Archive for the ‘Remembrance’ Category
Keeping Hope Alive . . .
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing my best to keep hope alive. Life has been difficult and frustrating; it’s almost inconceivable to me, sometimes, that I’m still alive and my husband Michael has been dead for nearly ten years.
And I’m all that remains of what we’d hoped and dreamed for. I’m the only one who can finish his work, as well as my own. And as it’s difficult for me to figure out just what Michael had intended to do — writer Ursula Jones called this phenomenon “breaking into” someone else’s thinking (she was discussing finishing up her sister Diana Wynne Jones’ novel THE ISLANDS OF CHALDEA in the end-notes) — sometimes I wonder if I’m doing the right thing in carrying on Michael’s work.
Then again, I loved Michael, and I loved his stories, too. It makes me feel closer to him to do whatever I can to keep things going, even if what I write isn’t exactly the same as what he’d have written. Even if it’s taking me ten times as long to figure out this new novella set on Bubastis as it undoubtedly would’ve taken him, at least I’m trying to do it.
And that, in and of itself, is worthwhile. Michael would tell me so, if he were here . . . though of course, if he were, I’d not be doing this.
Mind you, I’m not the only writer who has ever wondered whether or not what I’m doing makes any sense. This blog from writersrelief.com about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and writing explains why writing and hope are so inextricably mixed:
As human beings and creative writers, we sometimes have a tumultuous relationship with hope. Hope keeps us going. We hope someone will understand what we’re trying to say with our writing. We hope the world will be a better place for our children. But when times get tough, hope can also feel like cold comfort.
Why have hope? we ask ourselves. What good will it do me if I know I can’t succeed? Sometimes when the task ahead seems truly impossible, hope seems futile.
But few people understand what it means to be hopeful as deeply as the man we honor every year at this time: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a pioneer of the civil rights movement. King’s dream was simple, but achieving it meant overcoming countless barriers and complexities. In many ways, hope was the driving force behind his remarkable achievements.
I missed this blog when it was first put up in January of 2014, but I find its words to be especially meaningful right now. (After all, studying the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., is never a bad thing.) I cannot imagine the odds against Dr. King when he first started agitating for civil rights and fair pay for laborers and equal rights for women and any number of other positive things — and he must’ve felt discouraged from time to time, too.
He didn’t show it very often, because Dr. King knew that people needed to believe that their lives, however meaningless they seemed, could indeed make a difference. So on bad days, he must’ve said, “I’m going to go out there and do the best I can,” and given whatever speech he had planned with whatever energy he had. And in so doing, he helped to lift people up with his words.
Words matter. Whether you’re an orator or a writer (or somewhere in between).
When I write a story, I want to make you think about something beyond yourself. Pondering something else can give you hope, because it means you can still think, still feel, still understand.
And I know that was Michael’s motivation for writing, also. He wanted to divert people, get them outside of themselves, and give them a few hours of entertainment that might actually make ’em smile . . . maybe that’s why I’ve pushed so hard with my own novel AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, because as a comic fantasy, what else can it do but make people smile?
Before I go, let me share one quote (also cited in the Writer’s Relief article) I found especially meaningful from Dr. King: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
That, in a nutshell, is why I keep writing. Because I believe in hope. And that hope has to come from my own, hard work and effort — otherwise, why would it be worth anything?
12 Years Ago Today…
. . . I married the love of my life, Michael B. Caffrey, in Waukegan, Illinois.
Had Michael lived, we’d be celebrating twelve happy years together. I have no doubt of this.
I also have no doubt that Michael is the person I was intended to be with all along. I didn’t find him until I was in my mid-thirties, going through a second divorce. But I did find him, we did marry, and we had two wonderfully blessed years together.
I know duration does not equal value. (If it did, my first marriage would be three and a half times more important than my marriage to Michael. Which is flatly absurd.) But I do wish we’d have had more time together.
That said, out of our union came several wonderful things. The Elfyverse, for one . . . I can’t imagine writing the ELFY duology (of which part one is AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE) without knowing Michael, because I wouldn’t have had any idea at all what love truly was about without him.
