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Love and Heartache

Posted on by Janette C Wolf

On April 23, 2022, my mother-in-law, Hella Meewis Beuck, died, and the world stopped.

Or it should have. Where my bio-mother was largely emotionally absent, Mutti (mama in German), was present with her whole heart. She knew how to listen, how to comfort, and how to work alongside without taking over. Whenever she came to visit us, she brought her work pants so she could garden with me. “But you, Janette, are chief,” she’d say. “I do what you want.”

I’m someone who cherishes alone time, and need a lot of it in order to be healthy. And yet, when Mutti stayed her with us, for weeks at a time, I wished she would stay forever.

I met her on my first trip to northern Germany with Birte in 2002. She opened her arms and her home to me, eagerly showing me old photo albums of when Birte was young, and feeding us her lovely homemade concoctions. The Germans really do have the best bread, and it’s amazing how many delicious meals can be made with potatoes and cabbage. And the asparagus in Spring cannot be rivaled.

The first time she came to visit us here, we lived in Oakland. Birte’s father, Gerhard, came too; we showed them all around the Bay Area, then took them to Mendocino, one of our favorite places, where we stayed in a gorgeous house on a cliff above the wild Pacific.

Mutti came to our Northern California home again again when we got married in 2007, along with Birte’s brother, Lars, and his daughter Jenny, who has so much of Mutti in her. (Had my own mother still been alive, she would not have come to our wedding, even though she did not live so far away; she had refused upon meeting Birte to even shake her proffered hand. Nor did my sister, aunt, or favorite cousin come to the wedding, all citing evangelical dogma as their excuse. My father, brother, and their wives did attend, however; and for that we were grateful.)

But the last two times Mutti visited us, she came on her own. On the days Birte worked, and Mutti and I were alone together, I came to know her loving, generous spirit best. We talked, laughed, told each other stories, worked in the garden, and sat quietly together, reading or writing.

It’s not always easy traveling with another person, but I’d travel with her any day. We took her to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, Big Sur, Asilomar, and Murphy’s.

On that first trip to the Grand Canyon, Birte named us Hellie Eins and Hellie Swei (Hellie One and Hellie Two). We each deferred to each other to the point of it being comical (You go first! No, you!), and we laughed at ourselves for that. We shared so many other traits, too; it was as if we were related. And we were, in our souls.

Our first early morning at the Grant Canyon, Mutti whispered, “Is it okay if I get up?” We were all in one small room, with two queen beds. Birte said, “You don’t have to ask our permission.” Mutti was often bullied at home by her husband, so it took a while for her to come into her own with us. But once she was fully herself and no longer being so careful, she blossomed into the gorgeous, playful, funny, smart woman, we knew she was; and we had a ball.

One freezing cold morning on that trip, we went to the Canyon before dawn to watch the sunrise. While Birte and I complained about the cold and wanted to quit before our massive star began its appearance, she insisted we stay, cheerful and uncomplaining. B and I jogged in place, jumped up and down, and ran short sprints in an effort to increase our body temperatures. I wrapped my entire face in my scarf, with only one eye looking out: Cyclops. Mutti walked quietly, uncomplaining.

We have visited the family in northern Germany once a year or so, for the past 21 years we’ve been together. Each time, when we first arrived, Mutti (usually with Lars and one or more of his kids) greeted us at the airport with two roses, one for each of us. She brought us water and food, and settled us into our apartment with extra dish towels, egg-free cookies and cakes, shopping bags, and rubber bands. She showered us with her time and love, in spite of how busy she was: managing her own home and husband, and also being deeply involved in the lives of Birte’s three siblings and their combined eight children (now nine).

She helped raise our niece Jenny, who now displays so many of Mutti’s best qualities: her hospitality, her generosity, her ability to listen and really hear.

The second time Mutti visited us, she began having severe pain in one leg. This, unbeknownst to us, was the beginning of her physical decline. On April 23, 2022, she died of heart disease, her beautiful heart so deeply broken and yet loving to the end. And the world should have ended. But it didn’t.

