I am a horrible person, letting FB consume my life. I have been away so long, that it has almost been like a loss to me..afraid to even look at my old love because I have been unfaithful...and it's true. I have missed my blog so much.
Ironically a few weeks ago, my miracle's birthday was coming up and I googled searched the words Jedi cakes. I was hoping for a Mario cake this year, but still looking for images and ideas..and guess what popped up first on the search.
So Blessed To Be Matthew's Mom In MA pictures from last years Star Wars Party....It stopped me short and took my breath, and then I had to click on it...and that was it. I couldn't at the time let myself back in, because I had to stay focused on my mission of planning his party and have enough distractions, but it has been calling to me ever since.
Today on FB, I accidentally was looking up an old high school class near mine, looking for an old girlfriend of mine...when I saw an ex-boyfriend's name with a picture of his son...I clicked on it, due to how cute his little boy is now. His wife has a blog, and I let myself into her and his world, and felt so guilty for not sharing over the past year again about my own blessing.
I am hoping to get back into this again. Matthew asked me the other day if I had a diary. I told him, "Remember Mommy's blog honey, that is my diary, that is my heart and soul, my journal."
There is too much to catch up again, so for now, one day at a time again. My mother will be gone almost 4 years on the 25th of February and I will be heading home for her mass, to attend with my dad. I miss her more than humanly possible to ever put into words.
Showing posts with label Memory Of My Mom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memory Of My Mom. Show all posts
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Grandpa Shows Up With Cabbage!!
Last night during dinner, Matthew ran to me and said, "Tell me a story about your mom!"
I said, "You mean when I was little?"
He said, "Yes, Anything!"
I was shocked the way he came up to me and just asked me straight out about her. I told him how she was so beautiful, as I was quickly racking my brain for good memories with her. Due to her illness, my memory isn't the best with the good times, and I don't want him to know that.
So, I told him how she loved to bake and was so beautiful.
I then remembered a funny story but had to alter it a little due to his age.
I told him when his Grandpa met Grandma, he worked on a farm. My father being all Italian in the summer working on the farm, would get very dark. (I left that part out) I told him that Grandpa was so happy to meet Grandma, that one day he brought a head of cabbage to her house.
He knocked on the door and Matthew's Great-Grandmother opened the door in shock!!!
I told Matthew it was due to the size of the cabbage. It was really about the darkness of my father and him standing there at the front door of my Irish Grandmother's house, with that head of cabbage.
It was late 1950's early 1960's! So she was a little shook up!
My Grandmother then ran into the other room, screaming who and why is this man at our door?
I didn't explain this part to Matthew. He was happy with the fact that Grandpa showed up with the cabbage for Grandma!
Part of my resolution this year, is not to feel bad about the past..yet this isn't feeling bad, it's sharing memories.
I always wish Matthew had more people around to say, when your mom was a girl she did this, or your Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle's and cousins did this...
You get the picture....not only his memories yet to be created, but to also have a sense of who we all are, and our memories to help mold his life.
Yesterday and today, I have been back to the routine of school again, as well as the getting up early. I am getting myself up 45 minutes to an hour earlier than him, to have a cup of coffee, wash my face, get dressed and take care of me so I can then tackle him.
My hair is now in layers, and the girl said to get the curly look just let it dry by itself, so I have been letting the back dry and just take care of my bangs.
This morning, after doing my hair.
He looks at me and said "Mommy, your hair is messy still!"
I said, "Hey, I got up early to fix it so it isn't messy honey...this is the style."
He said, "Oh yeah, I like it like that!"
I now have to just go vacuum, play date today with some friends that we miss and I promise I am not cleaning more than that, the bathroom and the kitchen counters!
I have pride!
I said, "You mean when I was little?"
He said, "Yes, Anything!"
I was shocked the way he came up to me and just asked me straight out about her. I told him how she was so beautiful, as I was quickly racking my brain for good memories with her. Due to her illness, my memory isn't the best with the good times, and I don't want him to know that.
So, I told him how she loved to bake and was so beautiful.
I then remembered a funny story but had to alter it a little due to his age.
I told him when his Grandpa met Grandma, he worked on a farm. My father being all Italian in the summer working on the farm, would get very dark. (I left that part out) I told him that Grandpa was so happy to meet Grandma, that one day he brought a head of cabbage to her house.
He knocked on the door and Matthew's Great-Grandmother opened the door in shock!!!
I told Matthew it was due to the size of the cabbage. It was really about the darkness of my father and him standing there at the front door of my Irish Grandmother's house, with that head of cabbage.
It was late 1950's early 1960's! So she was a little shook up!
My Grandmother then ran into the other room, screaming who and why is this man at our door?
I didn't explain this part to Matthew. He was happy with the fact that Grandpa showed up with the cabbage for Grandma!
Part of my resolution this year, is not to feel bad about the past..yet this isn't feeling bad, it's sharing memories.
I always wish Matthew had more people around to say, when your mom was a girl she did this, or your Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle's and cousins did this...
You get the picture....not only his memories yet to be created, but to also have a sense of who we all are, and our memories to help mold his life.
Yesterday and today, I have been back to the routine of school again, as well as the getting up early. I am getting myself up 45 minutes to an hour earlier than him, to have a cup of coffee, wash my face, get dressed and take care of me so I can then tackle him.
My hair is now in layers, and the girl said to get the curly look just let it dry by itself, so I have been letting the back dry and just take care of my bangs.
This morning, after doing my hair.
He looks at me and said "Mommy, your hair is messy still!"
I said, "Hey, I got up early to fix it so it isn't messy honey...this is the style."
He said, "Oh yeah, I like it like that!"
I now have to just go vacuum, play date today with some friends that we miss and I promise I am not cleaning more than that, the bathroom and the kitchen counters!
I have pride!
Monday, November 10, 2008
IN MY MOTHER'S WORDS - The Ten Commandments of School written late 1950's
I know my creative writing talent and awesome sense of humor comes from both sides of my family, so I thought what an awesome way to share my mother's creativity from circa late 1950's.
