Elaine Ambrose

Bestselling Author, Ventriloquist, & Humorist

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#midlife

When Mom Sang “Que Sera, Sera”

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I was 7-years-old the first time I saw my mother cry. She leaned against the kitchen counter with her face pressed into a gingham tea towel, and I didn’t know what to do because it was my fault she was sobbing. She had returned from the hospital and told me she “lost the baby,” and I yelled at her to go find it. I didn’t understand what had happened.

My grandmother took my older brother and me to the mortuary to see the perfect baby wrapped in a delicate pink blanket cradled into a tiny white casket. They named her Carol, and I wanted to hold her. Grandma tried to explain how the cord was wrapped around her neck but that just made me mad. My friend’s mother had a healthy baby almost every year and they never strangled at birth. All I knew was that I could hear my mother crying when she thought we were asleep, and I only wanted her to be happy.

For weeks after the funeral I tried in vain to make her smile. Then one autumn day she placed the needle on her well-worn Doris Day record album and sang a few off-key verses of “Que Sera, Sera,” shattering the heavy gloom that had settled like an unwanted, sickly guest. “Whatever will be, will be” became my mother’s mantra, and it sustained her through a life of abundance tempered with physical and mental pain.

Mom worked two jobs while my father was gone building his trucking business. She babysat other children during the day and typed reports for various businesses during the night. I remember being lulled to sleep by the clack, clack sounds and the rhythmic ding of the manual typewriter. When I was four, my mother gave birth to my younger brother but my father was gone driving an 18-wheel truck to California with a load of meat from Montana. He didn’t return for four days because he needed to broker a load of frozen food to bring back. My mother waited patiently for him to return and name the baby. I never appreciated the magnitude of her sacrifices until many decades later.

By then, I too was a mother. I’ll never forget the first moment I felt the faint flutter of my unborn baby. I was alone on a business trip to Logan, Utah, and I silently celebrated and also trembled with fear at the mysterious wonder that grew near my heart. My biggest concern was about the umbilical cord, and even though my daughter was born in critical condition and rushed to intensive care, she rallied and we went home together. The first few months, I got up several times during the night to touch her to make sure she was still there. During those quiet lullabies in the night, I promised to love her and make her happy.

Two years later I was blessed with a son, and again, I got up in the night to touch him. The rhythmic breathing of my sleeping children was nourishment to my soul and offered a cadence that motivated me to take care of them. My daughter and son now have daughters of their own, so they know the intense power of parenthood.

Mom was widowed 25 years ago at age 62, and though she maintained her steadfast attitude claiming “What will be, will be,” I noticed a sadness in her eyes as she slipped into dementia. She is frail and frequently talks of angels and of seeing my dad and her departed sister and friends. I will mourn her passing but rejoice when she is free from her earthly limitations. I envision her running to her lost child and rocking the baby without distraction. Then, finally, she will be happy.

(Update: My sweet mother passed away in 2014, and my brothers died in 2017 and 2019. I imagine her smiling with Carol, my dad, and my two brothers.)

Midlife Cabernet: Mothers and Daughters from a Different Story

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photo (3)In fits of exasperation during my volatile teenage years, my mother would exclaim, “I hope you have a daughter just like you!” Thankfully, I did. And during my daughter’s spirited times, somehow my mother’s words came out of my mouth. And yes, she also has an ebullient child. We have several years before my granddaughter is a teenager, but I predict the same conversation will occur.

Another accusation my beleaguered mother used to say was that I was only happy doing what I wanted to do. Even as a defiant little girl, I would retort, “What’s wrong with that?” Sorry, Mom.

I can’t write a warm and glowing tribute to my mother because we have never been close. There weren’t any shared secrets or long calls or exchanges of advice. Once a man hit me and split my lip, but I couldn’t tell my mother even though she was only 30 minutes away. I fled to the home of a friend’s mother for consolation. I wish it had been different.

My mother always has been timid and insecure, and our personalities clashed from the start. She was the Sunday School teacher, the Cub Scout Leader, and the dutiful wife and mother. But she didn’t know what to do with me, and I couldn’t be the daughter she wanted. When my parents drove me to college and found the reception area, I bolted from the car and never looked back. There weren’t any hugs or tears because all three of us were relieved that I was out of the house.

I respect my mother and know that she’s had a difficult life full of pain and sorrow. I admire her because she has a fierce determination that should be studied by medical science. And I love her as best I can. Widowed for 25 years, now she lives in a nursing home and is confined to a wheelchair. She is afflicted with dementia and I hope that when she smiles she is remembering the good and positive times she experienced during her 87 years.

