The Words of Mother and Dad

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adoptee, adoption, aging, Charlottesville, Dad, Diaries, Letters, Memory, Mortality, Sunset, Virginia, Wisdom, World War II

Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.
~Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal

Note to readers: Before Richard and Reva Beard adopted me, the bond between them intensified. With each year of courtship, marriage and — most of all — through their World War II separation, they imagined the family they would build. The war made that dream even stronger. Though separated by 6,000 miles and 18 months, they corresponded every day. The letters were relegated to a file case in my parents retirement home. After Dad passed away, I asked my brother to send me the entire collection. Daddy had meant to write a book about his India experiences, but life got in the way. I inherited the thousands of handwritten epistles, quit my day job to read every one, and turned the best of them them into a book: From Calcutta with Love- The World War II Letters of Richard and Reva Beard. (Texas Tech University Press, 2002) The original missives were archived at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. In 2002, the Texas publisher gave me back the rights. Last year Pajarito Press in Los Alamos, New Mexico acquired them. I’m happy to announce that, eighty years after they were first written by mom and dad, the letters are again being presented to the world.

Richard and Reva, I’d like to believe, would be proud to share their words with the world.

If I could speak to Richard today,  I’d remind him of a certain conversation. When going through some of my old diaries, I found this entry:

 My father and I were walking around the gentle hills of Charlottesville, Virginia. I’d left Virginia for New Mexico, embarking on my own life, but I visited at least once or twice a year. He and my mother had moved to a senior community named “Stonehenge.” I found the title amusing, thinking it conjured up the wisdom of the ages. On this particular evening, I was out walking with the wisest man I knew.
    The sun was setting and mist arose from the earth. Instead of a blazing sunset like those I experienced in New Mexico, this “sky-scape” was layered in subtle pastels…pink, peach and gray.
    Though I don’t recall my exact words, I told my father that when I was 70, his age at the time, I wouldn’t mind dying. I would, I told him, be ready to leave the earth.
    “You’ll feel differently when you’re there,” he retorted. “You’ll want more years ahead of you. Many more years.” I wanted to disagree, but I knew that argument was futile. Daddy was strong minded.
    Life happened. Marriage, children, divorce, grandchildren. Suddenly I was the agemy father was when he made his pronouncement.
    He’d left years earlier, but I felt that at some mysterious psychic level, he could hear and understand me. “You were right,” I longed to tell him.

Join Elaine Pinkerton on alternate Mondays for reflections on the life through adoption colored glasses, hiking, reading books, and writing. The Hand of Ganesh, slated for mid-April publication, can be pre-ordered from Pocol Press. (Pull down the Books tab at the top of this page). Stay tuned for a publication date for From Calcutta with Love. Thanks so much for reading; Your comments and questions are  invited.

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Adopting Life in the Slow Lane

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Acceptancetion, adoptee, adoptee restoration, aging, Friendship, healing, Hiking, Injury, Railroad Tracks, Rails to Trails, Santa Fe Southern

Last Fall, I went from being physically fit to feeling 100 years old…

I expected to be much better by now. It’s been eight months since the hiking accident that laid me low. On September 22 of 2017, I lost my footing and fell on my back into the Nambe River. Then, with the help of friends (they were further ahead on the slippery uphill riverbank but quickly responded to my shouts for help) I was able to stand. They fished me out of the Nambe River, where I’d landed on boulders, and walked me a torturous three miles from forest to parking lot. Next stop, the Emergency Room, where it was declared “No broken bones.” I was told to get physical therapy, which I did twice weekly. After two months, I was worse than ever. Finally, my doctor ordered an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). Voila! There it was: a compression fracture in my lower spine. I opted against surgery, instead letting the vertebra heal naturally. The neurosurgeon told me the vertebra would take several months to mend on its own. I fully expected that I’d bounce back. After all, I was one who’d endured injuries from nine marathons and years of skiing. Surely I would improve with time and physical therapy.
Instead, the months dragged on and I got worse. My back had a mind of its own. The lumbar region rearranged itself (for lack of a better way to describe the situation) and I developed a pinched nerve. Help!…Was there no end in sight? I’d tried every therapy in the book, and fitness still eluded me.
I’ve had to say goodbye to the old ME and realize that with age comes much, much longer healing time. Gone are the days of hiking to Spirit Lake, Deception Peak and Santa Fe Baldy. Or even Atalaya, Picacho Peak and Sun Mountain. All of these are favorites of Santa Feans, and they used to be mine as well.
Whether I like it or not, now begins a new normal. Maybe not forever, but at least in the near term. I’ve been limited to routes that have little up and down. One such discovery is the trail that goes along the railroad tracks for the Santa Fe Southern. The line used to run from Lamy to Santa Fe. It is now defunct, but the tracks remain. Better known as “Rails to Trails,” it is-conducive to peaceful rambles. It’s also a popular byway for mountain bikers. Last Saturday, my friend Joalie and I walked the Rails to Trails for half an hour before seeing anyone else.
Finally, another traveler. It turned out to be Hope Kiah, a friend from long ago. Hope was my first webmeister. We’d met in the 1980s, a time when I promoted the first edition of Santa Fe on Foot, a guidebook that is still in print. Having a website then, long before everyone had gone online, was a big deal. Hope, who was riding a super-cool electric bicycle, was as amazed to see me as I was to see her. We stopped and chatted. It had been years. A wonderful reunion, out there in the middle of nowhere. The distant Sandia Mountains and high desert all around us, we caught up on our lives before she motored on to her home, some ten miles south and Joalie and I walked the mile back to our car. Life in the slow lane has its gifts.