I still talk with her almost every day, telling her how we’re doing, or asking her for advice on how to deal with my health challenges. My goal is to channel her loving, listening spirit. Each day, I see her in Birte as well: patient, helpful, loving.

I only wish I could hug her one more time, or hear her delightful laugh in response to my fumbling German. You may be gone from this planet, dear Mutti, but you will never be gone from us. You are in us.

More Reflections on Death

Posted on by Janette C Wolf

On December 17, 2004, I learned from a message on my cell phone that my mother had died. I was in an “all HR” meeting at work in SF, and we were taking a fifteen-minute break. I headed to the quietest part of the crowded auditorium, right next to the stage, and played my messages. There was only one.

“Jan,” Dad said in my ear, “I wanted to let you know that Joan died this morning. Call me if you want to.” He often called my mom Joan when talking to me about her.

I played the message, played it again, replayed it. Perhaps each time I hoped he’d say something different, like, “Jan, Mom and I are going to be in Oakland on Saturday and would love stop by your house and to see you and Birte.” This was something I rarely heard; both he and my mom were most often “disappointed” in me. (Mom’s common phrase of disappointment, throughout my life, was, “Ohhhhhh, Janette. How could you?” or, “This is going to kill your grandmother.”) My parents were disappointed when I bought a house with Birte in April 2004, although, in fairness, they did come to our house warming party. They’d been disappointed when Birte and I started dating three years earlier; Mom refused to shake Birte’s outstretched hand. Before that, they were disappointed in me for refusing to let them have my daughter, Neysa, stay overnight at their house: I did not want them to hurt or try to “save” her the way they had me; my family had been evangelicals since I was thirteen. And then there was their disappointment when I divorced my husband of twelve years. When I was 23, and moved in with the man who would become my husband, they’d disowned me for a year, saying I was no longer their daughter. As a teenager, I disappointed them when I questioned the evangelical church’s stance on women’s roles. In fact I’d been disappointing them as long as I could remember.

After playing Dad’s message a fifth time, a song flitted through my head: Ding dong, the witch is dead…. Immediately I chastised myself: What kind of daughter am I to have that particular song in my thoughts? Later, Birte, who is a chaplain at John Muir, would reassure me that my feelings of both relief and grief were real, not shameful. Still later, I would meet others for whom that same song came to mind when their parent or sister or brother-in-law died.

My mother, like her father, had had heart disease for years. Early in 2004, she had narrowly survived open heart surgery. But she was getting stronger every day. She’d even gone with my dad to their reunion at Stanford, and walked quite a bit without assistance. We were all hopeful. Or so I thought.

When I spoke to my father about her death, he told me he hadn’t tried to revive her when she collapsed that morning as they were getting ready to go to breakfast at the senior community where they lived. “Her cardiac surgeon told me after the open heart surgery, when he almost lost her, that she wouldn’t live long. So I figured it was coming.” He smiled, as if he were telling a story about one of the many trips my parents took.

“But she was getting better! You yourself said so!” I countered.

“Actually, she wasn’t.”

“Did her doctor also tell her that she wouldn’t live long?” I was furious. What about HIPAA? “Don’t you think she deserved to know? It was her body!”

He said nothing. Had he let her die by not acting? If he’d been a Black man, there with his dead wife, wouldn’t the authorities have questioned him more about him his refusal to even try saving her? She was only 71.

A week after her funeral, Dad shipped all her belongings (minus her clothes, which he took to Goodwill) to me. “It’s just a few things,” he told me over the phone. “I think you should have them.” But when the movers arrived, they unloaded box after box after box of her papers, letters, photos, genealogical work (which I would come to appreciate), and a box labeled, “Joan’s Life”, as if all of who she’d been could be contained there. I cried when the movers left, and almost ran after them to beg them to take it all back. In sending me all her things, my father got rid of every trace of my mother. He didn’t keep even one photograph of her, or of them together.