The legacy of growing up in a loveless family is that there are no guidelines to follow to a better life. I knew that I wanted a close family and when I was blessed with two children, I became the Mother Bear of the Universe. I made mistakes, as we all do, but my allegiance to them remains true and unwavering. Now they have strong marriages and excellent relationships with their children, and I am in awe of their parenting skills.

The greatest parenting achievement for me is that I see and talk with my children regularly. They taught me how to do this, and I highly recommend it. I’ll continue to visit my mother and be attentive to her needs, but spending time with my adult children is like receiving a gift I always wanted. And as my mother used to say, I’m happiest when I get what I want.

With sincere admiration and love, I wish my mother, my daughter, and my daughter-in-law a splendid Mother’s Day. Remember that your children want you to be happy.

Midlife Cabernet: From Blog to Book

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My first blog post for Midlife Cabernet was published in February of 2008 when I was a youngster in my fifties. Since then, I have repeatedly lost and regained the weight of a piano, divorced and remarried, moved twice, authored or published ten books, attended both my children’s joyful marriages and then held their darling baby girls, supervised the building of a mountain cabin, admitted my mother into a nursing home, and enjoyed enough red wine to preserve me for another twenty years.

This blog was the constant activity through all the chaos and commotion. My first topics were about how to survive the empty nest and described the powerful realization that I would live longer without my children than with them. (This may bring some relief to beleaguered moms of toddlers.) Subsequent blogs covered the raw realities of menopause, body failures, eldercare, and old, old friends. Looking back, Midlife Cabernet is a private journal that I happened to share on the World Wide Web.

So, why not make it a book? Voila! Midlife Cabernet – Love, Life & Laughter after Fifty will premiere in April. It’s a combination of my published blogs and new material, previously unseen by human eyes. Chapters include “Midlife Dating and Mating,” “The Proper Care and Coddling of Curmudgeons,” and “A Time to Laugh, a Time to Get a Weapon.”

If you write a blog (and you should), here’s how you can turn it into a self-published book:

Write well and regularly about topics that interest a target audience.
Save all your published essays into word documents and divide them by categories. For example, I organized all my blogs about grandchildren into an entire chapter titled “Grandkids as Speed Bumps.”
Add 50% new material.
Set a budget. For about $3,500 you can pay for design, editing, printing, and shipping for 100 copies of a 230-page book that contains 60,000 words. Be sure to price the book to cover your costs. Profit is nice, too.
Study online resources and talk to published authors to learn how to self-publish a book. If you want bookstores to consider carrying your book, obtain an ISBN number.
Work with a professional graphic designer to create a dynamite cover and design the interior text. If you’re also doing an e-book, a different configuration is necessary.
Hire a professional editor or two and enlist a few of your literate friends to proofread the copy. My final copy went through four edits and revisions.
Choose an online publishing company. I have used Lulu, BookMasters, and CreateSpace. I prefer CreateSpace. Study their website for instructions. Upload the cover and text, order a proof copy, make any changes, and then order the books.
When the box of books arrives, open it carefully and then relish the moment you first hold your precious creation. This euphoria lasts only a few moments until you realize that the books will languish in your garage until you sell them. Marketing and promotion is just as important as the production. Again, learn from a variety of resources about how to arrange book signing events, obtain reviews, promote through social media, and basically become a book peddler. Remember that your friends and relatives will only buy so many copies before they stop taking your calls.

Finally, enjoy the process of writing a book. There is an enormous feeling of accomplishment when you walk into the local bookstore and see your title on the shelf. You may or may not obtain fame or fortune from your work, but take comfort in knowing you did it. Then go home and start writing your next masterpiece.

Midlife Cabernet: The World is Tilting Upside Down

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My wee granddaughter likes to poke her butt in the air, place her head on the floor, and look back between her legs. This position is best executed by little people who are close to the ground. I tried it once but strained my back, ripped my pants, and fell on my face.

It’s tempting to try this pose again because everything seems to be upside down, and what once was considered strange and inappropriate is now accepted and even celebrated. Here are some perplexing examples of recent news stories that hurt my brain and cause me to mutter (more than usual.)

A man in Portland frantically called 911 because his cat scared him into cowering in a bedroom with his family. The man was paid to tell his terrifying tale on a television entertainment program, and the cat is in therapy. I live with a Marine who could strangle a ferocious beast with one hand without spilling his gin and tonic. And I’m thankful for that fact.

In a related story about a new product, when the killer cat dies the owner can memorialize the feisty feline by having its nose molded into a sterling silver necklace. This lovely tribute is available at several online stores and costs a few hundred dollars. I don’t want any friends who wear animal noses as jewelry. That’s just wrong.