The picture above shows my mother on an adventure with her children (that would be me, mama swan in the glasses) and my little rambunctious bro J who was probably trying to climb over that fence..into the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Thankful Thursday - The internet - My Mom's Birthday November 8th
Alright, this seems like a simple one, but really it is much deeper.
This week has been crazy as usual. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had joined one of those myspace type places where I could be a part of a "friendly" network and share with them.
Through this medium, there are all types of "subgroups" for everything you can imagine, quizzes, trivia, horoscopes and group for anything and everything on your mind.
I've joined a few of them.
One of them happened to be a group, that wound up being another website entirely made up of people wanting to vent and share in regards to whatever ails them...which in my case happened to be my mother's illness.
This group allowed me to set up a page, where again there are places for journals, videos, pictures, communities, friends and profile comments.
The first night I was on Eric's laptop so I couldn't upload any pictures, and only briefly set up my account. Again this is an account where only people who you invite as friends, can view. In this case, the people on the site are all related to or have themselves, the neurological disease my mom suffered from.
I set up a brief profile with a brief explanation on how I have been affected by this illness in my family. I briefly mentioned about my mother suffering for many years and with her passing in 2006. I mentioned how my brothers and I are considered at-risk, and that therefore, my beautiful miracle is at risk. I mentioned how I pray every day for a cure.
Within seconds, I had three replies from Australia, California and Canada. The first woman from Australia is now a caretaker of her husband and they just celebrated 39 years of marriage, and how she prays he will be able to be there for more. She had never heard of this disease before her husband was diagnosed, she has two sons and two grandchildren. She says she prays also for patience and that she tries to not take it out on her husband, but sometimes it was hard.
The woman from California was just married and was diagnosed. The 25 year old woman from Canada has it and is married. Her mom passed, when this woman was 17, she was diagnosed at 19. She is in assisted living with nurses and has the most positive attitude and website, full of poems, and how to deal with life with a positive attitude. She mentions that when her husband and her have children, they will use the genetic testing on the embryo's to ensure that gene is not passed down.
The next morning I had received two more welcomes, from woman both from England who have it. One has two beautiful children under 7, the other does not have children yet.
By yesterday morning, I was shaking in my shoes. I immediately thought what did I do...I'm not just sharing with the world, my horror of this illness, but people who actually have it are emailing me. Part of me, wants to remain in a fetal position about this. Since having Matthew, and since my mom's passing other than on this blog, I have put the disease out of my mind, just trying to enjoy every moment with my son and not face possibly the black whole that might be ahead.
So when someone who has it was emailing me, I shared how wonderful it is that they CAN REACH OUT, they can type, they can email and look for resources, groups, support, friends, family, poems, websites however they need to. That - that in itself is HUGE.
I told them how my father and mother didn't have that luxury. Not only was it too late, by the time my father even got a computer, but the resources in the valley weren't what they are today. Support groups, the closest physical one was in Philadelphia two hours away. There wasn't even cell phones then, to call someone for a ride.
Someone who is being a full time caretaker, doesn't have the strength to drive two hours away, organize a bus to get there, or even organize a local support group. Especially because he was a man, he wasn't into organizing support groups. So instead, there was nothing.
To this day, my father doesn't like to be involved in forums, chatting and such because he is of the old school and doesn't 'LIKE to air his laundry" but that doesn't mean he didn't need the help or just need a hug.
My point is though, for the people of today who do have to suffer with this or any other horrendous disease, there are other options and the mindset of those are growing up with technology and support around them so it is getting easier.
And for my mother's birthday I've decided in her honor, to stay apart of this group to offer the only words and cyber hugs I can. One daughter mentioned how she was her mom's caretaker and how she would go to the nursing home and just rub her arm and sing her an Irish tune. Boy did that hit me. The last day of her life, she smiled at the end. The daughter felt relief as if her mom was then running through daisies. I shared with her how my mother hung on for 3 days due to she finally had her three children in the same room, and she wasn't going to let go, how we all sang to her.
And at the end, how I told my father "Dad, she's free!! She's healthy, she's flying over us, heading out that window going to watch the sunrise with her brother and her parents and have a beer!!! SHE'S HEALTHY!!"
Happy Birthday Mom....................I love you.
This week has been crazy as usual. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had joined one of those myspace type places where I could be a part of a "friendly" network and share with them.
Through this medium, there are all types of "subgroups" for everything you can imagine, quizzes, trivia, horoscopes and group for anything and everything on your mind.
I've joined a few of them.
One of them happened to be a group, that wound up being another website entirely made up of people wanting to vent and share in regards to whatever ails them...which in my case happened to be my mother's illness.
This group allowed me to set up a page, where again there are places for journals, videos, pictures, communities, friends and profile comments.
The first night I was on Eric's laptop so I couldn't upload any pictures, and only briefly set up my account. Again this is an account where only people who you invite as friends, can view. In this case, the people on the site are all related to or have themselves, the neurological disease my mom suffered from.
I set up a brief profile with a brief explanation on how I have been affected by this illness in my family. I briefly mentioned about my mother suffering for many years and with her passing in 2006. I mentioned how my brothers and I are considered at-risk, and that therefore, my beautiful miracle is at risk. I mentioned how I pray every day for a cure.
Within seconds, I had three replies from Australia, California and Canada. The first woman from Australia is now a caretaker of her husband and they just celebrated 39 years of marriage, and how she prays he will be able to be there for more. She had never heard of this disease before her husband was diagnosed, she has two sons and two grandchildren. She says she prays also for patience and that she tries to not take it out on her husband, but sometimes it was hard.
The woman from California was just married and was diagnosed. The 25 year old woman from Canada has it and is married. Her mom passed, when this woman was 17, she was diagnosed at 19. She is in assisted living with nurses and has the most positive attitude and website, full of poems, and how to deal with life with a positive attitude. She mentions that when her husband and her have children, they will use the genetic testing on the embryo's to ensure that gene is not passed down.
The next morning I had received two more welcomes, from woman both from England who have it. One has two beautiful children under 7, the other does not have children yet.
By yesterday morning, I was shaking in my shoes. I immediately thought what did I do...I'm not just sharing with the world, my horror of this illness, but people who actually have it are emailing me. Part of me, wants to remain in a fetal position about this. Since having Matthew, and since my mom's passing other than on this blog, I have put the disease out of my mind, just trying to enjoy every moment with my son and not face possibly the black whole that might be ahead.
