Never Promised You a Rose Garden

 I rarely watch network T.V.  Fortunately, I need not.  We have 2 'Smart" televisions, a Roku and our beloved "Prime", all of which allow for selection of some pretty fabulous viewing minus the intelligence-insults brought on by commercials and speeches by the biggest waste of viewing time, Donald Trump. CNN and real news shows are pretty much my limit. I prefer print to audio/visual presentations. I wasn't surprised to hear that our president "does not read" and that he learns all he has to (wants to) know, from FOX. This information, from his own sister who did not know her thoughts were going to go public. She had nothing to gain by being honest about her brother's shortcomings. The truth is the truth. 

So, I must admit, I have spent very little time watching either presidential candidate in real time.  I did catch up on speeches cast by a few key figures during both conventions and via YouTube, and credible news sources, watched, in horror at times, party members boasting about their exploits and promising a better America. I will let you rest in peace about your personal selection and hope for the best. Transparent about this, I cannot promise I will be.  It's too important to me on so many fronts. Furthermore, I don't think either party can or will be totally honest nor will either be able to deliver their personal agendas as they want voters to believe. Rarely has that happened in the history of the presidency. But never, in that history, has our country been so low.  America has always been a place of dreams, a place of honor and a place of power. A place of pride. A place to call "home" and a home of envy. I have never, ever been embarrassed to identify as a citizen of this country and have taken pride each time I answered the question of my residency.

Of course, all of that has changed.

The Rose Garden has been re-designed. The new version, a sign of the times. The roses are gone!

So much has changed.  And, it is getting scarier by the minute, just being an American. I know I am not alone in my fears. I know that my ancestors and yours as well, had fears and many of them are still alive to tell. While they may not have had Smart T.V.'s, or any for that matter, they may have seen newsreels while at the then-affordable theaters in their neighborhoods as they awaited the latest film from the latest Hollywood heartthrobs.  Surely, the film that followed brought comfort but I am certain that most of them left the theater fearful of their futures, having seem images of a world at war and a madman at the center of the destruction of humanity. 

And so, I am left to wonder, as I plow through the images of the past few days, the Republican National Convention, the one during which hundreds of not-so-smart American citizens exposed themselves to what the First Lady labeled as an "invisible" enemy, by flouting all scientifically proven methods of infection control during their attendance at Trump's speech.....what was the message?

Oftentimes, it's pictures that do the speaking. Another reason why I chose to not glue myself to the television. And, with that, I leave you with images. Brand new images. Pictures that might make you think about the images your ancestors who put down their dimes and got a dose of reality before a dose of romance on a big screen. 

The White House Rose Garden, minus the roses. Looks like a triumphant march site instead. Heil!

This is Melania's revision of the once beautiful rose garden.  All set for the tanks on parade.

Melania in her Nazi uniform

Heil America!

 

R.I.P.

Last month, on  hot and humid New York day, not far from her birthplace and home for most of her one hundred and five years, my husband and sister, along with family members in face masks, buried, literally, their matriarch. Into the grave which already was home to a daughter and a husband. Under a mercifully-placed shade tree.  The graveside service followed two hours of a somewhat traditional wake. An open casket. An assembly of far less than would have been expected had we not still been in the throws of a pandemic that won't quit.  The second pandemic experienced during the lifetime of my newly-deceased mother-in-law.

Her death did not come as a surprise. Rather, the end of a gentle roll. My husband who spoke to her every day for the past twenty-plus years, admitted to himself, at least, that she "left" us months and months ago. Her mind was blissfully elsewhere.  Her body, free from chronicity, just wouldn't allow her to travel back to meet up with the pre-deceased but I have a feeling that there were conferences and plans for a summit were in the waiting.  If anything, my husband and his family have been known for taking a long hard look at things before making decisions.  She, especially, was known to have scanned every weekly food store flyer before making her shopping list.  Never having driven, she probably had little notion of how much patience she extracted from first, her husband, and later, her children, as they transported her from store to store.  Gas and mileage were never factored into the "savings" that she would realize and triumph over. A "sale" was a "sale" and good value meant the world to a woman who grew up during the Great Depression, remembering each and every challenge as if it had happened the day before yesterday. A stockpile of coffee in her basement meant the equivalent of a gold mine. Pandemic after pandemic, this was a woman who would not have run out of toilet paper. 

There are stories.  There will be a million more.  You cannot possibly live one hundred and five years without amassing a tome.  Her home, the one in which she lived until her final moments, is filled to the rafters with stuff of life.  A child of the depression, she never forgot the angst of not having, and she had all that she needed, and then some, in her married life.  Reluctant to part with things in which she saw value, comfort or beauty, my mother-in-law left closets filled with clothing and a house filled with dishes, bric-a-brac and furnishings.  The next few months will become an emotional roller coaster as her family pulls that long history apart, dish by dish, figurine by figurine, dress by dress.  I recall having done that with my own parent's house and one day, when my father, the last of our living parents, passes from this life, his possessions will hardly fill a small box.  I don't know which scenario is sadder. 

My husband and I have now realigned ourselves in the family order.  We are the "elders", the generation that we replaced.  Our children and grandchildren will be looking at us with new eyes, a new perspective. We'll be weighed and measured, spotted and checked on in ways to which we are not accustomed. Yet.