Parenting the adult "child" ~ Leah St. James

My older son is celebrating a birthday this week, and of course I’ve been spending time looking back at the years–not just the many instances of joys and wonder, but also those moments of sheer terror and anguish. 

It got me thinking about an adage I read at some point–something like the bigger the kid, the bigger the problems. So true.

For example, a toddler might stuff a Pop Tart in your in-laws’ 8-track tape player, then turn it on. You rush in to clean up the mess, replace the unit if needed, and do your best to keep the little tyke occupied while at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s. (Not that I speak from personal experience...)

If your 5-year-old son is caught “relieving himself” against a tree during recess, in full view of a half dozen third-grade girls, you can spend your 15 minutes in the principal’s office apologizing, then take your son home to impress on him that just because Daddy might have taught him it’s okay to do that in the woods doesn’t mean it’s okay in public. (Not that I speak from personal experience...) 

But when they’re older, even the “child’s” most seemingly innocuous error in judgement can turn bad, quickly. And when you can’t help, it’s hard to sit back and watch.

Case in point: When my son was a senior in high school, he borrowed my car one Friday night to drive over to a friend’s house to hang out. Around 11 p.m., as I was heading for bed, the phone rang. It was the local police, wanting to know who was driving my car.

Instantly visions of twisted metal, flipped cars and spinning wheels filled my head, and as my heart galloped, I answered, “That would be my son. Why?”

Officer: “You need to contact him and bring him into the station. Now.”

Turns out my son was driving around with a car full of other kids (which was very much against our rules), and while stopped at a red light, one of the boys rolled down the window and shot Silly String at the car next to it. That car happened to be a brand-new, sporty Mercedes, owned by one of the town’s big-shot attorneys. 

When the attorney rolled down his window, started yelling and waving his arms at the potential damage to his expensive ride, my son, being an 18-year-old “adult,” decided the best course of action would be to make a run for it. Thus began a car chase through the rolling hills of central New Jersey. 

Image courtesy of tomekkno via
Pixabay, CCO Public Domain

Apparently the attorney got tired of torturing his fancy car with the winding, gravel-lined roads in that area and returned to the police station to file a report, and  I had to drive my son to the police station to answer for his actions. 

I’ll never forget my fear and helplessness as I watched the officer lead him to a room in the back of the police station for questioning. In the end, no charges were filed, but the attorney had a full year to change his mind. At the time, my son had won a full scholarship to the college of his choice and had about a month left before graduating high school with honors. I worried for a solid year.

Now, almost 15 years later, I can look back with some perspective.

First, what the heck was that attorney thinking, chasing a car full of kids like that? Maybe he should have been given a ticket!

But mainly I realize how lucky we were that it wasn’t worse. There were no injuries to people or property....although my car did achieve legendary status among my son’s friends and classmates. Yay.

We’re so lucky that as much as that experience grayed some of my hair, it scared the you-know-what out of my son as well. I’m not saying he never again pulled a bone-headed act, but he did graduate and go on to college. In fact, he is now in the final stages of earning his Ph.D.

Has my heart ached for him over one thing or another over these years? Of course, there have been hard times and problems. But at this point, like then, all I can do is pray, lend an ear, or a hand–when asked!–to help him over the bumps in the road.

If you are one of those parents whose “kids” are going through a tough time right now, my heart aches for you as you sit and watch, and feel for them.

Parenting, even for the “experienced,” is not for the faint at heart.

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Leah writes stories of mystery and suspense, good and evil, and the power of love. She loves exploring different love relationships -- like between husband and wife, parent and child. In her Christmas Dance, she looks at marriage after the Happy Ever After.

LeahStJames.com

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Alexandra Anderson has a loving husband who provides for her every need, a beautiful home in the suburbs, and money to fulfill her slightest whim.  But after a lonely childhood, what she wants more than anything is a baby, a family of her own.

Sam Herrmann is married to his college sweetheart, and together they have three healthy, boisterous boys. Sam spends his days running numbers as a government accountant, and his nights and weekends trying to keep up with the grueling family schedule set by his wife – a wife he can barely remember.