So when someone who has it was emailing me, I shared how wonderful it is that they CAN REACH OUT, they can type, they can email and look for resources, groups, support, friends, family, poems, websites however they need to. That - that in itself is HUGE.
I told them how my father and mother didn't have that luxury. Not only was it too late, by the time my father even got a computer, but the resources in the valley weren't what they are today. Support groups, the closest physical one was in Philadelphia two hours away. There wasn't even cell phones then, to call someone for a ride.
Someone who is being a full time caretaker, doesn't have the strength to drive two hours away, organize a bus to get there, or even organize a local support group. Especially because he was a man, he wasn't into organizing support groups. So instead, there was nothing.
To this day, my father doesn't like to be involved in forums, chatting and such because he is of the old school and doesn't 'LIKE to air his laundry" but that doesn't mean he didn't need the help or just need a hug.
My point is though, for the people of today who do have to suffer with this or any other horrendous disease, there are other options and the mindset of those are growing up with technology and support around them so it is getting easier.
And for my mother's birthday I've decided in her honor, to stay apart of this group to offer the only words and cyber hugs I can. One daughter mentioned how she was her mom's caretaker and how she would go to the nursing home and just rub her arm and sing her an Irish tune. Boy did that hit me. The last day of her life, she smiled at the end. The daughter felt relief as if her mom was then running through daisies. I shared with her how my mother hung on for 3 days due to she finally had her three children in the same room, and she wasn't going to let go, how we all sang to her.
And at the end, how I told my father "Dad, she's free!! She's healthy, she's flying over us, heading out that window going to watch the sunrise with her brother and her parents and have a beer!!! SHE'S HEALTHY!!"
Happy Birthday Mom....................I love you.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Happy Birthday Mom & Thankful Thursday
Once Again, Mom....HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
This morning was an interesting one, to say the least. In less than an hour I felt like Erma Bombeck who I used to love. My English teacher in high school introduced me to her writings and I've loved them since.
The morning began at 6:45 and we needed to get up for school. Matthew immediately started out the morning by saying he was still tired. I thought, OK...15 more minutes under the covers and then that's it.
At 7 AM he started saying how he didn't want to go to school today. When I asked him why he mentioned that he was comfy and cozy and just didn't want to get up and go. I let him know that if we could get through today, he would have almost a full week vacation off due to Veteran's Day on Monday.
He didn't want any part of it and me being the cozy loving, cuddling, sleep loving, bed loving under the covers mom that I am, I forced myself up to get dressed, turn on his shows on the TV downstairs, make coffee and get him something to eat.
Twenty minutes later, him and Daddy were snuggling on the couch. I said "This isn't helping me." Daddy made him a deal that if he went to school, I would let him play Super Mario games on the computer when he comes home.
He really is getting carried away and it is amazing to me to see how at four years old, he is not spoiled, but he needs to stop expecting things such as toys, games - computer related or otherwise. I need to put my foot down. I will let him play his games today and luckily tomorrow we have a play date to get out of the house. We also had one yesterday so at least his time is being spent more socializing with his friends than in the house on the computer. He is Daddy's little boy and he will tell me to just type in "the network"!!
The other day I found out that network isn't the same as Daddy's but The CARTOON NETWORK site.
He is really good and plays more than batman & spiderman and superhero games. He is really good at educational games as well and loves just as much to be online playing WORD WORLD games on PBSkids.com
I don't want to hold him back from learning but somehow I need to let him know that life wasn't always this technical or this easy. I hate to sound like my parents, but I find myself starting now to say "Back when I was a kid" and I know that isn't the answer but I need to give him a view of life without computers or toys constantly being shown on the commercials. In two minutes he will ask me for five toys one after another. I keep saying add it to your list for Santa and I keep making him aware of how many times he is asking for something. We'll say "Where are we going to put all of these toys?"
He'll just say "Upstairs, down the basement" (because that is where all of his toys are)
And he is only almost 5.
Anyway, back to this morning. He finally ate two bites of an oatmeal raisin cereal bar (not enough) and then as we were getting ready to put on his sneakers (8:05- school starts at 8:30), he started telling me that he had a bump on the back of his head.
I found it under the hair and immediately feared what it was. He has never had one up to this point and now in hindsight I feel like a horrible mom because he was the one to find it and not me.
Eric naked in the shower trying to get ready for work, peeked out and confirmed my fears. He told Matthew that he would take it out. While we were waiting for Daddy to throw on a towel, Matthew went into panic mode and hid out in the closet. I assured him that Daddy is a professional and that he used to do this with Ringo and Pooker all of the time. I assured him that Daddy taking it out would be alot easier than not taking it out and that it could make him sick.
At 8:15 Daddy got that damn live tick out of my angel's head.
At 8:18 Matthew squished him with his magnifying glass after thinking he was cool.
At 8:25 we were in the car and Matthew said "What kind of bug was that again?" I told him and he repeated it and said he would have to tell his teacher and his friends.
I immediately am panicking about the horribleness of kids being cruel said "Don't tell the kids about it honey. You can tell your teacher. I'm telling your teacher."
Thank you God today wasn't show and tell and he would want to bring it in.
So now it is time for me to go pick him up.
I am going to have to cut my Thankful things list down today due to timing.
This morning was an interesting one, to say the least. In less than an hour I felt like Erma Bombeck who I used to love. My English teacher in high school introduced me to her writings and I've loved them since.
The morning began at 6:45 and we needed to get up for school. Matthew immediately started out the morning by saying he was still tired. I thought, OK...15 more minutes under the covers and then that's it.
At 7 AM he started saying how he didn't want to go to school today. When I asked him why he mentioned that he was comfy and cozy and just didn't want to get up and go. I let him know that if we could get through today, he would have almost a full week vacation off due to Veteran's Day on Monday.
He didn't want any part of it and me being the cozy loving, cuddling, sleep loving, bed loving under the covers mom that I am, I forced myself up to get dressed, turn on his shows on the TV downstairs, make coffee and get him something to eat.