In 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4-8, the Bible says this about love (quoting the GOD’S WORD® Translation from BibleHub.com):
Love is patient. Love is kind. Love isn’t jealous. It doesn’t sing its own praises. It isn’t arrogant. 5It isn’t rude. It doesn’t think about itself. It isn’t irritable. It doesn’t keep track of wrongs. 6It isn’t happy when injustice is done, but it is happy with the truth. 7Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up.
8Love never comes to an end.**
Note that this is exactly how Michael was, with me. He was extremely patient. He was unfailingly kind. He certainly wasn’t jealous — he was the farthest possible thing from that. He was a self-effacing man who, when I complimented him, almost always tried to turn it away — and when he did accept it, did so modestly. (Or humorously. Or maybe both.)
And I believe verse 5 — love not being rude, not thinking about itself, not being irritable and not keeping track of wrongs — also applies to Michael. Because he wasn’t rude. (Trust me; with two ex-husbands behind me, I well know what rude can be in a marital context.) And he faced life with a courage and optimism that I’ve never seen out of another living soul . . . something that continues to give me strength, nearly ten years after his body went to dust.
I especially think verse 6 in this particular translation applies to Michael. He hated injustice with a passion. But he loved the truth, even if the truth was difficult to understand and/or frustrating.
(Personally, I think that was the Zen Buddhist in him. But I digress.)
And verse 7, too, sounds much like him. Michael believed with all his being that I would make it. No matter what happened to us — and we suffered through a flood that damaged many of our belongings, not to mention a huge and financially ruinous cross-country move, and many other things — he believed that success was what you made of it.
And because I got up and tried my best every day, whether it was playing my music, composing music, or of course writing and editing (which he went a long way toward teaching me, and I wasn’t the most apt of pupils), he honestly told me I was a success — and meant it.
To him, it wouldn’t matter that I wasn’t world-famous. What mattered to him instead was that I was my best self, and kept being my best self, no matter what other awful things might happen.
And while I intentionally truncated verse 8 (that’s what the two stars are about, in this context), I like this version’s translation — “Love never comes to an end.”
Because that’s how I feel about it, too.
So while this is a “sadiversary” for me, insofar that I’d much rather Michael be alive so we could do the normal things couples do when they’re celebrating the date of their wedding, it’s also an oddly happy day, too.
I got to marry and be with the most wonderful person I’ve ever known. Not many people can say that. And he loved me until the end of his life, with everything he had, and I believe wherever he is now in the positive Afterlife, he continues to love me, too.
And I know I will always, always, always love Michael, too.
That’s more precious to me than any amount of money or fame could ever be.
Poet, Renaissance Woman Maya Angelou Dead at 86
Poet, Actress, and Renaissance woman Maya Angelou has died, according to the Associated Press. She was 86.
Ms. Angelou wrote many poems, several autobiographies (her best-known was probably I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS), acted in the original ROOTS TV mini-series and appeared, as herself, in Tyler Perry’s MADEA’S FAMILY REUNION, where she recited a poem that discussed true love and its timeless nature.
In reading her obituary, I was struck by how many different things Ms. Angelou did during her life. She was a singer, an actress, a dancer, once owned a brothel . . . writers often kid each other about how many different jobs we’ve held, but it sounds like Ms. Angelou had all of the rest of us beat on that score.
All of that experience went into her writing, deepening and broadening it immensely. She was unafraid to be who she was, and admitted to several very bad things that had happened to her early in life. Somehow, she rose above those awful things, and became her best self.
It’s rare when a writer or poet gets to know a President. Ms. Angelou got to know at least three: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. All three men have said in the past that they felt inspired by her, so I cannot believe it would be any different now that she’s passed on.
I hadn’t been aware of half of the things Ms. Angelou did during her thoroughly extraordinary life. But I honor her for everything she did, everything she said — even if I didn’t always like it — and for living a life that inspired millions.
May her Afterlife be everything she hoped it would be.
A Quick Friday Round-up
Folks, things continue to be very challenging around here, but I thought I’d try to catch you all up on what’s been going on with me over the past few days.
First, I just played a concert with the University of Wisconsin-Parkside Community Band on the clarinet. I was fortunate enough to have solo clarinet parts on two pieces (Gordon Jacob’s William Byrd Suite and Gioachino Rossini’s La Cambiale di Matrimonio), and my former clarinet teacher, Tim Bell — who’s been retired for several years now, but looks as youthful and energetic as ever — told me he thought I played well, which was very nice to hear.
