The better part of a century

I headed south for Independence Day to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday. Gathered with my brothers, our conversation devolved into politics. (Yes, I do mean devolved.) Finally, after the conversation grew defensive, my middle brother apologized for allowing talk to veer into sensitive topics upon which several of us disagreed and said to Mom, "I'm sure you're wondering how you managed to raise four conservative children."

Part of the conversation dealt with the civil unrest (to put it politely) currently sending the USA into convulsions. My mother, who grew up in a rural community in central Minnesota, never saw her first black person until she went to college. Yet, I never met another person so lacking in bigotry as she. Now 80 years old, Mom has lived below the Mason-Dixon line for over 30 years, often in communities where the minority population outnumbers whites. She chooses to attend churches where worship vastly differs from the solemnity of northern parishes, all due to the multicultural influence of diverse communities of worshipers. And, yet, my brothers and I detected a subtle double standard that she herself did not recognize.

"If you didn't vote, you have no right to complain," she told my middle brother who objected to both presidential candidates in 2016. However, in the same breath, she did not fault others who failed to vote and who demand reparations or concessions for certain injustices, perceived or real. That ignores two truisms. First, our political system has protocols in place to effect the change people want to see: elections. To wit: if you don't vote, you have no right to complain. Second, no one ever guaranteed life was fair. Suck it up and do your best to overcome and prosper.

Other than politics, that evening's discussion brought to mind how my mother's opinion had or had not changed over the past several months on a handful of items. In March when COVID-19 was claiming victims left and right and states were shutting down in lockstep, my mother spoke to me from her patio where she and three friends sat outside playing bridge. I remember her saying, "We're in the sunshine, there's a breeze blowing, and we're sitting a couple feet apart from each other. We're okay." She expressed no fear of contagion and trusted in her own health, her friends' health, and the salubrious effect of being outdoors in fresh air and sunshine to offset any potential for infection.

Fast forward to July. Since Mom lives in a retirement community, the Grim Reaper makes frequent visits. Recently, two of Mom's friends died. Another sits by her husband's deathbed. (He's dying of cancer, not COVID.) With the visit of her four children, their spouses, and two few grandchildren (and one great grandchild), Mom decided to self-quarantine. She won't be seen in public until the end of the month. She confessed to having purchased a box of masks and to wearing masks whenever she goes shopping. She's become fearful of the virus, where once she appeared to have adopted a cavalier attitude toward it.

Whether the former Air Force nurse has a new appreciation for the vagaries of mutating contagion or whether she's merely feeling her own mortality--understandable at 80 years old--my mother's attitude toward health and safety has changed. That observation led to a conversation between my husband and me and my lack of bedside manner. He joked that if I had followed my mother into nursing, my response to anyone coming in with an injury would have been, "Suck it up."

My older son confirmed that opinion.

I suppose living on a farm with livestock does tend to make me dismiss boo-boos as inconsequential and regard society's fascination with creating a practically sterile environment as utter nonsense.

Any fan of Jane Austen with a smidgen of knowledge about the fad for emotional sensitivity in late 18th century English society (ergo, Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility) might find today's disconnect between practical stoicism and overweening empathy worthy of interest. (For more information on that particular subject, watch PBS' A Very British Romance.)

Being an author, I find such dichotomy and change interesting, even when it has to be pointed out to me. Incorporating conflict and change into fictional characters makes them more realistic and adds depth. People change throughout the courses of their lives, so should the characters in our stories. That means our characters need not always stand stalwart: they can display flaws in reasoning, live blissfully unaware of their own contradictions, bend to circumstances, and even completely reverse their opinions given sufficient reason and motivation.

Storytelling, being a product of human imagination, also changes. I see it in my own work produced over the years. Where I once used a certain trope, I now eliminate it from consideration. It no longer fits my worldview. It conflicts with my ever-evolving values and opinions and, dare I say, enlightenment. What was once acceptable is no longer. Somehow--and maybe due to the influence of political rage--redemption no longer seems feasible because enlightenment and forgiveness no longer seem possible.

Do I apologize for that? No. I acknowledge it and learn from it and go forward as I have done for the better part of a century.

Every word counts.

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