Twenty minutes later, him and Daddy were snuggling on the couch. I said "This isn't helping me." Daddy made him a deal that if he went to school, I would let him play Super Mario games on the computer when he comes home.
He really is getting carried away and it is amazing to me to see how at four years old, he is not spoiled, but he needs to stop expecting things such as toys, games - computer related or otherwise. I need to put my foot down. I will let him play his games today and luckily tomorrow we have a play date to get out of the house. We also had one yesterday so at least his time is being spent more socializing with his friends than in the house on the computer. He is Daddy's little boy and he will tell me to just type in "the network"!!
The other day I found out that network isn't the same as Daddy's but The CARTOON NETWORK site.
He is really good and plays more than batman & spiderman and superhero games. He is really good at educational games as well and loves just as much to be online playing WORD WORLD games on PBSkids.com
I don't want to hold him back from learning but somehow I need to let him know that life wasn't always this technical or this easy. I hate to sound like my parents, but I find myself starting now to say "Back when I was a kid" and I know that isn't the answer but I need to give him a view of life without computers or toys constantly being shown on the commercials. In two minutes he will ask me for five toys one after another. I keep saying add it to your list for Santa and I keep making him aware of how many times he is asking for something. We'll say "Where are we going to put all of these toys?"
He'll just say "Upstairs, down the basement" (because that is where all of his toys are)
And he is only almost 5.
Anyway, back to this morning. He finally ate two bites of an oatmeal raisin cereal bar (not enough) and then as we were getting ready to put on his sneakers (8:05- school starts at 8:30), he started telling me that he had a bump on the back of his head.
I found it under the hair and immediately feared what it was. He has never had one up to this point and now in hindsight I feel like a horrible mom because he was the one to find it and not me.
It was a tick!!!!
Eric naked in the shower trying to get ready for work, peeked out and confirmed my fears. He told Matthew that he would take it out. While we were waiting for Daddy to throw on a towel, Matthew went into panic mode and hid out in the closet. I assured him that Daddy is a professional and that he used to do this with Ringo and Pooker all of the time. I assured him that Daddy taking it out would be alot easier than not taking it out and that it could make him sick.
At 8:15 Daddy got that damn live tick out of my angel's head.
At 8:18 Matthew squished him with his magnifying glass after thinking he was cool.
At 8:25 we were in the car and Matthew said "What kind of bug was that again?" I told him and he repeated it and said he would have to tell his teacher and his friends.
I immediately am panicking about the horribleness of kids being cruel said "Don't tell the kids about it honey. You can tell your teacher. I'm telling your teacher."
Thank you God today wasn't show and tell and he would want to bring it in.
So now it is time for me to go pick him up.
I am going to have to cut my Thankful things list down today due to timing.
- I'm Thankful Daddy was home so that he could get that thing out of his hair.
- I'm Thankful Matthew eventually made it to school today.
- I'm Thankful for my coffee.
- I'm Thankful for my life that I can find the humor in this due to my experience with Erma Bombeck. I know my English teacher passed away years ago, but thank you Mrs. B.
Have a pint with my mom today and give her a hug for me.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Remember When Wednesday - My Mom's Birthday Tomorrow
Dear Mom,
I know that I am typing you this letter a little early and a little late. Tomorrow is Thankful Thursday so I will be busy listing more items in which I'm Thankful to God for tomorrow. And of course you are one of them again.
Tomorrow you would have been 64 years old. It is amazing to me that with all you went through in life, that you never aged. So I will always remember you as that beautiful mom that you were when you gave birth to me. That was the mom that I loved. The healthy mom with the beautiful smile and such wonderful taste in fashion with yourself and your children but also such a wonderful homemaker and wife. The healthy mom that you were is what I like to force myself to go back and remember.
It was hard for me to do for a long time, because your illness started corroding our lives at such a young age for you and after only 11 years married to Daddy at the time. Eleven years seems like such a short time to have your dreams interrupted. Your dream of being that homemaker and wife. It amazes me now as a grown woman struggling with balancing staying home with raising one son, let alone 3 children. I don't know how you did it.
I know that in hindsight I can look back at a lot of things that I never understood growing up. I was a troubled child due to your illness that we never found out about until 1991. So from the time the mental onset began when I was 7 or 8 years old, until 1991, I had no name for it.
All I knew was that my home was suddenly becoming this place where I had to be the one to be there for Daddy, J and P who was only less than 5 at the time when the illness was hitting the hardest. We suffered through many atrocities with him being the sole provider including losing heat, hot water, electricity and eventually our home to Daddy eventually losing another home, all because of ignorance. Ignorance on the part of every adult who witnessed what was going on and who didn't step in or didn't help or who eventually found out years later about the illness and still didn't help.
The child in me is angry now, as the mom and woman in me remembers each heartbreak that you and we suffered due to "an illness". I'm angry at the counselors in school, the friends and family that turned their back, due to Daddy's lack of housecleaning instead of looking at what he was struggling with. I'm angry at the people who witnessed us every day deteriorate and did not step in. I don't know if it would have helped anyway because their still is no cure for what you suffered with, but regarding maybe some help for Daddy going through what he did.
I've been through counseling and I know that the child within me is allowed to "hate" that part of my life. I'm allowed to hate that part of what I went through as a child with you deteriorating. I'm also allowed to "love" that part of you due to you had no control over what was happening. I'm allowed to love you as my mother.
Now though as a mom, it is hard. I look in the mirror and there you are. Today I grabbed some old bobby pins that I never use to pull the strands of my hair back by my ponytail and they were your bobby pins that used to hold in your hair around your bun. Matthew asked me what they were because I never where them.
The other day I remembered how you used to where your hair in rollers taking us to McCrory's and I remembered being the teenager I was, how embarrassed and how much I used to let you know how much you embarrassed me.
I know once I found out about your illness and many years of counseling that normal teenage years were going to happen regardless, but I know that if I knew what you were facing I would have been the better daughter and your friend.
I know that when you were in the nursing home I told you how sorry I was for everything I ever did, the arguments we had that really escalated as you got worse and before I moved to MA. I later apologized for being so far away and that was and still is the most torturous for me to think that when you were there every day in that room, I wasn't holding your hand.