What happens when two married people take a look at the perfect lives they've created and decide it's not enough? What happens when those same two people catch the eye of a stranger, and like what they see?

Christmas Dance
A story of love and marriage.
A story of hope.
 
http://a.co/7ZqZQaB 

Please, spare me your speeches ~ by Leah St. James

As I read Barbara’s post yesterday about the upcoming political season (talking about November 2016!), I started thinking about all the unpleasantness to come before the big day rolls around: Complex positions on important issues distilled down to 30-second ads—which are invariably spun into negative ads by the opposing candidates; nonstop phone calls in the evening hours if you’re lucky enough to be in one of those ‘swing” states.

The most annoying (to me) though —“star” musicians and actors telling me I should vote for their candidates because...uh...well, because they’re famous and...uh...probably better looking and rich and...did I say famous already?

I really (really) dislike when celebrity political endorsements, specifically when the celebrities are entertainers.

Yes, yes, yes, I know, I know— they’re people, too, entitled to their opinions with the rights to voice their opinions. And I have free will to switch channels. But when I start to view or listen to a movie/the radio/a concert (etc.), my expectation is enjoyment, not suffering through a sermon of your views on this Democrat vs. that Republican, Libertarian, Independent ... whoever.

I just don’t care what you think. Period.

I also dislike when I start to watch a movie or read a book and find myself deep in a one-sided, sledge-hammering treatment of a particular political or social issue, when it’s clear that the author/screenwriter is pushing a particular agenda (meaning the viewer never gets even a hint of an opposing point of view).

Not only do I not care what you think, but I resent the implication that I need you to spoon-feed me your beliefs.

As a novelist, I believe it’s my job to create a world that’s intriguing or entertaining in some way, fill it with characters to love and/or hate, then put them in situations (or torture them, as the rules say) so a reader will care enough to keep turning pages. My goal is simple:  to entertain, and maybe on a good day to enlighten or enrich in some way. I hope to tell a good story, from a variety of perspectives, not to share with you my personal opinions on political or social-issue topics.

Of course there’s an important place for the exploration of social issues in literature/fiction. Books and movies, and songs, can (and often do) point out injustices or wrongs to those who might not have seen them otherwise.

Think  of the movies Schindler’s List (based on “Schindler’s Ark” by Thomas Keneally), or Norma Rae (based on “Crystal Lee, a Woman of Inheritance by New York Times reporter Henry P. Leifermann). 



When done well, the viewers/readers shouldn’t feel like they’ve been lectured; they should feel enlightened, even if the truths are hard to accept.

Sometimes a point can be made with laughter. The movie 9 to 5 comes to mind – a comedy starring Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dabney Coleman about three overworked, underpaid and under-appreciated office workers who suffer through their male boss’s misogynist behavior.


The movie also addresses serious social issues (then and now), but it “teaches” through laughter and entertainment. At the end, you get the message.

So if you want my attention, don’t lecture me about your personal beliefs, even if you can sing like an angel. Tell me a good story that makes me laugh, or cry. Tell me a story that makes me think.
_______________________

I write stories of mystery and romance, good and evil and the redeeming power of love. Please visit me at www.leahstjames.com.

A mom's love remembered - Leah St. James

She stood in the storm
and when the wind did not blow her way,
she adjusted her sails. ~ Elizabeth Edwards

Yesterday (March21) was my mother’s birthday – or would have been if she were alive. She died in 1996, officially from heart failure. The irony is that her heart was the strongest of her organs, giving way only after emphysema (and years of inhaling tars and nicotines) stole her ability to breathe easily. While her lungs sputtered and struggled to say “Enough,” her heart chanted, “Not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet.”

But that was Mom, always ready to fight for what she wanted, no matter how poor her odds. The funny thing was, she never thought of her battles as...battles. It was just life. In her world, you worked hard—as hard as you could—and if (when) you hit roadblocks, you navigated around them.

When deserted by her husband (my father) with two young daughters to care for, she moved back with her mother, got a job and joined a church where we found new friends (and a new support system).