In August, 2004, my parents had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Birte wasn’t invited. Our friends would feel uncomfortable with her there, Mom had said. I doubted she was correct about that; Birte tends to win people over quickly, with her jokes and compassion and genuineness. But loving my parents, as I did, I attended their party with Neysa. For a gift I drew a picture of Mom and Dad as they looked at their wedding. I spent hours on that picture, drawing, shading, trying to get the light and their expressions right. It was not a masterpiece by any means, but my young parents were recognizable, and a number of people at the party complimented me on it. Neysa and I also put together and narrated a light-hearted slide show of our memories of Mom and Dad.

I thought my drawing might be among her things that Dad sent me after Mom’s death, but it was not to be found. When I asked him later, he told me he’d “gotten rid” of it, along with other “clutter” in Mom’s closet. “You did what?” I asked, wondering if I’d heard him wrong. But no, he’d tossed it into the trash, just as he’d effectively done with my mother.

Mom was not an easy person to be around. If she’d been born later, we probably would have said she was on the spectrum, or suffered from mental illness. Dad was exceedingly patient with her, which could not have been easy. I appreciate him for that, and wonder if, when she died, he was, like me, partially relieved.

When my older siblings and I were kids, Dad had two sayings that he’d repeat in response to the problems we took to him. One, directed at my huge emotions and the tears of my siblings, was to pound his one fist into the other and say, “Hammer it down, Jan, hammer it down.” The other was to wipe his hands on each other and then to throw them over his shoulders. “Let bygones be bygones,” he’d intone. “The past is gone. The sun will come up tomorrow.” I’m not sure about my siblings, but I found none of his advice helpful. If anything, it only made me feel more alone and sad.

When Mom died, he quickly hammered down the pain of her death by getting rid of every trace of her; and thereby threw his fifty year relationship with her over his shoulders and into the past, to remain there unexamined. Dad remarried in 2006, and we all immediately loved (and still do love) his new wife. Being with her, he was much more easy going than he had been with Mom: he changed his tastes and habits to match his new wife’s. I think that, perhaps, because of his own childhood trauma, he learned to be who people wanted him to be. As his child, and my mother’s, this is something I learned as well; I am unlearning it very slowly through years of therapy.

Dad died fourteen years and ten days after Mom, on December 27, 2018, of vascular dementia. I’m thankful that we all saw him on Christmas that year, and that we got to tell him how much we loved him.

This month, especially, I miss them both. In spite of everything, they did the best they were capable of when they parented my sister, brother, and me. Unfortunately, their best wasn’t enough for me. Still, I’m grateful they tried.

Mom and Dad on their Wedding Day

The Reality of Death

Posted on by Janette C Wolf

I haven’t written recently, because I’ve been flummoxed, not only about what to write, but also about how this past year seemed to race by as if it were just a few minutes. I’m about to turn 61, and I’ve realized that I don’t have that many “minutes” left if I live an average lifespan (78.8 years for women). I think it’s important we talk about death, including our own; it’s something every living being will experience. I would like to face mine, when it comes, with curiosity and open arms.

I’ve thought often about death since I was 11, when my grandfather died. At the funeral, my grandfather’s body was in an open casket. I was nervous about seeing him, but I noticed when I did how pale and waxy he looked, how unlike himself. My grandmother, in her grief, lifted his torso and tried to pull his body out of the coffin, while screaming, “No, John, no!” Her behavior terrified me more than death did. Once we’re dead, we don’t suffer; but those who are left to grieve suffer greatly.

I thought deeply about death at age 17 when, severely depressed, I often considered ending my life. With no support from my parents, and no professional support, I relied in part on a pact I made with a close friend who also suffered from mental illness: we would tell each other before we acted if we were planning to die. As agonizing as my depression was, I did not slit my wrists in the bathtub primarily because I knew that someone, most likely my mother, would have to clean up the bloody mess I left. In college, still depressed, I wrote in my journal, “Fuck you, Mr. Death, Sir,” after a friend of mine died suddenly and horribly. Since then, I often think about death, my own and the deaths of those I love. We have such a brief stay here in which to make an impact upon the Earth and upon each other; it’s easy to get caught up in consuming and doing and busyness and forget that our days are ticking away.