It almost caused me to leave MA for good when I couldn't leave the state one time, returning home from visiting you. I know God was with me though when I did, it was only a few months later that I was pregnant with Matthew and that the road I had chosen was the right one.
I'm sorry I'm writing you this letter now when tomorrow would have been a celebratory day for you. It just seems to pour out and I know you know, how I feel regardless. I know you are here with me and that you see your Grandson and that you would run to him and squeeze him all of the time if you could. I hope you saw him the other day planning out different ingredients for an idea he had to bake. I know you would get a kick out of that. I'm always telling him how much Grandma was always coming up with new things to make by using her creativity with what little she had. I know you would get a kick out of him when he gets filthy from playing and I tell him he is a little "coalminers grandson".
Well, my hands are frozen now and I can't keep typing so I will let you know more in my prayers.
I love you and I hope you have a pint of Genesee with Uncle M and Grandma & Grandpa tomorrow celebrating the day they gave you life.
Without your life, Matthew's life wouldn't be.
I love you Mom. Happy Birthday.
Love
TM
Monday, October 15, 2007
Anyone have any tips on keeping warm for the mama over here on the lake?
Alright I know I am a daily wimp but there has to be an answer out there somewhere, without keeping the heat on 24/7.
I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining. I love my house that my husband built. I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining. It's kind of like I think I can, I think I can...maybe if I say it often enough somehow I'll just make myself warm. I'm in Hawaii, I'm in Hawaii, I'm in Hawaii.
This is a picture of our little house, a million years ago before we did the addition:
As you can see the lake is 100 feet behind the house, and with old windows it was unbearable in the winter. We have a nice wood stove in the basement but unless we keep it always on it is still crazy down there. That is one of our next projects. Right up there with the garage. We would like to have like a family/game/hobby room down there with a nice big screen projector for movies for Mommy and Daddy to watch after Matthew goes to sleep, but not yet.
Now here are the pictures before the final painting was done. It is now all yellow and so beautiful, but for some reason with the lake being close and the amount of windows we put in, I am always cold. The temperature here is always 10 degrees colder than up the street and sometimes more shadier, so it is deceiving until you get off of our road and then it's like your in another world.
So like I said, due to how beautiful my house turned out, who am I to complain? I'm not complaining about the house. I'm complaining about my skinny body that has the incapacity to be warm. Eric will tell me to just put layers on or get under the covers. But then I don't get out of the covers and if I put anymore layers on, I'm going to start looking like an onion.
And it's only October 15Th:-) If you don't hear from me in a few months, send the people to peel the onion.
To get off of the subject, this morning Matthew was again so wonderful getting ready for school. He actually is reminding me now of stuff that I need to do for him, which is awesome. This morning, he was pointing to my kitchen window saying he needed the spiderman things!! I'm looking with a blank face at the window clueless as to what he was talking about because Spiderman isn't there and there is no Halloween spider webs. Finally he started pointing like a madman, claiming Mommy!!! My Spiderman things!!! I need them!!! And then the fog cleared and I saw that he had been pointing to his vitamins!! Yeah!!!! He asked me for his vitamins!!
Little things make me happy.
On the way to school he announced something funny. The other night when he wasn't around I mentioned to Eric that I wanted to go to PA for at least my mother's birthday to go to her grave. I haven't been there since August and I thought even if I just disappear and go myself for two days, it's OK. Matthew mentioned to me as were driving to school "Mommy, Maybe we can go see Grandpa and R in Pennsylvania sometime?" I told him how sweet that was but to remember that R lives in NJ and she would have to be visiting Grandpa and we would have to talk to her and plan it. I then mentioned that Mommy was thinking of going soon and that I was going to go by myself, but if he wanted to join me because he missed Pennsylvania that he could come too. He then said "I do miss Pennsylvania Mommy, I go with you."
So I guess that is planned.
Well my fingers have gotten a little warmer by typing, but now I have to go get him from school.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Mommy's Aches & Pains Growing Up with a "chronic" illness - CAN ANYONE RELATE?
By the name of this post, some of you might roll your eyes and say oh no! Not again! Some might say, that's her an open book. Some might say, Shut Up Already! Some might say, me too.
I am hoping that some might open up to me as a woman who is a mom, and either share their challenges of being a women to help us all get through this thing called life.
Growing up watching my mother deteriorate from her illness, before she was diagnosed in 1991, we guessed what could possibly be wrong. The few times my mother agreed to go to a doctor, back in the 80's, they thought she drank too much caffeine and that maybe she should just switch to decaf. That is how unpopular her illness was in the area I was from. Only over the last few years with the Internet, were people able to branch out and see other's affected like themselves in different parts of the country and the world. To see that there was help out there for caregivers, societies to be involved in that do fundraising for research, to find other families with the same similar stories or backgrounds that you knew- they knew. Nothing else had to be said. They knew and you knew and you could just hug and breathe.
I have (due to my own scattered brain sometimes) limited amount of awareness about my mother's illness. Eric is better at understanding it from a medical point of view. He retains things better and can repeat it back to you 10 years later from a visit 10 years past, as if he was just there.
I think because of the upbringing and growing up watching your mother and family deteriorate with a chronic illness, might have definitely done something to my ability to fully emotionally develop to be able to deal with crisis', to deal with chaos and have some of the basic strengths other women have? I know that I had to step into "mother" frame of mind growing up worrying about my brothers and father. I am not complaining being the only girl, but the weight was on my shoulders (that I put there myself) to make things "right". My brothers and father and myself always had love from each other and that is still precedent today, but when everything was chaotic we all did what we could to survive that moment. One moment at a time. And now almost 25+ years later, it's like we have to pick up the pieces of our shattered selves that we had become and try to stay whole.
Over the past few years due to infertility, being 300+ miles from my "blood family" and childhood friends and relatives, watching my mother deteriorate, go into a nursing home, have a baby, be a motherless daughter even while she was still alive and then in Feb 2006 her to finally be at peace and marital issues I have suffered from major depressions.
