preacher’s kid

May 10, 1969





May 10 1969

 

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I’m not sure if I’m revealing myself (and – guilting my best friend Sandy Hegwood Walker by association) as a typical high-spirited high-school girl or a pathological liar. In our defense, we didn’t distort the truth for an unfair advantage – we just couldn’t resist any opportunity to try on a new identity. An only child, Sandy’s fantasy life and active imagination meshed perfectly with mine. We were naturals when it came to playing off each other and improvising.  We had our own secret language for awhile, but that was kids stuff. When we matured, so to speak, pretending to be aspiring rock stars was one of our favorite gambits. When we really got it going, we could go into elaborate detail about our set list and who sang lead on what song. I’m surprised we never got around to printing up band cards. (But what if somebody wanted to book us?)

This fantasy sounded so cool Sandy and I struggled through a few guitar lessons  before we realized our talents were better suited to shopping for dramatic stage costumes, not learning to play an instrument. Years of piano lessons, during which I fell progressively further behind my younger sisters, had alerted me keyboards might not be my forte. My next hint I might be musically challenged came when our church choir director eliminated my half of an upcoming duet with the lame excuse a Natalie Nilsen solo served the music better. I told myself she just didn’t want to show preferential treatment to the pastor’s daughter but I was devastated. While I didn’t want to “toot my own horn,” I didn’t want to hide my light under a bushel either.

I took my case to my father. “I have a beautiful voice, don’t I?” I asked.

He paused and said, “Kathleen, we all have different gifts.”

Even I couldn’t spin this response. So what if I’d never be a real life rock’n’roll icon? Thanks to Sandy’s and my living theater, I knew how it felt to strut the stage and blast away on my Stratocaster. Just to prove that sometimes fantasies do come true, Sandy’s parents bought her a drum kit which she housed in a black light room. It didn’t get much better than that.

If you’re worried about all the gullible people we deceived, rest easy – I don’t think we fooled anyone.

 

If I Knew Then…. 4/30/64

IF I KNEW THEN… April 30, 1964

On this day in 1964, I was a seventh grade dork, running for Class Secretary.

April 30 1964

 

No vote

 Although I knew that I would lose, I hoped for a miracle. Alas, it was not to be. When the ballots were tallied, Robin was the new Class Secretary and I was the unpopular loser. All of my construction-paper campaign posters, the hours devoted to honing my speech, came to naught. My life would be forever tainted by this humiliating loss.

Another moment in time I didn't think I would survive.
Another moment in time I didn’t think I would survive.

But guess what? If I listed my top hundred terrible, tragic experiences, this crushing defeat wouldn’t make it. It might not make the top two hundred. The ache in my gut and crying jags didn’t last a week. In less than a month, it just didn’t matter that I wasn’t elected 8th grade Class Secretary.  While it’s true I never campaigned for anything again, that’s not much of a loss – for me or mankind. The day it happened it hurt like hell, but it just wasn’t important in the overall scheme of my life.

I have been blessed with so much in my life.
I have been blessed with so much in my life.

I’ll try to remember this next time I lose something I desperately want and can’t live without. The truth is, I will survive. I’m still here. And before I know it, it just won’t matter.

My Top Secret Diary

This will be my format for upcoming blog posts. Once or twice a week, I’ll post a diary entry from between 1964 and the present, a photo if I can find one, and my thoughts on what it all meant given the benefit of hindsight. Diary selections will correspond to the date the blog is posted, but will not be chronological. I have thousands of hand-written diary entries – I might as well use them for something.

 

 

Losing You

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Losing You_edited-1
 Randy Newman “Losing You”

Introducing his brilliant song “Losing You”, Randy Newman explains it was inspired by parental grief at losing a son.  While it’s far more typical and expected for children to lose their parents, the lyric speaks to me. My mother was ninety years and four months old when she died on Saturday, March 12th. Assuming I live as long, there still won’t be enough time to get over losing Geneva Alayne Knutsen.

This is not to imply she was a saint or that our relationship was perfect. If anything, as the eldest daughter – and the one who most clearly carries her genetic profile – I was a miniature version of her and her expectations of herself were high. I know because she shared every one of them with me – a lot.

As a rebellious adolescent, I fought to quiet her voice. Smile. Be friendlier. Ugh, look at those fingernails! You’ve gained weight. You’d look so much prettier with a little make-up. Is that what you’re wearing to church? Nobody likes to vacuum, Kathleen, but we all have to do things we don’t like to do. You’d better get rich or marry rich because you’re going to need a maid. Straighten your shoulders. Smile.

It was enough to drive a sensitive soul crazy. It was more than enough to obscure the motivation behind these advisory bulletins. I heard a meddling mother picking on me, I didn’t see it was her love for me overflowing – far too much love to maintain a respectful distance.