When her mother died, she converted the upstairs of our three-bedroom colonial into a small apartment (which she rented out...probably quite illegally) and turned the dining room downstairs into a bedroom with a couple hide-a-beds for her little family. To supplement her food budget, she started bringing home leftovers from the diner where she worked. I think we had pasta fagioli every night for six months. I can still taste it. (Ugh.)

When the diner closed, she went into town and started knocking on doors to find a job. She joined the housekeeping staff of a high-rise senior complex, then later became a companion to one of the residents.

As you might imagine, money was in pretty short supply in our home. But Mom worked magic with what she had. She took out an “installment loan” to buy our first color television and paid it off a couple bucks a week. (This was before we all walked around with wallets stuffed with various credit cards.) For Christmas she opened a tiny Christmas club and used lay-away. To give my sister and me fun over the summer, she scraped pennies together every week for a year to rent us a locker at the local beach club.  

Through it all, she routinely sacrificed her wants to give to us. But Mom never complained about what she didn’t have. Instead she gave thanks for the blessings she had.

Mom with my older son ~ 1988. I love the expression on her face.

And that was my mom’s greatest strength:  her heart for her family and for others, her will to make the most of the life she was given. 

I wish I’d fully appreciated my mom for these strengths when I was young, before she died. But I try to honor her memory by coping through difficulties, and by working, hard, for my dreams, even if I have to take baby steps.

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Leah writes stories of mystery and romance, good and evil and the redeeming power of love.

You can find her Facebook, chatting with readers on Fiction Fanatics Feud. Learn more about Leah and her writing at LeahStJames.comhttp://leahstjames.com/

This couple needs a sequel! By Leah St. James

The course of true love never did run smooth.  ~ William Shakespeare

Today I’m telling the story of a workaholic, money-conscious husband and a lonely, empty-nester wife. After more than a couple decades of marriage, he’s not paying enough attention, to anything, at home. She’s just looking for love, of any kind, in all the wrong places.

Sounds like any number of books of commercial or literary fiction, doesn’t it?  In fact, it could read like a Shakespearean tragedy: a couple of noble but flawed protagonists placed under terrible stress who make a decision that brings them to their knees.

The description, from Wikipedia, couldn’t be any more perfect for my couple. Except that they’re not fictional. They’re real.

I’m talking about Bob and Maureen McDonnell, former governor and first lady of Virginia.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, back in 2009, Bob McDonnell was elected Governor of Virginia by a 17-point margin over Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds. As governor, McDonnell was known as a lion for fiscal conservancy and restraint, a reputation that put him on the fast track to the heights of the Republican party, even being rumored as one of Mitt Romney’s potential running mates in 2012. While he wasn’t selected, his name at the time, and for a short while afterward appeared, on many lists of the party’s potential future presidential nominees.

From the outside, those must have been heady days in McDonnell’s world. But trouble was brewing behind the scenes early on.

His wife, Maureen, was lonely. While husband Bob was climbing the ladder of Virginia politics, Maureen shied from the limelight, according to published reports. But she was interested—really, really interested—in food supplements. (Hey, we all have our passions, right?)

And she was lonely. The youngest of her children had flown the coop, and she was left with time on her hands. 

Enter businessman Jonnie Williams, CEO of Star Scientific, a Virginia supplement maker that was researching uses for anatabine, a substance found in the tobacco plant. Star Scientific wasn’t doing too well, and Williams was looking for backing for its two anatabine-based products. When he met Maureen McDonnell – First Lady of Virginia and lover of supplements – his pupils must have lit up with dollar signs. 

Whether you believe he wooed her and drew her in, or she became needy and greedy—or both—by the time he was done, Williams spent something like $175,000 on the McDonnells. When she complained, bitterly, that she was too broke to buy a new gown for her husband’s inauguration—because the governor-elect was too tight-fisted and they’d maxed out their credit cards—Williams stepped in and gave her money. 

He gave the family gifts, too—like a Rolex watch, vacations and golf outings, use of his private aircraft and Ferrari.  He gave a huge chunk of cash for a McDonnell daughter’s wedding reception. He took Maureen McDonnell on a shopping trip for designer clothes in Manhattan and made substantial loans to the family’s floundering real estate company. 