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Join Elaine on alternate Mondays for reflections on the world as seen through adoption-colored glasses. She is currently writing a sequel to her latest novel All the Wrong Places. Your feedback is always welcome.

Postcards from the Ledge

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adoptee, Adoption recovery, aging, Attitude adjustment, C.G. Jung, discover, empower, family, Hiking, Monte Sol in Santa Fe, Rowing, The Privilege of Aging, The Transition Network

Dear Readers, I am still writing  about adoption-related issues. For this week, however, I’m venturing into another “A” word–>AGE! Not a popular topic here in

Monte Sol gives “old as the hills” new meaning

the Blogosphere, but nonetheless, I’m tackling it.
I’m lucky enough to live right across the road from a hiker-friendly foothill of the Rocky Mountains, Sun Mountain, or as it’s dubbed by the locals, “Monte Sol.” In fact, I am just back from a morning hike with my older son, who’s here visiting for a few weeks.    That is, we started out together.  As I was rounding the last switchback before the summit’s flat viewing area, my son strolled over to me as though he’d been waiting for a bit. For him, Monte Sol was the mere beginning of a trifecta hike.
We stood at the windy overlook and briefly discussed the possibilities. Even though my son urged me to continue with him to “Monte Luna” (Moon Mountain), I told him that I was happy to master just the first peak.
“Another time for Luna, ” I suggested. That was fine with him, and he

Join me every week for reflections on adoption and life!

took off down into the rocky gulch that led to another steep ascent. He disappeared into the pinon-lined canyon while I ambled solo down Monte Sol. I’d walked at top speed going up. Going down, I took time to enjoy views and reflect on the difference between our generations.
I do not feel “old,” but I am now older than I could ever have imagined being. Because I’m enjoying what Swiss psychotherapist C. G. Jung called the “afternoon” of life, it seems that my powers of adaptation have increased even as physical capabilities have diminished. When I was half my age, I ran marathons. Now I walk up Monte Sol, and that is enough.
Everyone we know—including ourselves— will someday be old-ER, or even (gasp) really OLD.  It’s not really cause for lament but rather for celebration. A reminder: not everyone reaches the “privilege of aging,” to quote the title of my friend Patricia Shapiro’s excellent book (The Privilege of Aging: Portraits of Twelve Jewish Women).
Perhaps because I have grown more accepting of my adoptee status, life seems to be offering many opportunities to reflect on this phenomenon of growing older.
I can’t help but notice that some friends who are considerably younger than I am are passing away, and it hurts. Each loss of a friend or loved one nibbles away, reminders of mortality.
Recently I attended an excellent discussion group hosted by The Transition Network. It comprised women, some of whom were in their fifties, others in their 60s and 70s.  The evening began with a writing session during which we were to imagine ourselves at age 80. After writing for 20 minutes, we shared our thoughts.
Nearly everyone in the group imagined themselves as healthy and mentally active. Other visions of being eighty included always learning and challenging the mind, being a good friend and having friends of all ages, making the choice to be happy, being unafraid of the advancing numbers.
One woman shared her experience of being on a rowing team in college, training every day no matter what the weather was up to. Most days of rowing training, she said, ranged from pleasant to difficult but some were nearly impossible. She related the challenges of rowing on days when wind howled and rain pelted, and she recalled the words of her coach. “Just keep rowing — no matter what.”
Be it gently rowing down the stream, toiling upstream, or just rowing through, perseverance and adaptation are keys to enjoying life’s passages. In dealing with both adoption and aging, it is best to simply “Row, row, row your boat…”