Previously these were diagnosed as "Seasonal Affective Disorder", as "situational", as possibly "bi-polar", as "Hypothyroid" (which was found due to infertility), as Hashimoto's Disease which is a thyroid disease, as possibly "pmd" (severe PMS) due to my symptoms always getting worse anywhere between two weeks of the month.
I am still at a loss as to what "label" I should call myself.
I don't know what to do about it anymore.
I tried to start this blog for a million reasons, sharing my son with my family near and far, having a journal of and for him from me to see how much I loved him if God forbid one day I'm not there, to separate each of my "issues" to give them each a place where I could get them out of me and down on "paper", to help me stay connected to the outside world, to give me my creativity back as a human being, to give me my own little place that was mine while maybe making friends out there in the world who possibly can relate to any of this and so my corner of my room wouldn't become as isolated as my mother's had been.
My mother didn't have the Internet. She had well lost her capacity to verbalize, type, communicate by the time the computers came around. She was a victim of the "old world" that meant if it happened behind closed doors, no one would see or know so she suffered many years of pain and silence when the world outside was loud and happy, she wasn't seen or heard in her room day after day. My father was her major outside connection with the world, taking her out for rides just to get her to breathe the air, see the views. I don't know how it happened but it really was a miracle that she chose him in life and that he didn't give up.
Many people would say to me over the years, you're father was a saint. So many men would have given up and just walked away.
Thank You God that he didn't.
It's unbelievable that someone could love someone that much. There were frustrating times for him on a daily basis, but he never wavered from standing by her side or sitting by her side in the end even falling asleep at her feet of her bed at the nursing home.
The reason I started all of this rehashing today is simply this. It's that time of the month. My father and husband and brothers are now embarrassed by my coming out to the world about it, but I don't care.
It's a scary thought sometimes being a woman. Especially when I don't know what the heck is going on with me. And that I have to put on a smile all the time for my son or get myself up in the morning to get dressed and get through the day. It's a daily battle for me and I just want people to know that if I could take a pill to make myself "whole" I would. As it is I take Celexa for anxiety and Thyroid medicine.
This time I said some things to someone I love very much, that might have been more than hurtful.
I am hoping that some might open up to me as a woman who is a mom, and either share their challenges of being a women to help us all get through this thing called life.
Growing up watching my mother deteriorate from her illness, before she was diagnosed in 1991, we guessed what could possibly be wrong. The few times my mother agreed to go to a doctor, back in the 80's, they thought she drank too much caffeine and that maybe she should just switch to decaf. That is how unpopular her illness was in the area I was from. Only over the last few years with the Internet, were people able to branch out and see other's affected like themselves in different parts of the country and the world. To see that there was help out there for caregivers, societies to be involved in that do fundraising for research, to find other families with the same similar stories or backgrounds that you knew- they knew. Nothing else had to be said. They knew and you knew and you could just hug and breathe.
I have (due to my own scattered brain sometimes) limited amount of awareness about my mother's illness. Eric is better at understanding it from a medical point of view. He retains things better and can repeat it back to you 10 years later from a visit 10 years past, as if he was just there.
I think because of the upbringing and growing up watching your mother and family deteriorate with a chronic illness, might have definitely done something to my ability to fully emotionally develop to be able to deal with crisis', to deal with chaos and have some of the basic strengths other women have? I know that I had to step into "mother" frame of mind growing up worrying about my brothers and father. I am not complaining being the only girl, but the weight was on my shoulders (that I put there myself) to make things "right". My brothers and father and myself always had love from each other and that is still precedent today, but when everything was chaotic we all did what we could to survive that moment. One moment at a time. And now almost 25+ years later, it's like we have to pick up the pieces of our shattered selves that we had become and try to stay whole.
Over the past few years due to infertility, being 300+ miles from my "blood family" and childhood friends and relatives, watching my mother deteriorate, go into a nursing home, have a baby, be a motherless daughter even while she was still alive and then in Feb 2006 her to finally be at peace and marital issues I have suffered from major depressions.
Previously these were diagnosed as "Seasonal Affective Disorder", as "situational", as possibly "bi-polar", as "Hypothyroid" (which was found due to infertility), as Hashimoto's Disease which is a thyroid disease, as possibly "pmd" (severe PMS) due to my symptoms always getting worse anywhere between two weeks of the month.
I am still at a loss as to what "label" I should call myself.
I don't know what to do about it anymore.
I tried to start this blog for a million reasons, sharing my son with my family near and far, having a journal of and for him from me to see how much I loved him if God forbid one day I'm not there, to separate each of my "issues" to give them each a place where I could get them out of me and down on "paper", to help me stay connected to the outside world, to give me my creativity back as a human being, to give me my own little place that was mine while maybe making friends out there in the world who possibly can relate to any of this and so my corner of my room wouldn't become as isolated as my mother's had been.
My mother didn't have the Internet. She had well lost her capacity to verbalize, type, communicate by the time the computers came around. She was a victim of the "old world" that meant if it happened behind closed doors, no one would see or know so she suffered many years of pain and silence when the world outside was loud and happy, she wasn't seen or heard in her room day after day. My father was her major outside connection with the world, taking her out for rides just to get her to breathe the air, see the views. I don't know how it happened but it really was a miracle that she chose him in life and that he didn't give up.
Many people would say to me over the years, you're father was a saint. So many men would have given up and just walked away.
Thank You God that he didn't.
It's unbelievable that someone could love someone that much. There were frustrating times for him on a daily basis, but he never wavered from standing by her side or sitting by her side in the end even falling asleep at her feet of her bed at the nursing home.
The reason I started all of this rehashing today is simply this. It's that time of the month. My father and husband and brothers are now embarrassed by my coming out to the world about it, but I don't care.
It's a scary thought sometimes being a woman. Especially when I don't know what the heck is going on with me. And that I have to put on a smile all the time for my son or get myself up in the morning to get dressed and get through the day. It's a daily battle for me and I just want people to know that if I could take a pill to make myself "whole" I would. As it is I take Celexa for anxiety and Thyroid medicine.
This time I said some things to someone I love very much, that might have been more than hurtful.
That someone is my brother J.
He happened to call me a little name on the wrong day.