The reason I am mentioning this concert, though, is because it was the final concert for Professor Mark Eichner, who’s been the Director of Bands at UW-Parkside for many years. Professor Eichner was my faculty advisor when I finished up my Bachelor’s degree at Parkside many moons ago, and also helped me rough out some musical compositions (Parkside did not have a composition teacher at that time, so Prof. Eichner was gracious enough to help me on an independent study basis); I couldn’t have had a better one.
The Community Band played as well as we ever have in order to salute Prof. Eichner and send him into retirement on a good note. (Pardon the pun.)
Best of all, Prof. Eichner received three standing ovations after the concert was over . . . no musician could’ve had a better send-off.
Next, I wanted to let you all know that author Dina von Lowenkraft has put up a blog for the most recent Blog Hop (called “4×4” or “Four Questions for the Writer”) . . . please go check that out when you have time. (She had tagged me, as did Katharine Eliska Kimbriel; I discussed my own answers here.)
I am also happy to report that I read Eric Brown and Jason Cordova’s new novella KAIJU APOCALYPSE (which I discussed here) and actually reviewed it on Amazon. I enjoyed it; it’s a very quick read with a lot of action, very well-paced.
Other than that, though, it’s highly unlikely I’ll be reviewing anything over at Shiny Book Review (SBR) this weekend due to my cousin’s passing. But I should be back at it next week, so do stay tuned.
Aside from that, what’s going on with my favorite baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers? Over the past week-plus, the Brewers have lost six of the last eight; before that, they’d started the season 20-7. Their record now stands at 22-13.
This is maddening mostly because the Brewers are not hitting very well. The starting pitchers have been really good to excellent with one exception (Matt Garza, I’m looking squarely at you), and the relievers have mostly been lights-out.
Still, I’m hoping the Brewers’ bats will get it together.
Before I go, it’s time for my weekly shameless plug: if you’re interested in buying something I wrote, or something my husband Michael wrote, please go to the “about Barb” page; there are links there that will get you to Amazon so you can purchase them to your heart’s content.
Enjoy your weekend, folks. (As for me, I intend to think about my cousin Jacki and reflect on her life, which was one well-lived.)
A Plea to the Media: Leave the Family Members of those Lost on Malaysian Airways Flight 370 Alone
For the past seventeen or eighteen days, depending on which side of the globe you’re on, it seems that every news person in the world has been covering the strange and sudden disappearance of Malaysian Airways flight 370, abbreviated as MH370 for short.
Every night, news organizations such as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, BBC America, and others have breathlessly reported on any available lead as to where this plane went. Various theories have been expounded, some having to do with Visual Flight Rules and how they might apply (if you’re flying low, you’re on VFR), some having to do with why the pilots might have simulators in their houses, various scenarios about how the cockpit might have had a catastrophic accident, and many, many more.
During all this time, the various families of the passengers who’d boarded MH370 expecting a safe and sedate flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing have been inundated with all of this. They’ve had to try to remain calm, even as the reputations of the pilots have been besmirched over and over again; they’ve been told all sorts of conflicting information, as no one can even seemingly figure out exactly where the flight may have gone down.
Worst of all, the Malaysian Prime Minister, a man by the name of Najib Razak, seemingly says something different every single day. He can’t confirm anything, because the information is constantly changing, and the satellite data coming in from other countries seems to directly contradict anything he says anyway.
So when Mr. Razak said earlier today (as reported by Wolf Blitzer on CNN) that there is now “conclusive evidence” that MH370 went down in the Indian Ocean and that all passengers and crew must be accounted dead, who can blame the families for not believing him?
See, the families are in between a rock and a hard place. They want information; they have to know that it would be an increasingly long shot for anyone to survive in the cold ocean in choppy seas without land, even with floatation devices and possibly some food and a bit of water, after seventeen-plus days. But the information must be impeccable, must be comprehensible, and must be logical.
More to the point, every available authority should agree on it.
Because after all this time, with all of the information that’s been thrown at them day after day after day, the families of the passengers and crew of lost MH370 have to be completely shellshocked.
That being said, the families have reacted with dismay, frustration, loss, and a whole lot of screaming to the recent revelations by Prime Minister Razak. All of this is completely understandable.
