Father Knows Best
After our many and varied declines over the course of a decade, another career decline felt like the final straw. "We" were demoted. Egos were pierced, and I felt heart-broken. Crushed. Despondent. I knew that we had a large "L" branded on each of our foreheads. "What if everyone thinks we're losers?" haunted us.
For months it was like a part of me had died. I felt much the same way after my Mom's 1990 sudden and premature death following a car wreck. A part of me died then... when I was still seeking my identity. And with our career setbacks, the same. We had little explanation and no closure. Some days, after walking around the house in a fog, my husband I and would quietly stand and just hug each other. The only words I could manage to speak were, "I feel so sad. I just feel soooo sad."
Today, I still more than well up with tears as I write those words. The self-worth that comes from significant relationships and the pride of work accomplishments vanished, from one moment to the next, along with our career dreams. And no one could ever make it better. I was blown away. It felt like disintegration. I had nil hope for good endings. Ever. I wanted to blame.
Heritage hindsight is 20/20. To see and assess damage after the storm. I dizzily reached for a bigger-picture perspective. For grounding from somewhere or someone within my family tree. Grandmother Hazel and Dad were both long gone, but their memories are still alive in me. They were the loyal ones... I wanted to be loyal. I wanted steady to win out and strengthen my spirit. Dad felt what I re-name, the "Frank Weber-Effect," and I know that I know that "Father Knows Best."
Dad was a defender, and my parents were true-gold. During our difficult family years, Dad neither quit, nor did he physically Wexit. The key male figures that have been and are in my life ooze from their beings the trait of loyalty. It is their essence. I never heard sobered Dad embrace the mulligrubs and "woe is me." Dad was not intrinsically strategic, nor was he tactical. But he was the one, workday-after-workday, who was at the law firm and there for his clients. He had opportunities to purchase suburb-area fields, that today are wealthy, developed properties; one has a nice Westin hotel and spa on it. And one of his dreams that never actualized was in the arena of politics.
Instead, my parents did subtle things like showing kindness to the disabled and disenfranchised. In other words, they displayed the first intentional blindsides to our toxic heritage, which is something of which I am hugely proud. Because people matter.
Dad's unhealthy addictions were a casualty of bearing many unbearables. Wrong-side-of-the-tracks Dad knew of poverty and the uncertainties of war all too well. My parents were raised in polar-opposite class worlds. Wealthy versus poor. But there was one key similarity: They were both basically fatherless when they married. With two highly-needy "widowed" mothers who both sought Dad for help. In other words, Dad had no financial fail-safe on which to fall back.
Their parenting styles at times severely clashed, especially during some of our teenage years. In Dad's family tree there was a shameful unwed pregnancy, so he valiantly attempted to prevent his four daughters from a similar fate. Dad tried, but his manhood and fatherhood strategies were held hostage by an intangible force. The "Weber Curse." And, most importantly, during all of his 20s and 30s, he was desperately running from his overly-strict religious upbringing. His family presented God as highly critical and unreachable.
My husband and I are reality TV fanatics, and so are my corny superlatives. Big Brother did not evict Dad. He was never told, "You're fired." He is now dancing with the stars. After running an amazing race, Dad received God's Amazing Grace. Dad outlived Mom, so he was the survivor. I am glad he was spared of my cancer nightmare. He passed into eternity a month before my diagnosis, when my fight began.
Legacy Matters
My spiritual focus is like dear Dad's in his later years, and opposite of Grandfather Frank's. I am a 40-year follower of Jesus Christ. So now, the "because" of the scripture below uncomfortably crushes me. But it comforts me as well.
And God spake all these words, saying,
2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
(Exodus 20)
After experiencing our haywire decade, my husband and I have felt a bit desperate and intensely humbled. I admit it, paranoia might even be added to the trail mix. And yet, we know that God's bigger plan for us includes mercy and grace. He is bringing us out and He covers us. We experienced merely one decade of crazy, and our sanity as well as our lives were all spared. And, an even greater miracle is occurring. My eyes are opened to heritage. Any and all criticisms are carefully filtered through God's perspective. I have an openness to Truth, which helps to surface perceptive feeling that brings healing.Now, we desire more. Promotional opportunities are not opening up to my husband, but we can focus on a strong generational hand-off to our children. To pass a positive baton. Like the Olympics, we're goin' for gold. And we want Liberty. Paul (formerly Saul) writes in the Gospels of being fools for Christ. I first embrace my "fool" as well as my deserved shackles: I confess to: Anal futuristic thoughts + blinded idolatry. I am hypersensitive (too too) to many things including constructive feedback, a "holier than thou" blamer, and when it comes to defending our competence, a pinch spiteful and intolerant.
Intolerance seemed to hurt Generation 1 great-Grandfather Frederick. I hypothesize that he closed himself off in many ways. Maybe even from Son Frank's honest input and career dreams. Generation 2's vengeful divorce and then Generation 3's alcoholism helped to create mountains out of molehills. Mom and I both could not see past our respective parents' marital dysfunctional and destructive Argentine Tangos. When Hazel Jensen's family tree B-12 deficiency was added to the gene pool, hopelessness spiraled in. Mom blamed her Mom for her family's demise, and I blamed Dad for my family's dysfunction. Until my husband and I lost our career identities and with it our pride. Disintegration. When God finally helped me to see Dad's goodness.
Amazing Grace
I muse over legacy matters and the lasting effects they have had on me. And how difficult it was for me to see my walls of intolerance. A strength can also be a weakness. But, I want to embrace the strength, because I think I can prayerfully manage it. Over 40 forever years ago at an altar I received forgiveness and a seed of hope. The Amazing Grace lyrics of physically blind former Atlantic slave-ship captain, the elderly John Newton, can be penned by me also: ♫I was blind, but now I see♫.
I have found one of the venues where intolerance is needed and beneficial. To embrace belief in a firm spiritual foundation: My God created all things, and there is only one way to my God. It is through His one and only Son. His name is Jesus; not B'hai's Bahá'u'lláh or any indigenous gods. Jesus is a descendant from God's chosen: The Jewish people.
God's only Son, my Savior, helped me to see my specific shackles that He threw into the sea. God created me, knows how I tick, and He knows what I can handle. Seeing is freeing. It is now clear. He set me free years ago, when he humbly hung on a tree. It was not a nut tree. But rather a cross made from pine, cedar, or cypress. Sinless, He hung on that tree. He, too, experienced the pain of disintegration. He did it for modern-day Jesus-followers, and for those in my family tree who were followers. I will see them again.
What Not to Fear? My Story. Because There IS a Creative Power in Disintegration.
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