Then there’s the news about a 31-year-old Michigan woman who is in jail because she bit off her boyfriend’s ear during a domestic dispute. Maybe the boyfriend should enlist the help of Angelica Velez of Brooklyn, a tattooed sideshow star who was interviewed last week about her unique and enviable ability to hammer nails up her nose. You can bet your sweet hammered nostrils that she would organize and sell tickets to a catfight between the ear-chomping girlfriend and the notorious kitty.

She’s probably not part of a peculiar group of lonely women who choose to marry inanimate objects. I read a report that a woman in Florida married an amusement park ride because she experienced special feelings while riding it. (And who doesn’t? But we don’t marry the things!) Women also have married other items, including the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Berlin Wall in Germany. There’s not a single chance of biting off ears in these relationships.

Finally, I’m stunned by the “too damn many lawyers” story about the teenage girl suing her parents for child support. Too bad that sweetheart hadn’t met my father. If I had tried that, I would have been given a one-way ticket on the next bus to Florida to go live with a tattooed woman and her one-eared cat.

I’ve decided to stop reading news bulletins because they clutter my brain with disturbing images and confounding details. I’ll just focus on things I already know to be weird, irrational, and irrelevant. The US Congress comes to mind.

Today’s blog was fueled by a Sebastiani Cabernet from Sonoma County. It’s $40 a bottle at the Kona Grill in The Village at Meridian, but go on Wednesday because all wine is 50% off the regular price. Enjoy a bottle or two and then you’ll be able to strike a downward facing dog pose to get a balanced perspective on our tilted world.

Midlife Cabernet – A Vintage, Full-bodied Blog

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The power of a child! My sweet granddaughter, Mirabel Ruby, celebrated her second birthday yesterday with a festive party as four generations enjoyed brunch and mimosas prepared by her parents, singing by her cousins, and a musical program from her grandparents.

The amazing reality of this event was that 15 adults of totally diverse backgrounds and beliefs came together to celebrate this wonderful little girl. We had liberals, conservatives, agnostics, new-agers, a vegetarian, and a widow who still thinks Eisenhower is president. At least three guests own a concealed weapon permit and several others wouldn’t have a gun in the house. We represent a sample of America, and we’ll probably cancel out each other’s votes during the next presidential election.

But, we came together to sing, laugh, and celebrate the extraordinary life of a two-year-old who just last week learned to crawl. Mirabel was born with ten fingers, ten toes, and Down syndrome. And, she has the power to unite all of us. Cheers and thank you, Sweet Mirabel!

At home, to continue the celebration, I opened a 2009 Terra-Barossa Shiraz from Australia. I was hesitant to purchase the wine, mainly because I’m a Cabernet fan and the bottle had a screw top, but it was highly recommended by the Co-op in Boise. I was surprised and pleased at the rich flavor, and it tasted of spicy plums and creamy oak. This wine is good enough to go without the lovely sound of a popping cork. It’s about $20 at the Boise Co-op.

Midlife Cabernet – Sucked into the Sewer of Political Pomposity

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One of the many advantages of living in the last third of life is that I don’t accept crap from anyone. I wasted valuable time during my thirties and forties posing as a pleaser, forever scampering around to ensure that everyone was happy while concurrently fighting manic hormones that were yelling at me to break something. Now, like a fine wine aged to perfection, I just don’t give a rip.

Facebook periodically presents a trap that I fall into if I’m not vigilant about keeping my comments sassy and humorous. Earlier this week, an associate who just happens to be a politician made a comment on Facebook. I added a factual statement that provided an alternative opinion. Holy Hot Flash! Suddenly, strangers wrote comments suggesting that I was stupid and wrong. One challenged me by name to check my facts. Another threw in an entire paragraph of questions and demanded that I answer them. These hostile comments received “like” comments from other strangers who don’t know me.

Of course, feeling threatened, defensive, and unjustly attacked, I wrote and posted an excellent rebuttal that factually substantiated my original post. Then I waited. No one “liked” my rebuttal. Obviously, nobody wanted an intelligent debate. Sigh. So, I decided, once again, that it is impossible for some groups to engage in civil discourse and show tolerance for diversity of opinion. I removed all my posts to this person, un-friended the one person I knew who “liked” the attacks on me, and placed a hammer on my desk. I taped a note on the hammer that reads: “Use this to hit head instead of making another political comment on Facebook.”

Now that I’m liberated from being sucked into the verbal sewage of political pomposity, I am free to open a bottle of 2008 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. This delightful wine combines a tasty blend of Cabernet, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot, and is available at Seasons Wine Bar in Eagle for around $40. It’s my fabulous, mature choice to sip good wine instead of argue with strangers.