What isn’t understandable is why the media insists on showing these poor people being carried out on stretchers, screaming at the top of their lungs while gesticulating wildly, or other scenes of pain, loss, and outright suffering.
Where is the decency of the media? Why aren’t they treating these poor families the way they, themselves, would wish to be treated if for some reason their family members and loved ones had gone down on MH370 instead?
Granted, not every media outlet is showing the screaming. MSNBC seems to have restrained itself, for the most part, especially in recent days, for which I thank them. Fox News has not shown a lot of that, either, during the past four or five days. I don’t think BBC America has shown much in the past few days (though it showed a lot more earlier), and that’s a good thing as well.
But CNN definitely has.
Worse, it keeps doing it, and shows no sign of stopping any time soon.
My view is simple: The media needs to leave these poor families alone. (Yes, CNN, I’m looking squarely at you.) They have suffered enough as it is.
And unfortunately, they will continue to suffer for a very, very long time, even if the current information is absolutely accurate and even if the bodies of their loved ones are eventually found and recovered.
The only thing CNN and other media outlets like them are doing at this point is to prolong the agony of the suffering families.
And that, my friends, is just wrong.
Adam Lanza’s Father Finally Speaks . . .
In a new article in the New Yorker, writer Andrew Solomon discusses Adam Lanza with one of the very few people who knew him well — his father, Peter Lanza.
Now, why is this significant? Well, no one’s sure why Adam Lanza killed twenty-six children at Sandy Hook Elementary School to this day, and despite what we’ve learned about Adam Lanza over the past year-plus, we possibly never will know, either.
But at least Peter Lanza knew his son, Adam, and can discuss Adam’s mental illness and other issues . . . which is probably why Mr. Lanza consented to be interviewed by Andrew Solomon in the first place.
I wrote about the Sandy Hook school shooting back in December of 2012, and at that time asked the basic question: Why did this happen?
As I said at the time:
I normally have sympathy for the mentally ill, even severely mentally ill types like it sounds like the latest shooter, Adam Lanza, probably was. (And I’m decidedly not talking about his Asperger’s Syndrome; I’m talking about the behavioral issues he’d have likely had whether he had AS or not.) But in this case, I can find no mercy in my heart for him — far less mercy than one of the parents of the victims, Robbie Parker, who’s already expressed sympathy for the surviving family members of Adam Lanza.
Mr. Parker is a far better person than I.
My focus is elsewhere, because I just do not understand why any responsible parent, such as Nancy Lanza has been described, would ever allow a troubled young man like her son to get a hand on any of her guns.
Much less teach him to shoot them herself, as it appears she did.
What Peter Lanza has done by consenting to an interview by Mr. Solomon in the New Yorker is to answer that question — why did Nancy Lanza teach her son to shoot in the first place? And why did she seemingly enable her son to withdraw into his own violent fantasy world rather than get him treatment?
In addition, Mr. Lanza also discusses many, many other things. He believes that his son Adam would’ve gladly shot him, too, if Adam had had the chance . . . a tremendously sad thing for any father to say about his own son. And he discusses why he thinks Nancy Lanza, his ex-wife, took the odd approach of laissez-faire parenting on the one hand with over-the-top enablement on the other, too, and through writer Solomon comes to a somewhat healing conclusion that perhaps this was just the best Nancy Lanza knew how to do.
The eight-page article in the New Yorker is well worth reading, if you haven’t seen it already (again, the link is here), but it is unsettling.
I’m glad Peter Lanza, Adam’s father, has spoken. I’m glad he was able to shed some light on things from his perspective.
I know that speaking must’ve been difficult for Mr. Lanza. I applaud him for doing it, and hope it will help others in some way.
But it’s a sad, sad commentary when a father says of his own son, “I wish he’d never been born.”
Especially when it’s true.
Story Complete, Sent to Lightspeed’s Special Women Destroy SF Issue
I’m pleased to report that I was able to finish my military science fiction story to my satisfaction, and sent it off earlier this evening to Lightspeed magazine for their “Women Destroy SF” special issue.
The main reason I’m discussing this, other than the fact I mentioned I was writing the story in the first place and wanting to give y’all an update, is because it’s Valentine’s Day.
I know that sounds like a non sequitur, but it isn’t. (Hear me out, OK?)