20 years worth of pain came out and he was the reciprocate of that pain.
He is the most wonderful father to his girls and the most wonderful uncle to his nephew, the most wonderful son to his father and the most wonderful brother to his sister.
I do not change the way I feel about certain issues, like wishing my son had family near by and his and my love for them. I can't change the way things are. That is why I constantly am the one traveling to PA or to wherever to make sure that I do my part for Matthew to have "family" or friends. I will continue to do it, because he needs to know his family in PA as much as his family in MA.
So I am getting off now because I have to find a way to shower. Eric took Matthew to school and then I have to go get him.
I really just wanted everything out there today because in my gut and in my heart, I have everything to fight for. A beautiful son, a husband and home and for my mom I'm not giving in to this womanly stuff without a battle a fight. I refuse to let one more winter go by, with me just sitting still through it.
I do not change the way I feel about certain issues, like wishing my son had family near by and his and my love for them. I can't change the way things are. That is why I constantly am the one traveling to PA or to wherever to make sure that I do my part for Matthew to have "family" or friends. I will continue to do it, because he needs to know his family in PA as much as his family in MA.
So I am getting off now because I have to find a way to shower. Eric took Matthew to school and then I have to go get him.
I really just wanted everything out there today because in my gut and in my heart, I have everything to fight for. A beautiful son, a husband and home and for my mom I'm not giving in to this womanly stuff without a battle a fight. I refuse to let one more winter go by, with me just sitting still through it.
oh yeah and don't forget that mountain called 40 in few months...
things are just a little bit much right now.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Thank You Mom/Grandma
I've only been waiting 19 months for my mom to come to me in a dream and it happened last night.
I think from the induced haze I was in that she must have tried before but my mind is always so busy that I never even remember my dreams and always sleep deeply (until abruptly awakened).
Last night before I fell asleep, I had shown Eric an advertisement in a Better Homes & Garden magazine of a little boy taking a drink from the bathroom sink faucet. This little boy made us look twice in his resemblance to Matthew.
All I know is right before I woke up at 7 am this morning I had been dreaming that my hair was longer again and I was the lead singer of a band in this really cloudy night club, in a punkish 80's band but yet it felt like I was in the 80's and not me at my age today.
All I remember is her face making it through this cloudy haze with her hair longer and mouthing and saying the words "HE IS BEAUTIFUL SWEETHEART".
My mom while in the nursing home would occasionally say sweetheart when you could make it out and within the few months prior to her passing I swore in my ear she mouthed I love you sweetheart to me very faintly in my ear.
I told people about it at the time, because I know what I heard but then with her decline and years of lacking the ability to communicate, I even had my doubts at times.
Some people looked at me and said "That's nice" while I know they were thinking I was losing my mind or wishing it was true, but doubting it was.
Since she passed I had really thought that surely in a dream now that she is healthy and happy and free from illness, she would visit me because I am her daughter and now being a mother and having a child - that I really know that bond.
I think from the induced haze I was in that she must have tried before but my mind is always so busy that I never even remember my dreams and always sleep deeply (until abruptly awakened).
Last night before I fell asleep, I had shown Eric an advertisement in a Better Homes & Garden magazine of a little boy taking a drink from the bathroom sink faucet. This little boy made us look twice in his resemblance to Matthew.
All I know is right before I woke up at 7 am this morning I had been dreaming that my hair was longer again and I was the lead singer of a band in this really cloudy night club, in a punkish 80's band but yet it felt like I was in the 80's and not me at my age today.
All I remember is her face making it through this cloudy haze with her hair longer and mouthing and saying the words "HE IS BEAUTIFUL SWEETHEART".
Enough to bring tears from me even now as I'm typing it.
My mom while in the nursing home would occasionally say sweetheart when you could make it out and within the few months prior to her passing I swore in my ear she mouthed I love you sweetheart to me very faintly in my ear.
I told people about it at the time, because I know what I heard but then with her decline and years of lacking the ability to communicate, I even had my doubts at times.
Some people looked at me and said "That's nice" while I know they were thinking I was losing my mind or wishing it was true, but doubting it was.
Since she passed I had really thought that surely in a dream now that she is healthy and happy and free from illness, she would visit me because I am her daughter and now being a mother and having a child - that I really know that bond.
I think that she might have tried.
Especially seeing her through that cloudy haze pushing her way through.
It was like she had to push through clouds to get me to see her.
And I did.
It was the most beautiful sight that the depth of the moment is what woke me up and I had to force myself to keep remembering that vision of her and to blog about it so I never forget.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
30 YEARS LATER - I'LL REMEMBER YOU
Elvis
Last night, I don't know how it caught up to me, I watched Larry King Live with Priscilla Presley from Graceland. Every year as soon as it is August, I remember. This year I have been distracted and am glad I took the time out now to stop and reflect.
I was 10 years old and my mother loved Elvis. She had all of his albums and we would listen to them constantly. My little brother J at the time was 7 and he would dress up in his jumpsuits just like Elvis and play air guitar in the living room. I used to believe that when I got married someday, it would be on a float going down a river in Hawaii with pretty girls wearing lays around there neck of flowers, just like Elvis Blue Hawaii movie. We grew up watching all of his movies and just loving him.
My mother had the live from Hawaii album which was actually blue and had a picture of Elvis on it. I remember thinking how special it was, how awesome and that if it got scratched that would be so horrible because his beautiful picture was on it and how devastated my mom would be.
I was in our garage with the garage door opened. I had been playing our piano. My mother had just gone shopping at Pomeroy's for one item. I'll never forget her walking towards me as she got out of that car and her kneeling down to me and hugging me as she was crying that "Elvis had died".
That moment is right up there for me with The Challenger and the day Princess Diana died.
Such quietness. Something missing that was huge and bigger than life and that filled others with such joy and promise and comfort and then with Elvis, such shock as to why? The speculation of drugs at the time and him overdosing when to outsiders it looked like he had it all. His beautiful daughter Lisa (who I thought her and Cassidy Bono from TV) were my little friends, now had no father.
