ask for a ratio of 2:1 bitter to sweet.  This was his magic, what worked for him…his yin and yang, if you will.
  10. Fighting for equal rights can begin at any age, even if you’re still in elementary school – Grandfather recounted tales of times when he was young and he and others had occasion to run from the KKK.  To know that this force of evil had been multigenerational was both frightening and humbling.  What he had not grown accustomed to as a man born in 1910, however, was the changing role of women in society.  As girls, he would often rebuff my younger female cousin and I when we would ask to help him with projects around the farm, stating “Naw!  This is not for girls; this is something I’m gonna get one of the boys to do when I can catch one of them.” However, since we were around more, we sometimes became his next best bet, and would press him until he would finally let us help a little bit more with time.
  11. Compassion and empathy are important to all God’s creatures, and all creatures are destined to be a part of the circle of Life – My grandparents’ home was my preschool.  I was around them so much that I really learned a great deal by tagging behind them when they were planting in the gardens and caring for the animals.  On one particular occasion, there was a goat who was sick, and I begged to get the chance to try to make him better.  So they brought him in the house and I sat in the middle of the floor trying to feed and pet him for hours, thinking I was making some progress.  Long story short, he was practically dead when they agreed to let me bring him in the house, but they humored me and let me try to help anyway.  He didn’t make it, but I still had the chance to see what it was like to experience the cycle of life in an up close and personal kind of way.  I don’t recall what they said to me after I realized he had indeed died and my cousins laughed and laughed (for an unreasonable and lengthy amount of time, I might add), but whatever it was, gave me the kind of peace that I needed in that moment.
  12. It’s okay to be a little dramatic sometimes; everyone needs someone in their lives who can display the full gamut of emotional range – Grandfather was certainly ahead of his time in terms of showing his sensitive side.  He was not afraid to show his full emotion about any and everything, turning beet red and crying and screaming when upset, or laughing loud enough to almost rock the house when literally tickled pink.
  13. The element of surprise can be one of your best tools – A farrier is the fancy and formal name for the job that my grandfather did on the side besides being a farmer.  Of course I don’t know if he ever called it that and we most certainly never referred to it as such, but we always said that he ‘shoed horses.’ People would drive up with their horses and he would shoe them under the big oak tree in the front yard.  Sometimes, we would run out to ask him a question about something when he was right in the middle of one of these jobs.  The only thing is that…my grandfather was, to put it mildly, ethnically ambiguous.  His grandchildren, his children, and his wife, however, were not.  So to his customers who were having their horses shoed, it would often come as a significant surprise to see one of his grandchildren hopping out under the tree screaming “Grandfather, grandfather!”  I often wonder if this changed the face of his business over the years.
  14. Home is where the heart is, and the heart is the home to the best memories of loved ones – When the people closest to him passed away, my grandfather chose not to participate in their funeral services.  He, instead, chose to remember them as he had last seen them.  This stance was not a popular one for many of his family members and friends, but he stood firm in it, and I now respect that this was the decision that he made for himself.  This is not a sentiment that we share; however, I have come to respect the fact that people grieve loss in different ways, and who am I to judge that my way is any better or worse than theirs?
  15. You can love the Lord, but still cuss a little – My grandfather was on the usher board at his church.  This is hilarious because I don’t recall him actually attending church much, or hardly at all.  In fact, he used to say, “The Bible said wherever there are two or three gathered in His name! So I don’t have to go to no church to talk about the Lord.” And then one of his smart-mouthed grandchildren would often retort with, “But Grandfather, we are just sitting up here, we aren’t gathered in His name, I mean…I don’t think this is what He meant.” Nevertheless, he did love Jesus, but he did also cuss a little.  And sometimes more than a little.  He was especially fond of a four letter word that started with the letter ‘S’, and I’m yet to find anyone who is quite so adroit at vocalizing it.

When we lost this colorful character of a force only 3 weeks before his 93rd birthday, a void had been left that had before been almost unimaginable.  So much of who he was served as a compass for home as I traveled away for school and medical training. I decided that, on the day we would have his services, I would go to the funeral home and spend time alone with him just to say my own personal goodbye.  It was then that the lightbulb really came on.  As I stood there in meditation with my grandfather’s earthly self, I realized that he, his true spirit, was not really there.  In a strange way, I felt fortunate to have that time there that day.  I learned that my grandfather’s spirit so clearly continues to live on in the places he visited, the things he enjoyed, and the people he loved, including people like me.

 

 

How Apartheid Came to My Corner of the World, a.k.a. I Was Blessed with Remarkable Parents

/ ginamowill / 12 Comments

In a few weeks, Veterans Day will mark the second anniversary of my father’s death.  I become admittedly more emotional as more days like this-birthdays and holidays and anniversaries- come and go.   However, as I now reflect on his life and the influence my parents have had on the person who I am today, I find that I’m able to laugh and smile a little bit more each and every day since he left this Earth.

Now that I’m the parent of a preschooler, I realize that my husband and I are constructing our parenting style largely based on that of our own parents,  and based on our life experiences.  When I think of what an amazing job my mother and father did with raising us as responsible, caring, and hardworking individuals, I am humbled at the task ahead.  What has stood the test of time as the seminal event that characterized how my father and mother parented was a Christmas in the early 1980s.