I love visiting cemeteries, particularly old ones. There, I can imagine the lives of people who once walked and breathed and hoped and despaired like me. How did this child die? He was only six. Or this girl? She was just seventeen. Who was this couple who died within days of one another? Imagine their families’ grief.

Here in Benicia, we have an old cemetery with gravestones dating back to the early 1800s. One marker bears the name Blake, my maternal grandmother’s maiden name. Are we related to these Blakes? On the east coast, or in Europe, cemeteries are much older, which I find fascinating. Some have wizened wooden grave markers that are no longer legible. I wish here in the US, we could see individual gravestones for all the Native Americans who violently died in the “making” of this country.

(FYI, through the Sogorea Te Land Trust, an intertribal women-run organization here in the Bay Area, we of European descent who live on stolen land can donate a “Shuumi Land Tax.” Based on the size of one’s house, this tax “directly supports Sogorea Te’s work of rematriation, returning Indigenous land to Indigenous people, establishing a cemetery to reinter stolen Ohlone ancestral remains, and building urban gardens, community centers, and ceremonial spaces so current and future generations of Indigenous people can thrive in the Bay Area. Shuumi means gift in the Ohlone language Chochenyo.” I have long nursed bone-deep guilt for the violence enacted upon Native Americans by my own ancestors, and the stolen land that they homesteaded; and this donation is a way for me to annually atone.)

I also read obituaries regularly, I think for the same reasons I love to walk among tombstones: to understand and imagine stories. Some strike me deeply. In a recent Chronicle obit, a kind and compassionate-looking woman died at age 94. She was born in Berlin and died of cancer in San Francisco. (Here I make a connection: Birte attended seminary in Berlin, and came to Berkeley for her Masters Degree.) The woman in the obituary was of Russian descent and emigrated to New York escaped Nazi Germany when she was eleven. Her parents must have been people of means in order to do this, as so many were unable to afford passage. And, unlike later ships that arrived at Ellis Island with refugee Jews from Europe, her ship was not turned back. She later became an artist, a feminist, and a supporter of social justice. She loved to travel, visit museums, and listen to classical music. And, she enjoyed “an occasional ice cold vodka.” I wish I could have known her; I think we could have been friends.

Another, younger Black man who recently died also has a kind face. He’s was a registered nurse at Kaiser for many years, managing the pediatric ward. He later got a Bachelor of Science in computer science, and enjoyed building and working on computers. His hobbies were sports (Giants, Warriors, 49ers), motorcycles, jazz concerts, traveling, and dogs. His obit calls him, “loving, caring, gentle, and kind-hearted.” He’s another person I wish I’d known.

I’m fortunate and grateful to have the most amazing friends, spanning generations, every one of them kind, compassionate, and devoted to environmental and social justice. They are not many, but I love each one for what they bring to this world. And I dread the time when they die, if I am still here. Emily Dickinson, a distant cousin of mine, said:

Because I could not stop for Death – 
He kindly stopped for me – 
The Carriage held but just Ourselves – 
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility – 

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring – 
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – 
We passed the Setting Sun – 

Or rather – He passed us – 
The Dews drew quivering and chill – 
For only Gossamer, my Gown – 
My Tippet – only Tulle – 

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground – 
The Roof was scarcely visible – 
The Cornice – in the Ground – 

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –

Trying Times

Posted on by Janette C Wolf

I’m late posting this, because I’ve been struggling to breathe. Most people don’t have to think about their lungs. Part of the autonomic nervous system, they automatically take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide around 20,000 times a day. But for people like me, breathing is more complicated. With all the smoke currently in the air, my lungs feel sore and defeated.

