When my parents were to be married, my Grandmother didn’t want her daughter marrying my father, a Catholic Italian. Grandma insisted her daughter would end up barefoot and pregnant all the years of her life, a life filed with nothing but drudgery. For the most part, Grandma was right. Mother had eight babies, seven of which survived and needed to be raised. Grandma was never happy about this and consequently never showed any affection for her grandchildren. She did, however, care enough to insist that I not wear a sleeveless dress one Easter because, according to Grandma, one needed to have “nice arms” to get away with that. Apparently, in her critical point of view, I didn’t have particularly nice arms. This put Mother in the sticky position of having to either defend her daughter or acquiesce to her mother, the latter of which would guarantee a pleasant visit with her mother yet hurt her daughter’s feelings. I was always surprised by Mothers unfailing defense and support of her children. Grandma’s presence was so intimidating I knew it would have been easiest for Mother to just go along with whatever she said, yet she always chose to stand up…
Month: November 2012
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – My Mothers Closet
My Mother’s Closet When I was a child, my father’s business took him and my mother away on a trip every year to somewhere like Las Vegas, somewhere glitzy and glamorous. A place where they could enjoy sitting poolside or playing golf in the afternoons, then dress up like movie stars and go out on the town in the evenings. Many of the same people attended the convention from year to year, eventually becoming good friends, relishing each others’ company in the absence of their combined millions of children. I know my mom looked forward to that one week a year more than most inmates look forward to getting out of prison. And it’s no wonder; after all, she spent every day of her life listening to the constant squabbles and complaints of her seven children. All she ever did was referee, clean, cook, do laundry, and buy groceries; until the annual week of the convention, that is. For that blessed week, she got to be herself, Jackie. A person without a child growing on her hip, without a mountain of laundry stinking up the basement, without an enormous evening meal to cook, serve, and clean up after. On…
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!
The Beginning of The End I hold her balled up fist in my hands, one hand cradling the tightly clenched fist, the other gingerly prying her fingers loose, hoping to clip the fingernails that are cutting into the palm of her hand. It isn’t working very well. “Ouch!” she flinched and pulls back. “I’m sorry Mom, but I can’t clip your nails unless we free up your fingers.” I cautiously pull her hand closer once again and very slowly pry loose each finger, one at a time, and clip the long nails. I can see where they have been digging into her palm. I know Dad would have gotten to it before long, yet this will be one less thing for him to do. “Smells,” Mother declares with a wrinkle of her nose. She is embarrassed the stroke has left her with such a gnarled appendage, so useless and offensive. It’s clenched so tight the small amount of water that manages to seep in from a shower ends up stinking as no air gets in to dry things out. I have a weak stomach and at that moment I hate myself for it. I breathe deeply, slowly, not allowing…
Follow The Story!
Hello! I have decided to do something different with my blog for a while. I’ve been working on a book I’m hoping to get published in the next year entitled “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. The book is a compilation of real stories about real relationships between mothers and daughters, sisters, sister-in-laws, girlfriends, aunties, and grandmothers. It’s about us girls. Many of the stories are heart warming and many are funny. Some are sad. The underlying theme is that we need each other. We may have wonderful marriages, a great relationship with our children, love the in-laws, etc., yet we are incomplete and empty without other women in our lives. In what ever form they arrive, blood relations or not, we need sisters and sister friends. There is a popular saying that states something about people becoming a part of our lives for a season, for years, or for a life time. Each one is significant and precious regardless of the time spent in the lime light of each others lives. Some fire flies lose their spark quickly and some glow warm in our hearts forever. Yet there is never a time when we don’t need sisters. I will post…
A Hallows Tale
Once upon a time a lady named Hazel flew on her broom to my house. I had three little kids at the time and I didn’t want them to be afraid or ask too many questions, so I asked Hazel to leave her broom on the back porch along with the pointy hat she insisted on wearing every day of her life. I had known Hazel since we were ten years old, kicking around in the same neighborhood woods where one day she came upon the broom. I’ll never forget it because it was so high up in this big old maple tree we were climbing and I couldn’t imagine how it could have gotten up there. “It flew, of course,” Hazel declared. Well I snickered to hear her say such a silly thing and wondered out loud where she got that idea. “Hazel, it didn’t fly. Brooms can’t fly.” But she showed me. Hazel grabbed hold of the handle, threw herself off the top of the tree straddling the broom, and held on for dear life. I screamed, sure she was heading for a crash landing on the rocky forest floor. Instead, she took off with a mighty swoop…