My parents were hardworking people – my mom was a first grade teacher, and my dad was a human resources manager for the county government.  They were born and raised in a time of great distress for blacks in this country, when a poem that began ‘Southern trees bear strange fruit’ was relevant.  Jim Crow was a huge part of their every day life, even up until my older sister was born.  They could give firsthand accounts of developments in the Civil Rights movement, with my dad marching with Rev. King when he came to Memphis on behalf of unjust treatment of sanitation workers; they felt the impact of his assassination in their very own city.  With this background and experience with social injustice, it is no surprise that they recognized the importance of education, voting, volunteerism, and general civic involvement.  However, they also possessed the desire to understand different cultures and to foster that understanding in us.

So it was in this spirit that my father volunteered our family for an exchange program of sorts between the county government and some powers-that-be connected to South Africa.  And it came to be that during a holiday season circa 1984, we had a woman from Durban, South Africa, Gugu, come and stay with us.  We were so very mesmerized by everything she said or did.  She was equally as fascinated with us and our practices. For several days, she broke bread, went shopping, and regaled us with stories of life in South Africa.  In one case, she noted that my father always liked to sit in the recliner in our den; one day, my mother sat down in that same chair, and Gugu nearly fainted from upset!  She screamed at my mother, “Margaret, Margaret you cannot sit in that chair!!!!  That is your husband’s chair; you must get out.”  Needless to say, Gugu learned that, although my dad was the head of the household, that didn’t equate to the recliner only being reserved for his back-end!  My sister, mother, and I all learned that the liberties that we possess in this country as women were very different from those of our African sisters; Gugu’s distress at what she took to mean disrespect towards my father in occupying ‘his’ seat gave us a peek into the world that she would return to when this little experiment ended.   Stories like those abounded as we learned about the big differences in our cultures.  Christmas was so much richer that year because we shared it with our new friend from halfway across the world.  And I was 9 years old that year, so I had a full Christmas list of everything that I wanted, including the dolls that I had most begged for throughout the year.  This year was no exception, and I was thrilled because I had longed for a doll who could be fed with a bottle of water and she could use the potty; I mean…she came with her own pink, heart-shaped potty!  How cool was that?

When the holidays were coming to an end, Gugu packed up and got ready to leave.  I will never quite forget her departure, because my scarcely-crying mother shed actual tears, and the two of them seemed devastated that their new sisterhood was going to be broken.  This was long before low-cost international phone rates, the internet, and social media, so goodbye was truly going to be goodbye for these new sister-friends who had bonded in just a few short days, despite the major differences in cultural backgrounds.  As she prepared to leave, Gugu gifted my mother with handmade jewelry from South Africa; my mother put it in a sacred place in her dresser, and it was to be handled by nobody but her.  My parents gave her some items to take back and share with others about her experience with her American family.

And then…it happened.  While putting me to bed the night before Gugu’s departure, my parents talked to me and explained that Gugu was going home to her husband and little daughter, who was around my age.  They explained to me that Gugu’s family lived far away in Africa, where her little girl lived very differently than I did.  They tried to explain the basic concept of apartheid and oppression to me, and I think I got a rudimentary understanding and thought it all sounded very sad.  So then they said that they thought it would be a great and compassionate idea for me to gift one of my dolls to Gugu to take back for her little girl; after all, her daughter had never ever had a doll who was black and looked like she did.  I can’t remember exactly what I felt at that moment, but I do remember that suddenly, the story about Gugu’s little girl and how they lived in Africa didn’t sound that sad.  However, I knew that my parents wouldn’t suggest something like this if they weren’t going to make me do it, so I acquiesced, saying that they could give her the doll that I loved so much two years ago, who had grown out of favor since I had my new heart-shaped potty doll.  But. No.  That simply wouldn’t do, they said.  I needed to give away my lovely new doll, because they were not sending Gugu all the way back to South Africa with some old, raggedy doll I didn’t want anymore.  They talked to me about compassion, sacrifice, selflessness and how sometimes you have to let something that you really want go and give to others to be the best person you can be.  So they told me to sleep on it, but pretty much made it clear that I would be giving away my new, shiny drink and potty doll in the morning.  And that is exactly what happened the next morning; as my mother hugged and hugged and cried and cried with Gugu, I was devastated because I was losing the one doll I had coveted all year-long!

That Christmas remains one of the richest experiences of my life.  Years later, after apartheid had ended in South Africa, my mother received a phone call from Gugu.  My mother was getting ready for work, so they didn’t get to talk for long, but my mom learned that Gugu was divorced and getting to do many things to fulfill her dreams, and she sounded so very happy!  I have tried to find Gugu through internet searches and social media, but to no avail.  How I wish I could find out how her little girl is doing (and what she thought of that doll!) Little did she know that she played a critical role in the lessons of virtue that my parents instilled in me at a young age.

Of course now that I am an adult and a parent, I’m embarrassed that I whined so over a simple doll.  What I love to remember most is how skilled my mother and father were at parenting a young girl.  I really was raised by remarkable people, and I value them more since I can now use their nurturing and teaching skills as a yardstick to measure my own with my son.  So this year as the holiday season approaches, I will undoubtedly have moments of overwhelming sadness over missing my father; but I will also be grateful for the blessing of memories of that Christmas when they gave me the gift of thinking beyond myself.