The first time I had a bronchial infection, I was four months old. But it wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I was finally diagnosed with asthma.

Between these two events, I struggled. At my elementary school, P.E. included twice yearly tests, where the teachers stood with stopwatches and clipboards and noted how many chin ups, pushups, and sit ups we could do in the allotted time. President Gerald Ford himself, we were told, had set these standards to help us get fit.

They did not help me. The six-minute walk and run was my nemesis. Our teacher pointed out two lines on the blacktop, between which we needed to run until she called time. “Go as quickly as you can,” she said, “and walk only if you must.” Year after year, I was lapped over and over by my peers, as I struggled to breathe. Afterward, my spit tasted like blood for hours, and my lungs felt as if they were pincushions stuck full of needles. I thought everyone must feel what I felt, and it was due to my own failing that I struggled.

In my early twenties, a supervisor wrote me up. “Get more healthy,” she admonished, in response to my being off sick with a bronchial infection for two weeks. I was ashamed at my body’s betrayal of me. But getting more healthy was as impossible for me as genie-ing myself to Paris. I already exercised, drank lots of water, ate healthy food, and rarely stayed out late. Some of my coworkers partied nearly every night, and never missed a day’s work. That’s when I realized that some of us are just more prone to illness than others. My body wasn’t betraying me, it was just being my body.

Fourteen years ago, I had to stop working because of my health. As year has passed into year, other chronic illnesses have joined my lungs, until I’ve come to dread the next occupant that comes along. And there will be a next one – there always is.

Most recently, on a rare clear day, when my lungs felt good, I decided to go on a hike. We have a state park just down the road from us, and I love getting exercise and watching all the birds and wildlife. I started out on the dirt trail, and had only just gotten to the edge of the Carquinez Strait, along which this path wanders, when suddenly, I was airborne. I struggled to regain my balance like a cartoon character who realizes they have just run off the edge of a cliff, but failed. I landed on my left knee, then my right, then hands and elbow. Covered with blood, I walked back to my car and drove myself home. When I took off my pants to look at the damage, my left knee had a deep horseshoe-shaped gash, and I could see pale white of my cartilage. I thought of driving myself to urgent care, but found myself going into shock.

Six hours and twenty-two stitches later, I’m now in a knee immobilizer for two weeks. So much for going on a hike. But I’m grateful I didn’t break anything, including my head.

Over the past years, I’ve realized that, while I didn’t get a body that can run marathons, I did get one that keeps trying and trying no matter how difficult the next bang is. I am grateful for my mind, with which I can read and write, and my hands, however crooked, that tend my garden. I have a roof over my head, and food in my belly. I am loved by, and I love, my beautiful wife, Birte, and our daughter, Neysa, who will always be my heart. I have my dog, Nalani who, at eleven years old, is still eager to comfort me long before I know I’m in need of comforting.

And I’ve realized that we all have stories; we all suffer.

I was at Disneyland once as a young adult, waiting in an interminable line for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, when two small children popped in front of me to be with their mother. They were British, and the children, a boy and a girl, whined, “But Mummy, it’s not fair!”

“Life’s not fair,” she snapped. “Get used to it.”

I often think about that woman at Disneyland all those years ago, and her two, now middle-aged kids. And I agree with her: life isn’t fair. But it sure has its beauty, doesn’t it?

Me at Age 4

Religion and Me (continued)

Posted on by Janette C Wolf

When I was thirteen, my family moved to the North Bay. Our new home was thirty minutes from town, and that first summer was interminable. When we got two kittens – my very first furry pets! – I had something to do with all my time. I loved those cats, and spent hours outside with them. Still, the days crept by.

My older sister and brother joined an evangelical church with a large youth group, and encouraged me to go, too. I balked, feeling too shy and awkward. But when our parents decided to give the church a try, they dragged me along.

