What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life – to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories. ~George Eliot
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Category Archives: my life
Frank McCourt
Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt died on Sunday. A former public school teacher, he came late to a writing career publishing one of my favorite memoirs, Angela’s Ashes, at the ripe old age of 66. Born in Brooklyn in 1930, his family returned to his parents’ native Ireland when he was four years old and his memoir chronicles his years growing up in poverty with a mostly absent alcoholic father in the slums of Limerick. He famously wrote: The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests, bullying schoolmasters; the English and all the terrible things they did to us for 800 long years.
My mother had a similar childhood, but here in the states and with poor French Catholic parents, not Irish. Still, fourteen children, very little money, and an alcoholic father bring about like miseries whatever your demographics. It’s funny, but I catch myself sometimes feeling angry at my mother since she passed. For dying and leaving me. For loving my brother more. For her “You can’t take it with you!” attitude toward money which has cost me financially over the years and left my father vulnerable at the age of 80 with a large monthly mortgage payment. And yes, for not understanding me, that universal childhood lament that few of us escape – miserable childhood or not.
I know it’s childish to think these thoughts at my age, especially given that my childhood was a fantasyland compared to my mom’s and Mr. McCourt’s. But I also know that a part of us is always our mother’s child, no matter how old we grow in years. And whether we write an angst filled memoir and name it for her, or gaze into the eyes of our newborn granddaughter and miss her more than we ever thought possible, we know in our hearts that we’d forgive our mothers a thousand times over for the woes of our early years for just one more chance to tell them how much we love them.
special delivery
The theme today for PhotoHunt Saturday is “Rocks”. I do have some actual pictures of rocks, but I couldn’t help myself, just one more post about baby Brooklyn. Because as you may have guessed…being a new grandparent rocks! A friend of mine pointed out that in the second shot she’s practicing holding her cell phone! See more PhotoHunt Saturday pics here.
Babies are such a nice way to start people. ~ Don Herold
wordless wednesday
Five day old Brooklyn Noelle just chillin’ and taking in her new digs! See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.
A new baby is like the beginning of all things – wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities. ~Eda J. Le Shan
lefty-loosey
Okay, so right after Brooklyn was born I felt like I should write a heartfelt, touching, tear producing post about the instant joys of becoming a grandparent. But as wonderful as this week has been, the truth is, I felt a little numb, almost like I was stuck in a dream and any minute I’d wake up, and poof! Meagan would still be pregnant and we’d still be waiting for a baby. I was feeling kind of bad about the way I felt, like I was already failing as a grandparent until Doug expressed the same feelings. I’m not sure why it affected us like this. We’re guessing it may be because we’d been waiting for Brooklyn since the kids lost unborn baby Kiley last spring. Basically this child has been anticipated for eighteen long months, during which time we also lost my mother to a terrible, year long illness.
Years ago, Andy once told me how to remember which direction tightens and which one loosens things; righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. Now when I go out to water my flowers and I turn the hose spigot on and off, I often say it silently to myself, righty-tighty, lefty-loosey and I’d begun to wonder if it was possible for our emotions to turn on and off in the same way. I suppose I was expecting a lightning bolt of happiness to strike me the moment I held Brooklyn for the first time at the hospital, that my newfound love for her would wake me up, would fill me up and make me believe that I actually deserved to be happy. But Doug and I both left the hospital the day she was born in a bit of a daze.
Today we had to go over and babysit Brooklyn so that Andy could take Meagan to the doctor’s for complications from the epidural. At one point, I took the baby into her room to change her. After she was cleaned up, I swaddled her in a blanket so that only her head was peeking out and I picked her up. She started to fuss so I began rocking gently back and forth and talking to her in that instinctive, sing-song mommy voice women seem to be born with. Brooklyn quieted down. She began to study my face carefully and then she smiled, the sweetest, purest little smile and that was my moment. It didn’t happen in a brightly lit, crowded hospital room, but alone in the silence of a darkened nursery. And it was not so much a bolt of lightning, but a gentle lefty-loosey, a gift from the tiny pink lips of my first grandchild that went straight to my heart.
July 4th
This year our family 4th of July get-together today takes on new meaning because next week my nephew is going to Iraq. That’s Charlie the Marine in the photo with my dad, who is a proud Air Force veteran. I’ve always loved this holiday weekend because it really makes me stop and think about what an extraordinary country we live in. We proudly fly our American flag every day, not only to honor our country, but also to remember the men and women who have served in military conflicts. Lee Greenwood’s song, God Bless the USA, is a classic that still brings a tear to my eyes…Happy 4th everyone!
10 thousand days: part II
We had a wonderful dinner with the kids last night with some great conversation, a little reminiscing and a few laughs, and then we dragged our poor daughter over to the little historical village where we were married thirty years ago and she took some anniversary pictures for us. It was the perfect evening (although it would have been even better if our daughter-in-law had made us grandparents!). We appreciate you hanging with your old parents last night Andy, Meagan, and Lizzi, you guys are the best and brightest accomplishments of our marriage, and thanks again for putting up with the hot humid night and following us around to take the pics last night Liz, they came out great! (click on the collage to see it larger)
A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year. ~Paul Sweeney
ten thousand days
That’s a photo from my wedding day, thirty years ago today. I pulled it out of an album, scanned it, and then adjusted the color, taking out the yellowed tone of the old paper with a simple click of my mouse button. I still have my wedding dress, I don’t know why, it was certainly nothing fancy. I bought it off the rack, I couldn’t see spending a lot of money for a dress I’d wear for only one afternoon. I’ve moved it many times over the years, from house to house and closet to closet. Like the photos from our wedding day, it’s yellowed and a bit faded and I don’t know how many times I’ve picked it up and began to stuff it in a bag for donation, but I could never quite bring myself to do it. My mother saved the dress she wore that day too, she loved that dress. Near the end of her life, after illness caused her to lose enough weight so she could fit into it once more, she asked me to find it just in case an occasion came up for her to wear it again.
I’ve been married for thirty years, in a matter of days I’ll become a first time grandmother, in September I’ll celebrate my fiftieth birthday. Looking down at my hands as I type this post I see my mother’s hands. The skin is beginning to get that crepey loose look to it and the truth is it surprises me to think that those hands are attached to my body. I suppose if I could I wouldn’t mind clicking my mouse button and tightening up a few things, perhaps doing away with some wrinkles here and there while I’m at it. But you know, there’s not one day from the past ten thousand days with my husband that I would change. The good days, and even the not so good days, are strung out behind us like the tail of a kite, steadying our marriage and keeping us on course. I guess that’s why I hang on to my little yellowed wedding dress, and why my mother kept her favorite dress stashed in the back of her closet for so many years. They carry the footprints of our memories, a diary of new beginnings and of slim healthy young bodies, of ten thousand more days stretched out in front of us like so many promises.
Happy Anniversary Mr. bookbabie, there’s no one else I’d rather crawl in bed with at the end of a long, tiring day…See other Wordless (and not so wordless!) Wednesday participants here.
bookbabie 