Category Archives: family

Remodeling

A poem written 9/5/9

Remodeling as a Transformative Device

(Better than Illness)

Every summer for a long time,
or often anyway,
illness has caught me—
serious enough to warrant
immediate concern
life-threatening even.

And all time was then divided
into before the diagnosis
and after it, life wiped
away as I had known it,
what had seemed important
became less than trivial.

Amnesia set in
about how things had been
and I couldn’t get back
to “normal.”
The process of healing
took the time it took

and the lessons came
and some stuck;.
some left until
the next time.
And on and on it went
with help coming at key moments.

I learned how to ask and receive.
I learned how to balance in chaos.
How to laugh at darkness.
How to let myself feel
and even cry in the presence of others.
And I wrote it all down:

the insights, the quest, the stories
that seemed to give meaning
to suffering, to healing.
Was there no other way
to transformation than
ripping off my skin

again and again?
Then, this summer:
remodeling—Let everything be different
than it had been. Let clutter
be cleared, past failures forgiven,
all belongings spread out,
nothing where it had been.

Ask: If I were moving,
would I keep this?
And as dusty carpet went out
and clean wood floors went in,
light came too, gleaming.
Kitchen cabinets refaced in rich cherry,

Santa Cecelia (patron saint of creativity)
and the name of our chosen granite from Brazil.
All that was worn and shabby
made new again.
Moving on without moving away.
Color, space, clean air,

promise, possibility, openness.
We can’t find our way back
to what was…
even it we wanted to.
Old habits are breaking
like how high to reach to answer the phone

or where to locate a pair of scissors or stamp or fork,
nothing is where it was,
all part of the 17 or 39 or whatever number
of changes in the environment to sustain
healing changes in me.

And the rest of the family?
Well, they are in the thick and thin of it too.
If they can be nourished
by all this,
if they can learn to function
without the usual foundation,

if they can be surrounded by and
immersed in energy for where they are going…
all the better.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
Copyright 2009

Gratitude

The radio was on in the background as we were having Sunday breakfast and reading the newspaper. It was a program of classical music from South America, one piece from each country. The conductor came on before each one to introduce the music. Before one of the pieces he said something like: the composer’s wife and child had been in a head-on collision and the composer named this composition for her. I believe he also said that they had survived. It got me thinking about the preciousness of time. And how we don’t choose how much time we have we have with those we love. And this poem popped out. I was thinking of my husband, but it really applies to everyone I encounter.

4/26/09

Inspired by Something
Partly Heard on the Radio

I do not know
how much time
I have with you.

I read the stories
or avoid reading them
of all the sad, tragic

things that happen
and tears run down my face
in sympathy, in empathy

whether I would stop them
or not. I know this dark place.
But yet, I do not

want to know the limits
of the hours, the minutes
I have with you.

What good would that do?
Just to be here
where you are

for as long
as there is…
and be grateful.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2009

My Dad’s Birthday

April 2nd was my father’s birthday. Family story has it that his mother held out when she was in labor with him so he would not be born on April Fool’s Day. I don’t know if it works that way, a baby is born when he or she is ready. In any case he was born on April 2.About 23 years ago, when he was just 60, he died of a heart attack following minor surgery. He was a complex man. In many ways I was a Daddy’s girl. But at other times I was an outcast too. I’ve written a lot about many facets of our complex relationship. Here are four of those poems. “The Legacy” is from the very beginning of my poetic journal. “Upon Serious Consideration” I wrote when I was trying to deal with emotions (particularly fear) of being diagnosed with elevated blood pressure, which my dad had for a long time. The other two poems were triggered by contemplating feet and from yoga meditation, respectively. I never know when some bit of truth is going to come through.

10/14/95

The Legacy

My dad had a way of seeing
that he passed on to me,
a way of looking at small things
like spider webs and squirrels,
a way of looking at large things
like waterfalls and sunsets.

He knew when there would be
an eclipse of the moon
and we would watch.
We’d sit out on August nights,
lying back on our picnic table,
to search the skies for falling stars.

He knew how things worked,
how to take apart and
put back together.
He could fix bikes and cars
and washers and plumbing,
and I got some of this, too.

When I was older
my dad had a way of receiving
just what I had to give,
of not always asking for more
than I offered.

This was true of him
with others too.
What a gift he had this way!
I’ve tried to do this,
but it doesn’t come easy to me.

This is not to say
all was well with my father.
He spent most of my life really,
stuck and not happy and dying.