In time, I loved being part of the youth group. I learned the new language of evangelicalism, and made close friends I would never have met otherwise. Youth group outings, including our annual choir tour, deepened both friendships and my understanding of faith.

That said, I did not dare voice my questions, which continued to proliferate; we were taught that doubts came from Satan. Nor did I admit I was depressed and bulimic. When, at age sixteen, I thought I might kill myself if I didn’t get help, I screwed up my courage and told my parents. My mother was horrified, and cried as she called me selfish and asked me how I could do such a thing to them. Later, Mom would say over and over that, if I had enough faith in God, my depression would magically disappear.

I struggled to have faith, and at times, believed I did have it. But I continued to suffer from a deep internal darkness that felt interminable. That darkness, and my disgusting habit of bulimia were inseparable, like a mythic being with two heads. Without years of therapy and medications, I would still be a the mercy of that beast today.

A charismatic new minister nudged out our beloved pastor, around this same time. He preached that God wanted men to be the head of their wives, and women to submit to men. He compared submitting to being under an umbrella when it rains. In the same way, he said, man is over woman so he can protect her from Satan’s barbs. I refused to submit to my boyfriend, to both his chagrin and the church’s. I knew I was smart and wanted to think for myself.

I also wondered about the inerrancy of the Bible. I knew the canon had been put together by men, who had left out a significant number of writings from the same era, some of which showed women being strong church leaders. It was my first real understanding of society’s patriarchal underbelly.

When, at eighteen, I drove to the church to meet with one of the church’s elders to talk about my questions, he said, “My wife used to be rebellious like you, but now she understands the importance of submitting to me. Here’s a book that helped her. If you’re sincerely about seeking the truth, God will show you we’re right.” Some of my friend’s parents told them not to associate with me anymore. I began to feel ostracized, and no longer enjoyed being part of the congregation.

Thankfully, I would soon be leaving for college, where I would begin to have a new understanding of spirituality.

No photo description available.
My Mom’s and My High School Graduation Photos

Religion and Me

Posted on by Janette C Wolf

As I said in my last post, the memoir I just finished writing (which may morph into a novel), and for which I’m seeking an agent, is about my life when I was young. It focuses, in particular, on my experiences at the evangelical church my family attended when I was a teen, It was there I was ostracized for having questions about the rigid roles prescribed for women. What follows here is a little about my religious background and spiritual journey.

When I was tiny, my family went to a Methodist church in the East Bay. That’s where I was baptized as a baby and later attended preschool. When my family moved to the South Bay after I finished Kindergarten, we joined another Methodist church. My favorite thing was watching the baptisms of babies. I tried very hard to remember my own baptism but, even at age five, it was hard to imagine I’d ever been a baby.

I was an extremely shy child. Today,I would be said to have a condition called “selective mutism”: I was completely tongue tied around people I didn’t know, but could be goofy and animated around those with whom I felt comfortable. I don’t remember having any friends at that church.

I was a curious child, and peppered my father with questions: Daddy, why is the sky blue? Daddy, how do they know the Earth is round? Daddy, why do stars sometimes fall? Dad, being a good engineer, would explain the answers to me in scientific terms that I did not understand. He tended to talk quite a bit once he got going, and after several minutes, I would try to extricate myself without hurting his feelings.

At night before sleep, even when I was very young, I would ask God, in the person of my Sleepyhead doll, all my questions. Why can’t we see you, God? Why do parents die? (I’d learned this terrible fact when I saw the movie Bambi.) Why is God a He? Why do boys think they are so much better than girls? When I was in sixth grade, I wondered, Is it possible that, when I see something green, if I could see that same thing through your eyes, it might look orange? Or blue? But because we all call it green, we think we are seeing the same thing? This question terrified me, and I couldn’t wait to ask my friends if they’d thought it, too. But the next morning, when I did, they said, “You’re crazy, Janette! Green is green and orange is orange!” and went back to talking about boys. Because I had not been able to adequately explain what I meant (otherwise my friends would have understood and been scared with me) I felt ashamed, and decided I had to keep the question to myself. I did not consider asking my father, who would probably write down some mathematical formula in response. What did it mean if everyone’s perception of life was different? What does it mean? To me it felt as if the floor of our house suddenly gave way, and I was falling and falling, with no solid ground in sight. It was my first experience of what Kierkegaard called existential angst.

