When I became a mom at age 29, I did all the things I was supposed to do, all the things society correlated with being a “good mother.”

On Aug. 11, my late grandfather, Frank Kavanaugh, would have turned 100 years old. But, alas, it’s been some 13 years since Fred left this world (June 9, 2007). I tend to think of him quite often, especially as I’ve gotten older and continued to wander the backroads and highways of the rollicking, undulating landscape that is the United States. 

Edisto Beach, SC — As if this year weren’t already weird enough, my son is in the bathroom of our rented house shaving for the first time. His mom has been onto him about needing to shave and for reasons known only to a teenage boy — or maybe not even known to him — he has chosen this moment, just after a twilight walk on Steamboat Landing to look for little frogs and then watch dolphins from the pier, for this milestone.

Stepping out of the pickup truck in my little sister’s driveway last Saturday, I was immediately greeted with the sounds of children laughing and splashing around in the backyard. It was my niece’s sixth birthday party in my hometown of Rouses Point, New York, a tiny village on the Canadian and Vermont borders. 

I’m currently sitting at the old kitchen table in my parents’ 1840 farmhouse in Upstate New York. Our family dog, Madison, is lying down a few feet away, always within a short distance of me whenever I’m walking around the house or wandering the backyard. The coffee in hand is fresh and strong. There’s a lot on my mind, too. 

I was walking my animal last night at sunset, enjoying the evening views and cool temps, thinking back to the July 4 weekend. Along the way, it hit me that half of 2020 is now in the history books. The verdict is still out as to how this time will be viewed by those who look back, but hell, it sure feels like the world is in a different orbit.

Much like New Year’s Eve, the Fourth of July is one of those holidays that everyone you know will definitely be doing something of some sort. But, for some damn reason, nobody ever seems to decide what that something is until the last minute. 

It’s been a wild and wondrous thing to be able to wander around my native North Country right now: to see old friends and family, and actually be able to sit and make time with them. 

Usually, I only find myself back home in Upstate New York when it’s 20 below zero and there are presents under the brightly-lit tree in my parents’ farmhouse. But, with the current pandemic and shutdown, I was able to (safely) head home and be with family over the last few weeks. 

Maybe we should have named our beagle-mix Lazarus, so often did he seemingly come back from the dead over the years. But we named him Walter and we figure he must have turned 18 earlier this year. There have been days when we didn’t think he could get up, days we found him on the porch flat on his belly, his legs splayed in opposite directions like a beginning skier who has fallen and can’t figure out how to get back up. We’d sit with him, give him more Glucosamine, scrub his ears, discuss our options, and hope for the best.

Good girls are raised to be quiet, dainty and accommodating. Real boys are raised to be competitive, successful and tough. Girls can cry. Boys cannot. Girls are soft-spoken. Boys are boisterous. 

I’m a mom to white little boys who will grow up to become white men. In America, white men have it pretty easy. They have both privileges that are institutionalized in our society.