He’d take medicine or have surgery,
do what the doctors said,
but he wouldn’t or couldn’t examine
or change his ways
to become healthy and whole.

What happened to the strapping boy of sixteen
who biked a hundred miles in one day
to visit his uncle, then rode back home again?
What happened to his sense of adventure
and freedom and spirit?

I don’t know.
Lots of things can happen in a life.
Why are some crushed
and others thrive?

Yet I see how much of me now
comes from this man.
How much he passed on
stays with me still
and has brought me to
this perfect moment.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 1995

6/1/05

Upon Serious Consideration

I am not my father
what he did or did not do
is not my choosing;

how he died,
how he lived,
whether he was happy,

or satisfied
had little to do with me,
his oldest daughter.

What he could tolerate,
what abuse he got and gave,
his temper, his intellect,

his humor, his blood pressure,
blood sugar, cholesterol,
scars, mistakes, history,

none of this is mine.
I have a fresh slate
upon which to write.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2005

6/11/06

Composite Feet

Perhaps the lack of metatarsal arch
from my mother, the shortened toes,
bunion (genetically inclined).

And from my father (gone now twenty years)—
I don’t remember his feet, perhaps I got the high arches,
the high insteps, now falling.

From him I got my love of walking.
In his prime I remember one day—
maybe when the house was up for sale

and the kids needed to be away—
he took us to the woods somewhere near
and we walked until exhausted—

that was the point. And at that point
none of us could best him—not like later.

And I remember when I was older
and did not go on family vacations
to state parks in Michigan,

my father was driving north
and the car overheated and to keep going
he ran the heater—in deep summer—

not knowing the diabetic neuropathy
was so advanced he couldn’t feel
his foot burning. And when they

arrived and set up camp
and he took off his shoes
and took off his socks

the skin of his right foot—
his accelerator foot—
came off too.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006

9/19/06

From Yoga Meditation

I am playing piano
my father sits on the sofa
in the living room
of our house on Eastwood.
He listens to Moonlight Sonata
and improvising sometimes for hours.
I play and he listens.
I do not know how often this happened
maybe once or maybe regularly.
I loved to play and felt it relax him.
I do not remember him ever
commenting or complimenting,
just listening to his oldest daughter
do what she loved.
And that was…and is…enough.

Do you know how hard it is
to re-write the old stories
to heal from wounds old and deep
to rest, finally?
To remember even harsh things
with compassion and understanding
to forgive and let go?
It is hard sometimes
but can be done
and must be done
to heal and move on.

This story of playing piano
and listening is true.
To remember so vividly
the room, the furniture,
the draped windows along the side
to see him so clearly sitting there
what a gift to have him back
for a bit.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006

Honoring the Work of Women

We were married ten years before having kids. My husband finished law school at the University of Michigan and we moved to Chicago, where both of us had job opportunities. After working for a year at Children’s Memorial Hospital in immunology research, I was accepted at graduate school, earning my Ph.D in microbiology from the University of Chicago. My field was molecular genetics research (DNA cloning, studying gene regulation in yeast and fruit flies).

When our son was born we decided we wanted to raise our children ourselves. Since I earned less money, I was the logical one. After my maternity leave, we hired a wonderful woman to help and I worked part-time. When we built a house and moved out of Chicago, I stayed at home with two small children. It was an enormous shift in my life. I remember being very lonely at times, missing the intellectual part of my life. Slowly I made friends, often through the children (parents at pre-school or other activities). I ran the household and kept track of everything. My husband went off to work. We each had our roles. And we worked hard to keep a balance. Still, I collected no salary. And in a culture that values what brings in money, it can seem that “women’s work” is not valued.

Often this work is invisible, each thing done is so small, yet in the aggregate, the essential glue holding daily life together. It is easy for me to completely fill a day with these small tasks and yet feel no accomplishment. So many things are repeated over and over. Easy to get discouraged when it seems like nothing gets done. Often this work is unacknowledged or under-appreciated by others. So important then, for women to honor this work ourselves, to notice and value what we do, what we bring to our family. Crucial to see the whole of it, the big picture. Like a stone dropped on a still pond, gentle ripples go far out from the center and can affect things near and far.

1/30/01

Woman’s Worth

My worth as a woman,
as a human,
has nothing to do
with whether dust
collects on my floors
and everything to do with
my heart wide open,
my arms embracing.

Even that is as nothing.