Later that same year, at my parents’ insistence, I joined them and left the Methodist church to join a Southern Baptist congregation. I felt greatly wronged, as Dad agreed that my sister and brother could stay at the Methodist church; they were already involved in the youth group there. In less than a month, I would graduate sixth grade, after which I’d also be able to join the youth group. But no amount of pleading could change Dad’s mind.

It was at the Baptist church I learned about original sin. Even at age eleven, I could not believe babies were born sinful. It seemed like an absurd concept, like if someone had told me the sky was down. I loved babies! How could they be sinful? I tried to believe what the Baptist minister preached, because I was supposed to, but I couldn’t manage it. When the minister said that God sent His only Son Jesus to die on the cross so that I might have eternal life, I was confused. Did that mean I was guilty for killing Jesus, because of mistakes I’d made, or times I’d disobeyed my parents? How could I have killed him when I wasn’t even alive during His life? When I was twelve and couldn’t sleep one night, my father asked me what I felt guilty for; that was the only reason he could imagine a child not being able to sleep. I wasn’t a perfect kid by any means, but on that particular night, as I searched myself and reviewed my recent words and actions, I could come up with nothing I’d done wrong. Just in case, I clasped my hands and closed my eyes and asked God (and Jesus) to forgive me.

Other questions frightened me, too, and weren’t explained in church: If God is a loving God, why are some children starving to death, while I have all I need? Why would a loving God send babies to hell just because they haven’t heard about Jesus? Was it their fault they were born into a country where no one was Christian? They’re babies! Another question that burned at me, was about animals. It may not seem related to my topic of religion until you read Genesis 1:26, where God gives man dominion over all the animals. I saw animals as being here on this planet with us, not under us. My question was: Why do people insist animals don’t have feelings? This one seemed obvious to me. Even though my siblings and I were not allowed to have pets with fur (Dad was allergic) I knew beyond a doubt that animals’ personalities were as unique as our own, and that included feelings. Every day on my walk home from school, a beautiful long-haired cat would come trotting down her driveway to see me. I’d sit there and pet her and talk to her until my butt was numb and I knew it was time to go home. When I learned she belonged to one of my classmates’ grandmothers, I felt betrayed; I’d been thinking of her as my cat. I also fell in love with a neighbor’s collie, Lady, and would ring the family’s doorbell to ask if I could take her out for walks, or play with her in their backyard. She was shy like me, and I sometimes had to tell the other kids on our street to back away because they were scaring her by crowding too close.

One Sunday when I was eleven, Mom left early for choir practice, and I picked out my own clothes for church: my nicest pants and a matching short-sleeved sweater. As I sat on the cushioned pew next to Dad, dozing a little as I leaned my head against his shoulder which was scratchy as his beard from the wool of his jacket, the Baptist minister said to the entire, enormous congregation, “What is this world coming to?” His eyes roamed from one person to another to another, then focused on me. He shook his head sadly, his face stuck in a perpetual grimace. “What a sacrilege it is to see a young lady wearing slacks in church today! It is disrespectful, and not how we treat this godly place.” It was the first time I hated an adult.

That same minister also said baptisms of babies are meaningless, because babies can’t accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I wasn’t sure this applied to me, but a school friend, who also attended the church, grabbed my arm and hissed into my ear.

“How can we convince Annie [a mutual friend]to become a Christian if we’re not Christians ourselves?” she said.

“I’m a Christian!”

“Weren’t you listening to what Pastor said? We’re not Christians until we’re baptized by immersion.”

