Truth has been my mantra my entire professional life. As a journalist, I sought truth in every interview, observation, scribe and ultimately, in everything I ever published.
I loved being a journalism teacher and encouraging my students to tell the truth. We talked about truths every day in my classroom. They often didn't want to, but I held them to it.
Most recently in my personal life, I have felt a need to speak the truth about how I feel, how my family "makes me feel" and how I am not okay with that. If I have offended you and your way of thinking in the last year, I apologize. But my truths belong to me, whether you like it or not.
Our Mom was a particularly opinionated woman, and during her lifetime, "if momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" was a reality in our house. Just ask my brothers and my sister. They will tell you that is the truth.
On the flip side, our Dad was the opposite. He was very easy-going, went along with the household flow that my mom put into place. As a military man who was "deployed" for months or years (before that term was the standard), Mom was the boss, and what Mom said was what Mom got. She ran a tight ship, and the ship got us where we needed to go. Our father to this day would agree with that and say it is the truth. Even at Mom's funeral, Dad said she was "the General." Our Dad was a Colonel. (This hierarchy is particularly relevant to military people, and our family knows what that means.)
When Mom/Nana died two and a half years ago, it was devastating for all of us. We all went into "auto pilot" and did what Mom had taught us to do, even though she'd had Alzheimers for about five years before she passed away, we all did what she would have expected of us - even our dad. It was Mom's truth, and now it was ours. Everybody totally got it.
Except for my sister-in-law. For some reason, Nancy (my brother Fred's first AND second wife, mother of their two wonderful sons) decided it was her place to run some kind of show. Another blog. See "Bitch of the Century" post. Truth: Her opinion (in my Father's and my eyes) was not valid after my mother's passing. Nancy tried to be the "matriarch" of the Howland family. She is not, and she never will be. She blew it the year she stole my brother's kids, his money and his heart; she tried again when our mother died. She failed miserably. But she still doesn't get it. She gave up her "right" to be a Howland when she left my brother the first time, and she will never regain it. I hate her for that. I forgave her when she and Fred reunited for my nephews' sake, but I hate her for what she did when my mother died.
Nonetheless, I am prepared to commit to many truths. Here are a few of them:
__________
My truths:
1. I believe that the truth can set you free. If you live it, speak it, tell all the players and "publish" it, it becomes real. This is a liberating feeling and is necessary for peace of mind. And I have done exactly that over the past 40+ years.
2. I became a journalist for a reason. I needed a forum for telling truths - in such a way that lives (mine, at least) would be improved, people would be moved, presentation would help others see the bigger picture. Some people might be offended by those truths, but that is their problem, not mine.
3. I succeeded in many ways in communicating truth. In my professional life (over 36+ years as a journalist), I was able to teach and help students publish hundreds of newspapers, thousands of stories, and nine yearbooks; independently, I published more than 100 books, directories, and issues of the Richmond Restaurant Guide. I helped my father publish his memoirs, "My Generation: aka 'PopPop's Story'." And for two years (2000-2002), I was the daily/night prepress traffic manager of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. So I believe I helped publish a few truths over the last 36+ years.
4. I started this post a while back and I am just now returning after a year's hiatus. Today is 11/25/16. Since my last post, (maybe December 2015), my dad's physical and mental wellness hit a steady downhill slide and I have not returned to my scribes here. Tonight he resides in his third nursing home (four if you count the one I moved his stuff to but he never occupied) since last Thanksgiving. And he was in Riverside Hospital twice, three times if you count his prostate surgery visit, but he didn't stay overnight; and five times if you count the two additional times he had to have his catheter replaced at Riverside emergency room - also did not spend the night.
5. In addition to Dad's decline and moves since my last post, I have petitioned/appealed to the Circuit Court of Newport News and attained guardianship of my special needs sister, Judy, and moved her and most of her possessions to The Springhouse in Hanover County - the home my father and I found and purchased to be Judy's home. (This will be another blog. "Judy's Journey." Getting her a job in Hanover - another long journey, another blog - all in this same year.)
6. In 2016, I have begged for help from my family - and have finally received it, help for which I am most thankful this day after Thanksgiving 2016. The facts of said begging deserve their very own blog post, and maybe one day I will have the time to write that one. "Begging for help, and God answered." (That my brother Phil and his wife Jeanie HEARD me - they both chose to retire from their jobs early, sold their home in Utah and moved into our father's house so they could be nearby to help with ... too many things to list. I begged GOD for help, and his answer was Phil and Jeanie "coming home.")
7. Probably #7 should precede #6, but I have successfully pissed off my entire family (and many of my friends) by my candor and truths, and I don't really care except I do LOVE them all - just not that they chose to be pissed off instead of stepping up to OUR family's plate when I needed them to. And because they failed me, I chose to unfriend them on Facebook, because they hated me for my truths. I am really not okay with that, but I did what I needed to do and I said what I needed to say at the time. Another post: "Unfriending family is sometimes necessary."
8. So yea, my number 8 is that I love the written word. It has served me well my entire life. I've written in journals since I was 7 (I started dating them in 1962 to the present). FB has taken my journals' place for much of the last year or so, but seriously, what a book it will be!!! That I have the ability to say what I feel and speak my truths, whether anybody likes them (or reads them) or not. I have valued this skill and the freedom it gives me every single day of my literate life.
It feels good to express myself in this forum, and if you're still reading, thank you. You don't have to like it, but it does define me. True to me, true to my heart and true to my soul.
That's the point.
Love you for reading my mind. Thanks!
Trish
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