In turn, Mrs. McDonnell spoke at a Star Scientific investor event in Florida, with her husband’s blessing, and announced that she had offered the governor’s mansion for use of a launch party for Anatabloc, one of Star’s products. The governor’s office also facilitated meetings between Star Scientific and the Virginia Tobacco Commission for purposes of funding more research. According to the indictment, it was even suggested (by Williams, I believe) to use Virginia’s public employees  as a control group for Anatabloc. (What?!)

Somehow neither McDonnell thought it inappropriate to put the muscle of the office behind Star Scientific’s product while/after receiving all those gifts and loans. His campaign slogan was the “Bob for Jobs” after all, and he wanted to bring industry to the state. The governor was even quoted as saying (paraphrasing): The stuff works for me! (From what I read, for each of these gifts, the governor either thought it fell outside financial disclosure requirements...or he forgot.)

Before too long, rumors started to leak, a federal investigation was launched, and Williams flipped on both McDonnells, signing a plea deal that allowed him to walk free. In January 2014 both Bob and Maureen McDonnell were indicated on multiple counts of fraud.

And what was their defense?  That it was the first lady who laid the foundation for the corruption that followed, not because she was a bad person (although painted pretty much a shrew), but because, lonely and neglected while her husband took the spotlight, she had developed a crush on Johnnie Williams.  

Williams lavished her with gifts. He listened to her problems....and he fixed them. Williams was her new knight in shining armor.

The case went to trial quickly, and in late September, the McDonnells were convicted on multiple counts. Recent sentencing hearings resulted in two years in prison for the former governor, one year and a day for his wife. 

During her sentencing hearing last week, Maureen McDonnell apologized, saying she had made a terrible mistake and had allowed a serpent into the governor’s mansion. “And the venom from that snake has poisoned my marriage, has poisoned my family and has poisoned the commonwealth that I love.” (Read more about her sentencing here.)

It just makes me sad. As headline-making as their problems are, at their most basic level, they sound typical of so many marriages, don’t they? Not enough money to cover the lifestyle the couple wants. Not enough attention to/from one or the other. Just not enough, period.

The romance author in me can’t help but wonder what would have happened if they hadn’t lost sight of their love somewhere along the climb to political power. 

What if the governor had listened to his wife – shrewishness aside? What if they had tried to work on their financial issues instead of taking the easy (and slimy) way of a handout from a guy looking for a payback? 

So if the McDonnells’ course of love wasn’t one heck of a bumpy ride, I don’t know whose is. 

Maybe they can write a come-back sequel after they serve their time, one that has them holding hands at a beachside resort (that THEY paid cash for), enjoying grandchildren, conducting classes for upcoming politicians. The course would be entitled "What NOT to do While Serving in Public Office 101."

That's the sequel I'd write. What about you?

__________________

Leah St. James writes stories of mystery and romance, good and evil and the redeeming power of love. Read more at LeahStJames.com

Falling into Winter? Noooooooooo! by Leah St. James

Fall into Winter -- just the theme makes me cringe and want to curl into a fetal-like ball. So why have I chosen it as my topic this month? Maybe because my reaction to winter is so potent. And because I now live in a part of the country where "winter" comprises about two and a half months instead of four, and snow accumulation seems to max out at about ten inches, over three days. (Big grin and sigh of relief.)

As a kid in Central Jersey, I LOVED snow. (Most kids do, right?) I remember making snow forts with neighborhood kids, having snowball fights, building snowman families--starting with one ball and rolling across the lawn until I'd accumulated the right size for the base, etc.  I remember walking to and from school with snow up to my knees, even as a teen. At college in central Pennsylvania (where we got lots of snow), I remember walks across a hushed campus after a snowfall, looking up at a star-filled sky and thinking of the beauty of God's creation.

Then real life happened. I got a job that demanded my presence, snow or no snow. That meant digging out my car in the early morning hours, scraping the half-inch of encrusted ice from the windshield and chipping away at the door handle so I could get it open to start the defroster. 