My worth is in being—
whatever form I may take,
for how long or how deep,
how high, how steep the climb,
worth not earned, but given,
grace bestowed at first breath.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2001

2/21/03

Is It Enough?

In this house for fifteen years, just to begin the discussion,
not complaint, but observation…and,
yes, other things were done by others—
this is not about them.

Conservatively, five thousand times making the bed,
several hundred times changing the towels, washing,
drying, folding corner to corner, putting away.

Sorting mail 260 days per year—
let’s say some skipped, some holidays,
still then, totals at least three thousand.

Watering plants 600 times.
Diapering babies and baby laundry and kids sick at night
and late-night school projects—left to last minute.

Buying supplies in timely fashion,
planning for most every possible (likely) situation,
cleaning—some in spurts, not fanatically.

Is it enough that I see—and admire
all the complex steps of the daily dance
that I make all look so easy?

Clothes sorted, washed, dried (or hung) and folded,
returned to drawer or closet in one apparently smooth motion.
Our house is far from immaculate,

but still much to do to be just livable.
Sweeping when my eye or pride demands
the piles of onion skins, Kix, flour from pancakes

or dust fluffs grown large on kitchen floor.
Invisible work, only noticeable by its absence,
when clutter piles high, obscuring desk or counter,

when dust lays so thick a hand-print
is as obvious as a painting.

Appointments to be made and kept, bills paid and filed…

“Keeper of the memories…encourage, support,
listen, take care, stay connected to the earth…
do not drown in the sea of essential trivialities.”

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2003

2/19/06

Shrinking Woman

If a woman’s worth
is measured by the cleanliness
of her house, then
the old woman was worthless.
But since that was a myth
she once swallowed whole,
she could take her place
among the elders
spending her remaining
precious grateful moments
doing something else.

What doors were once
open to her? What expectation
laid on thick and heavy?
What dreams might have been
drowned in the parade of seasons;
her life defined narrowly
as was the custom of her time,
ultimately wanting more for her daughters.
Now, waiting out her allotted time,
slowly shrinking as was her world.

She had never intended
to live so long
had never seen herself
as old, yet
here she is more than
three quarters of a century…
and still counting.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006

8/8/06

Re-thinking

Where was it written
that a woman: mother or wife,
must absorb the darkness, the strife,
no salary, but as a measure of worth;
where is it written?

Where was it written that sacrifice
is required to satisfactorily
carry out those mostly chosen roles:
at any cost keep them safe, secure.
Where is it written?

Somewhere deep in me I feel better
if I take on the pain, the troubles,
even at expense of my health,
even if heart can hold no more.

I would rather suffer
than watch suffering;
I would rather be dark
than watch darkness engulf another,

a loved one, someone in my special care.
But yet,
this is not sustainable,
is harsh and unkind to my body-mind.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2006

3/4/08

Care of the Household

Some things done daily
some weekly or biweekly
some monthly, seasonal or annual

some every couple of years
and some rare, maybe every 10-30 years.
All important, necessary, even essential

and most…invisible…unless undone
each one not amounting to much
but in the aggregate…a mountain.

Sort mail, wash dishes, wipe off the table
clean the clutter, do the picking up
make the bed, check what needs to be checked

wash clothes and linens, drying, folding, put away
pay bills, resolve questions
clean air purifier filters

get ready for Stella to come and heavy-clean
arrange for window washing
get house painted and sump pump checked.

Listen for anything that sounds “off”
or smells “funny” or doesn’t look right:
the front sidewalk sinking and driveway sealed

the roof repaired, cedar shakes preserved
ants trapped, threatening bees exterminated
rooms painted, decorated or “freshened up”

clutter cleared and clutter cleared
curtains washed, plumbing repairs made or arranged.
Any little or big thing attended to

fast or slow all in the flow of days…
and the cycle keeps cycling without end
again…mostly invisible…these mountains

filling my minutes, hours, days, months, years.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2008

7/3/08

Treading Water

From something Lisa said about her mother

The daily tasks
consume so much

time, energy, attention:
mail, wash, picking up,

dirty dishes, bills, calls, emails
gardening, watering, following up,

making the bed, folding, putting away,
empty dehumidifier, check furnace filter….

Yet if done
as meditation

conscious of every breath,
gratitude for all I have:

loving family, beautiful home, nice clothes,
good food, pure water, abundant guidance, ready support.

Yes, then beyond
mere treading water:

transcendence!

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2008