She got too close; we bruised each other. We disappointed. I said things I regret; I carelessly broke a few of her dreams because they weren’t mine. We hurt each other. You’d think I couldn’t wait to escape her voice but it was never an option. Her voice is my voice as my face holds her face.

Beneath the admonitions – Smile. Be friendlier. Straighten your shoulders – lives the real message, flowing like a river. I love you, I love you, I love you. I want the world for you. You’re my world. She’s the enduring voice and breath in my world. How could I ever get over losing her?

SONGS OF SOLACE

 

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My Nuclear Family in Innocent Times – Kathleen, Geneva, Joyce, Vance and Janet

On the morning of March 18, my sister Janet called and told me my father passed away earlier that morning. When my daughter and I got into our car to drive to the assisted nursing facility where my mother now resides and my sisters would be gathering, the very first notes of a song called I Believe (from the Broadway hit Spring Awakening) pierced the car. The words are simple. “I believe – All will be forgiven – I believe – There is love in heaven – Peace and joy be with them – Harmony and wisdom – Oh I believe.” A chorus repeats these words for the duration of the song. Before that day, I considered it one of the least memorable songs from the play but on that desolate early March morning, I was a river of tears all the way to the retirement home. Now, it moves me every time I hear it.

As a teenager, I used to think the songs that played on the car radio held personal messages for me from God, fate or the universe. I outgrew this naïve (and incredibly narcissistic) idea eventually, but it resurfaced when I Believe was the first song to penetrate my shell-shocked grief. In fairness, I had been playing the Spring Awakening CD in the car, making the odds of hitting I Believe significantly higher than on the radio. Still – the CD is about an hour long, of which I Believe takes up all of 2:31. Intellectually, I know I’m constructing meaning out of a mere coincidence. Emotionally, I choose to hear it as a message. (My father was a Lutheran pastor, which is why those particular words resonated so strongly)

A couple weeks ago my sister Joyce gave me a CD she called SONGS OF SOLACE – music that expressed the grief that accompanies a great loss and the perfect soundtrack for a good long cry. These are the songs she selected, which I recommend to anyone who has recently suffered a loss and – like me – finds music helps to process painful emotions.

I’ll comment on some of the other songs in another blog since this is running long. If you know a great song about grief, I’d welcome suggestions for a SONGS OF SOLACE 2.

SONGS OF SOLACE PLAYLIST

  1. I Believe…..from the cast of “Spring Awakening”
  2. Sand and Water……Beth Nielsen Chapman
  3. Silent House…..Dixie Chicks
  4. Flock of Birds…..Coldplay
  5. Beam Me Up……Pink
  6. Brothers in Arms……Dire Straits
  7. Company…..Ricki Lee Jones
  8. My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose……Eva Cassedy
  9. Quarter Moon……Cheryl Wheeler
  10. How Long Will I Love You…….Ellie Goulding
  11. He Lives in You…..from the cast of “The Lion King”
  12. Leader of the Band…..Dan Fogelberg
  13. Texas Girl at the Funeral of her Father……Randy Newman
  14. 10,000 Miles…….Mary Chapin Carpenter
  15. Further and Further Away……Cheryl Wheeler
  16. Theme from the film, “About Time”
  17. Just a Closer Walk With Thee…..from Dixieland Hymns CD (for Vance)
  18. Bright Side of Down……John Gorka

 

My Daughter’s Eulogy for My Father

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My young, handsome father towing his three daughters on a toboggan.

I lost my father on March 18th. The truth is, I didn’t “lose” him, I know exactly where he is. I’ve been to his grave at Forest Lawn. But even now, more than four months later, it’s hard to write “my father died” because I don’t want to believe it. I cry when I talk about him. I think about him every day and every night. I miss him more than I can say.

I spoke briefly at his funeral.  I shared an amusing anecdote that illustrated who he was as a father. I’ll reconstruct and post it at a later date. My daughter delivered a more moving eulogy which I am reprinting here.

“When I think about my grandpa, the strongest thing that comes to my mind is Love. My grandpa truly loved. Not just his family or his friends, but everyone and everything around him. He saw the beauty in everything… when there was darkness, he always found light.

Grandpa believed in us, every one of us, no matter what. He loved without judgment and without fear. He trusted in us, each of us, to hold the heart he gave so freely to us. And when we faltered, he forgave us.

When people talk about strength, often they think of the strength of the body, or a heart made impenetrable to emotion. To be strong, you must fight the world within and without, prove your domination over others and yourself. To be strong, you cannot care.

I think, instead, that it takes great strength to be kind. It takes great strength to forgive. To be vulnerable. To trust others and try to understand. To have empathy even when you’re strangers, to have sympathy even when you’re hurting. To look past darkness and ugliness to find light and beauty. To look at the world around you and try to make it a better place, any way that you can.
To try and fill this world with love.

He always said it was our greatest and most powerful gift.”