This particular story is set in my husband’s universe, the same one used in both Joey Maverick stories (available right now at Amazon, here and here). It does not feature Joey Maverick. Instead, it features a doctor, Amanda Hirschbeck, and the choices she must make during a brutal firefight.
I don’t want to give too much away about the plot, partly because I’m hoping that somehow, some way, this story is going to come out and you’ll all be able to read it. But I will say that it deals with loss, redemption, sacrifice, and personal integrity . . . I’m proud to have written it, and I’m even more proud to say this is the first story I’ve written in Michael’s universe that’s entirely mine.
When I started working on Michael’s stories, years ago, I wasn’t sure I could do this. I really didn’t think I’d ever get to the point I could write a decent-to-better story set in a milSF milieu, as that’s not my normal genre — I usually write fantasy, and humorous fantasy at that.
But I’ve had some very good people cheering me on, including the inestimable Katharine Eliska Kimbriel, the incomparable Rosemary Edghill, my first writing mentor (she told me years ago that I needed to make these stories my own, and I wasn’t ready to listen; now, though, I finally am, and I owe it all to her for planting the seed in my mind that I could, indeed, do this), and everyone involved in my writer’s group Barfly_Slush.
Note that the reason I mentioned both Ms. Kimbriel and Ms. Edghill is because they are both outstanding writers and editors. They have many good books out. And as I can’t possibly ever repay either one of them, much less both, for all of their advice and guidance, it seems wise to let you all know about them in the hopes that maybe you’ll go to their respective Amazon Author Pages (Ms. Edghill’s is here, Ms. Kimbriel’s is here) and find a book you like — then buy it.
At any rate, I’m proud that I was able to write a story in my husband’s universe. It’s a good story. I hope it’ll find a home.
But I hope you can excuse me if I think of it as my own, personal Valentine’s Day gift to Michael . . . because without him, and leaving his universe behind for me to play in it as much as I like, this story would not exist.
Shirley Temple Black Dies at 85
Yesterday evening, Shirley Temple Black passed away at 85.
As I don’t normally write about movie stars, you might be wondering why I’m writing about Mrs. Black. I’ve made an exception for her, mostly because of her second career as a diplomat for the United States . . . and partly because she was an extraordinary woman in her own right, someone most people could use as an example to emulate.
This obituary from the New York Times clearly illustrates why Mrs. Black was such an astonishing woman. Here’s a few words from that obit:
Mrs. Black returned to the spotlight in the 1960s in the surprising new role of diplomat, but in the popular imagination she would always be America’s darling of the Depression years, when in 23 motion pictures her sparkling personality and sunny optimism lifted spirits and made her famous. From 1935 to 1939 she was the most popular movie star in America, with Clark Gable a distant second. She received more mail than Greta Garbo and was photographed more often than President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
. . .When she turned from a magical child into a teenager, audience interest slackened, and she retired from the screen at 22. But instead of retreating into nostalgia, she created a successful second career for herself.
After marrying Charles Alden Black in 1950, she became a prominent Republican fund-raiser. She was appointed a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969. She went on to win wide respect as the United States ambassador to Ghana from 1974 to 1976, was President Gerald R. Ford’s chief of protocol in 1976 and 1977, and became President George H. W. Bush’s ambassador to Czechoslovakia in 1989, serving there during the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.
The obituary also discusses Mrs. Black’s public discussion of her own breast cancer — widely credited for popularizing the need for breast cancer care, treatment, and discussion (as it used to be stigmatized, and women often suffered in silence — hard to believe in 2014, but real nonetheless), her divorce (she was married to John Agar, Jr., before marrying Mr. Black at age 21), and how difficult it was initially to come down from the dizzying heights of child stardom to become her practical, level-headed adult self.
Mrs. Black was a Republican at a time when you could be a moderate and still be successful in politics. She was a powerful woman because she was smart — she was well-regarded by Henry Kissinger, who was himself no fool — and because she never stopped trying to improve herself, her mind, and the world around her.
I’ve admired Mrs. Black’s adult career for years, but I admire it even more now that some of the missing pieces (like her early divorce) have been filled in thanks to the excellent obituary at the New York Times.
We have lost an extraordinary woman with the passing of Mrs. Black. She was an American original, and she will be greatly missed.
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