Generational Reflections

Ancestral mirrors

I’m one of those rare people who not only know where my great-grandparents are buried but can visit monthly if I so choose. I haven’t in the last couple of years and feel guilty about it. On the other hand, I’ve been using that time to attend to my aging mother who is part of our bloodline. I imagine this honors them just as well as a visit to their graves. She’ll be joining them in the not-too-far future. But they wait, their names on worn monuments of native Maine granite.

I didn’t grow up there, although my mother was born in the house where she now lives, as have previous generations of her family. I grew up in Pennsylvania, far from my cousins and grandmother. Mom took me to visit twice yearly, and Maine always felt like home to me in a way that Pennsylvania never did. Summer in Maine is mostly lovely [mosquitoes, aside] and winters were brutal when I was young.

My cousins grew up down the hill from that old farmhouse and could visit our grandmother at will. I envy them now, although it didn’t occur to me to do so when we were younger. I didn’t know what I was missing. I do now.

In retrospect, my childhood was filled with a lot of empty space. One could even call it parental neglect, although my infant needs were attended to by a caring woman who was a surrogate mother. Recently I read a blog here on Substack [which I can’t find now. Grumble.] about how Gen X was the first generation to experience the effect of easy divorce laws. I’d been speculating about this and having it confirmed was oddly reassuring. The numerous posts from Gen X vloggers about isolation have also been reassuring.

Still, I am very early Gen X and the divorce wave was just starting when my mother took advantage of it. And I was an only child.

I wish I’d realized sooner that the way to get better at socializing was to just get in there and be awkward, and do it. But I had no role models. Mom was also terrible at this, [I suspect now that she’s high-functioning autistic. She’s ADD at the minimum, and is oblivious to many social cues.] Her advantage is that she was taught young how to be polite and likable. Not teaching this to children before age two puts them at a serious disadvantage. At 93, her agreeableness is serving her well. She has dementia, but is nonetheless, a pleasant job for her caregivers.

There’s nothing trivial about this if you haven’t yet dealt with aging parents. Disagreeable old people can become a nightmare for their adult children, especially when there is a substantial physical distance between them. My mother isn’t like that. She has a sense of humor and humility that makes her caregivers love her. I should do so well when I’m in need of care. For this, she’s a good role model.

I visit monthly and have done so for 20+ years. Walking in the fields in my ancestral property in Maine, I watch the long slant of the winter sun as it descends towards the horizon. Woodpeckers tap the trees, crows caw, and squirrels chatter. One of my cats pricks his ears to focus on something scratching in the leaves nearby. Although the light is long and strange and almost alien, I know I’m safe here where my ancestors plowed the fields, now overgrown with pines and birch.

My mother wishes to pass in the house where she was born, and it looks like she’ll be able to do that. Our ancestors will be nearby to help her.

I hope that they will do the same for me someday, wherever I am.

Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. She lives with her husband, and is Mother of Cats; four boyz and one cranky gurl. Selina has written The Young Woman’s Goodlife Guide: Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 20. Or… Learn From My Pain, How to Train Your Cat: Using a Clicker and Leash to Keep Your Indoor Cat Happy and Healthy, and the Goodlife Guide to Nutrition.