It meant navigating roadways that weren't always cleared, up and down the gently rolling hills, learning how to steer when the car decided to spin, and how to stay back -- waaaaay back -- from the car in front of me whose driver may or may not know how to drive in the white stuff. I'll never forget the  year of the ice storms -- 14 to be exact. The ice was so thick on our street, the kids used it as a skating rink. (I kid you not. It was about six to eight inches thick.)

But  I dealt with it. It's what you do. 

Then came the winter of 2007. My father-in-law was dying of cancer and was staying with us under hospice care. When he passed away, we took him back to his native Poconos in Pennsylvania. After we got there, after the arrangements were made, the Valentine's Day blizzard hit.

Yeah, that was us in the lilac part.
(Screen shot from Weather.com, from the link above. )

I remember driving to the funeral in a foot of snow. My husband, a Pennsylvania mountain boy who'd been raised on driving in that kind of weather, steered while our sons and I gripped the car's panic bars. Every so often we'd have to get out and push the car through a particularly deep patch. Somehow we made it safely, we said our good-byes, and we vowed to move as far from a big-snow-producing region as we could get.

Today I live in an area that calls those a ten-inch accumulations a "blizzard." Today my hubby shovels our sidewalk with his feet. Today I look at pictures of snow, smile and nod and say how pretty, then thank God the "stuff" isn't headed my way, at least not in a big way.

So when I wrote Christmas Dance, about a southern woman living in the north, it wasn't hard for me to transfer this distaste of snow to my heroine.  Alexandra Anderson is married to a workaholic husband, and she's lonely. It's Christmastime and the biting winds of a northern winter only make her feel more alone. Alexandra is looking for something, or someone, to warm her soul. 

Here's an excerpt: 

Cold was the enemy, at least in Alexandra Anderson’s mind, and this part of Jersey, in December, seemed to have more than its share of days that made her defend herself in gloves and scarves and fur-lined hoods. And that was inside the house. 

She smirked at the joke she’d told herself as she entered her three-car garage through the house door. Her giant SUV sat idling—she’d started the ignition remotely minutes ago—and its engine rumbled with suppressed power, its vibrations traveling from the motor to the cement flooring, right through the soles of her boots. She climbed into the gentrified tank, yet another defense against the cold, then sighed with bliss when her butt hit the warmed leather seats. 

Who would ever have thought she’d end up driving a vehicle like this, she wondered as she settled her purse and checked her mirrors—then took the opportunity to smooth the line of her lipstick. Who would have thought she’d ever want a vehicle like this, period, for that matter. When she’d left her home on the North Carolina shore three years before and headed north to marry Ben, she knew the winters would be harder, but Lord, there was hard, and then there was hard.

She’d expected to wear heavier coats. She’d expected to turn the heat on sooner in the year and turn it off later. She’d expected she’d have to put her shorts and flip-flops away for a good apart of the year, too. But she hadn’t expected days where no amount of layering, or consuming hot, spiked beverages, or turning up the thermostat, could touch the bone-deep chill that saturated the air, inside and out, making her feel like one big popsicle. 

Nobody loved popsicles more than Alexandra, but living the life of one wasn’t her druthers. She missed home. She missed the moderate winters. A person could go outside in December without being bundled up like Nanook of the North. Oh, she’d admit there had been days here in Jersey, or even a few spells, where the bite left the air and a body could breathe without feeling like their lungs would freeze, but today wasn’t one of those days. Today was a Nanook day—gray-skied, frigid-aired and down-right nasty feeling. Like Mother Nature wanted to pick a fight with the world.

Alexandra Anderson has a loving husband who provides for her every need.Sam Herrmann is married to his college sweetheart, and together they have three healthy, boisterous boys.

What happens when two married people take a look at the perfect lives they've created and decide it's not enough? What happens when those same two people catch the eye of a stranger, and like what they see?

Christmas Dance

A story of love , marriage and parenthood. A story of hope.

Leah writes stories of mystery and romance, good and evil, and the redeeming power of love. Learn more at LeahStJames.com.