The next Sunday, we walked down the interminably long aisle to accept the altar call and tell the pastor we wanted to be baptized. And suddenly we were enrolled in weekly classes, as interminable as the aisle had been. They were taught by the minister who had shamed me. (Strangely, neither of my parents said anything after that horrible incident.) Mom, who would be immersed on the same Sunday as my friend and I, urged my father, who had been “sprinkled” when he was in the Navy, to be baptized by immersion with us. But he insisted that his baptism had been meaningful to him and he felt no need to do it by immersion.

I began thinking about what he said, and about my own baptism as a baby (had it been meaningful? I wasn’t sure), and considered dropping out of the classes. But how could I? Mom was taking them, too. When, several weeks later, we were finally dunked in the little pool behind the altar, I didn’t feel any different. Wasn’t I supposed to feel “filled with the Spirit?” What was wrong with me?

To be continued.

Me at 18 Months

Why I Write (And a Little About Who I Am)

Posted on by Janette C Wolf

It’s lonely being a writer, and I suppose that’s why so many of us are introverts. I love my alone time, and that includes writing. As a child, I dreamed of being a hermit, living in the wilderness with only the wild animals for company. The Bay Area isn’t exactly a wilderness, but it still has some beautiful untamed places, and that’s why I stay. Over the years, I have adored my pets, who have, on occasion, been feral: the closest thing to living with wild animals I’ll probably ever get. My current dog, Nalani, is a sweet angel. She’s my companion while I write, and helps me remember to take time out for play and naps. She can be wild, and I adore her.

When I was three and people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, “I want to be a fat lady in the circus.” Everyone laughed. And I immediately regretted sharing my dream. No one asked me, “Why do you want to be a fat lady in the circus?” If they had, I’d have told them, ” I want to be a fat lady in the circus so I can hold lots of children on my lap.” I’ve always loved kids, even when I was one myself.

As a child, books were a way for me to live with other families who were warmer than mine, perhaps kinder. Through books, I could peer into other worlds, worlds that accepted me for who I was: a sensitive, creative, empathic kid. In my own family, I did not feel accepted, by my mother especially. She was a beautiful, athletic woman with dark curls, long legs, and a smile that would melt a stranger’s heart. And she didn’t want me. Nearly every birthday, she told me that she was “so angry” when she learned she was pregnant with me. “I already had my perfect family,” she said, “a girl and a boy. And you hurt the most coming out, too.” I remember apologizing to my mother for being born. How messed up is that?

Perhaps because of my experience, I like to write about family dynamics, and especially women’s relationships with each other. Writing also helps me work through my feelings, including my mental illness (another thing many artists share). For me, it’s depression and anxiety. I wonder sometimes if I need to feel the darkness and fear in order to write about them. Antidepressant and anti-anxiety meds saved me (and continue to do so); they make me more myself, and more able to function in the world “out there.” After initially being on them for six or so weeks (and this was many years ago), I began to see the world in color again. It was miraculous.

I still have times of deep depression and anxiety. But I experience them as less terrifying than they were before. They used to seem endless, as if I would never see light again. Now I understand that, for me, where there is darkness, there will always be light. It’s just a matter of time.

I just finished a writing a memoir (which I may revise into a novel). It tells about my childhood, and especially my teenage years when my family and I were part of an evangelical church. There, I was vilified for questioning women’s lesser role in church and family life. I was told to submit to my boyfriend, but knew I was smarter than him and refused. My sister said, “Why wouldn’t you want to submit? He makes all the decisions and if something goes wrong, it’s all his fault. You don’t have to think!” But that’s just it: I wanted to think. Needless to say, I’m no longer part of that church. I find my deepest spirituality in Nature, even if it’s in my own back garden.

During the school year (except for this last, pandemic year), I teach poetry to children (grades 1-6), and write some myself. But my first love is fiction: short stories and novels. I’ll keep writing as long as I’m able.

More to come as the weeks follow! I appreciate your thoughts, ideas, and comments.

Nalani in my garden.