To make this date even more important to me, a few years ago my father and I were going through some old pictures/junk from a junk drawer that had been in my parents bedroom while I was growing up. For reasons I don't know, I found a receipt from Pomeroy's for $4.99 dated August 16, 1977 for that one purchase on that date that my mother had made.
I think she must have saved it for her own sake, as something for her to remember where she had been and then I found it 25 years later. I looked at it last night where I have it tucked behind a picture of my mother in my wallet. It is still in unbelievable condition and shows the time she was there was 5:31 pm. I can still see her walking toward me that day.
She and Elvis are on my mind today. I'll remember you is one of the most beautiful songs that he did, in my opinion along with Something In The Way.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Sorting emotions- Summer Fun & Life - Life Past and Present
We have been busy, busy and even busier than I ever thought possible. It's a good busy.
Wish the days of summer would last until mid winter so that most of our year could be filled with such good times.
In the past two weeks, Matthew has been to the Children's Museum in Boston, zoo, a drive-in, a couple beaches with friends, swimming in friends' pools, swimming (but not listening to the instructor) at the YMCA, play dates at our house and friends homes and over the weekend Grandpa came from PA via NJ through NY, CT, RI and then MA with a wonderful loving friend of his (and ours) who has a son who is a chef at a high end restaurant in Boston.
We had the wonderful opportunity to meet him on Sunday and his new nickname with us is Ratatouille. He loved being with his mom and just hanging out with us having steak on the new patio set and playing with Matthew a little. Eric liked having him around because he gave him some cooking tips. Not that he needs them. I need them. I told him he is welcome to come down anytime and we could barter his services of teaching me how to cook and then he could relax and have fun with us on our many adventures! Sounds like a good deal to me.
Matthew was funny when they were here. He was giving everyone a tour of his house, when he stopped in Mommy's room and pointed out my wedding pics. He mentioned that was when my Dad married my Mom and before I was borned. This was the first time he made this announcement. In the past when I tried to tell him why he wasn't in my wedding movie or in those pics, he didn't want any part of it because he felt left out. So I was happy that he was sharing this happy moment and even stating he realized it was before he was born.
The last few weeks I have really been having withdrawal from being with my Dad. For the past 39 years, it has been mainly me (other than my mom before she passed) as the woman in his life. I know that being his daughter is a totally separate entity of being my son's mom, so having that need to be with him is something I don't think I'll ever get over. We have just been there for each other for too long. My father grew up on a farm and to this day can plant anything anywhere and is very good at it. The newspaper in our town in PA a few years ago did a story on his 4-5 foot marigold's and 9 foot tomato plants that he claimed he just emptied out the water that he was boiling the spaghetti with. I have been craving his tomato's. And not just the tomatoes. What good are they if they aren't with him picking them and going in the house and putting some mayo and salt on some bread and making us both a sandwich so we can sit out on his porch and eat them? It's his company more than the tomatoes. He is an Italian father and his Italian/Irish daughter wants to have a sandwich with him and be in his company. I know more than anything how those years might not last forever and so making the most out of a tomato sandwich is one of the most beautiful things in life with him.
I have also been under mixed emotions the past week because today would have been my parents 42nd wedding anniversary. There were just too many years for me to ignore this date and not feel it in my heart. I let my father know that I was thinking of him in this regard today and he let me know he thanks me from Mom and him. I don't know of this date, the dates of her birthday and anniversary of her passing will get any easier as the years go on.
I just wanted to sort out though that separate from my parents anniversary, I am also blessed that he has found someone that is enjoying tripe with him, enjoying tomato sandwiches and enjoying life with him. I wish for all those that I love to know that take a bite of everything you eat and really taste it, look out your window and really see, open up your curtains and let the light and love shine in, and experience every adventure and absolute beauty that the world throws at you with open arms and open eyes and open mind. Don't close them because you might be really missing out on life.
Wish the days of summer would last until mid winter so that most of our year could be filled with such good times.
In the past two weeks, Matthew has been to the Children's Museum in Boston, zoo, a drive-in, a couple beaches with friends, swimming in friends' pools, swimming (but not listening to the instructor) at the YMCA, play dates at our house and friends homes and over the weekend Grandpa came from PA via NJ through NY, CT, RI and then MA with a wonderful loving friend of his (and ours) who has a son who is a chef at a high end restaurant in Boston.
We had the wonderful opportunity to meet him on Sunday and his new nickname with us is Ratatouille. He loved being with his mom and just hanging out with us having steak on the new patio set and playing with Matthew a little. Eric liked having him around because he gave him some cooking tips. Not that he needs them. I need them. I told him he is welcome to come down anytime and we could barter his services of teaching me how to cook and then he could relax and have fun with us on our many adventures! Sounds like a good deal to me.
Matthew was funny when they were here. He was giving everyone a tour of his house, when he stopped in Mommy's room and pointed out my wedding pics. He mentioned that was when my Dad married my Mom and before I was borned. This was the first time he made this announcement. In the past when I tried to tell him why he wasn't in my wedding movie or in those pics, he didn't want any part of it because he felt left out. So I was happy that he was sharing this happy moment and even stating he realized it was before he was born.
The last few weeks I have really been having withdrawal from being with my Dad. For the past 39 years, it has been mainly me (other than my mom before she passed) as the woman in his life. I know that being his daughter is a totally separate entity of being my son's mom, so having that need to be with him is something I don't think I'll ever get over. We have just been there for each other for too long. My father grew up on a farm and to this day can plant anything anywhere and is very good at it. The newspaper in our town in PA a few years ago did a story on his 4-5 foot marigold's and 9 foot tomato plants that he claimed he just emptied out the water that he was boiling the spaghetti with. I have been craving his tomato's. And not just the tomatoes. What good are they if they aren't with him picking them and going in the house and putting some mayo and salt on some bread and making us both a sandwich so we can sit out on his porch and eat them? It's his company more than the tomatoes. He is an Italian father and his Italian/Irish daughter wants to have a sandwich with him and be in his company. I know more than anything how those years might not last forever and so making the most out of a tomato sandwich is one of the most beautiful things in life with him.
I have also been under mixed emotions the past week because today would have been my parents 42nd wedding anniversary. There were just too many years for me to ignore this date and not feel it in my heart. I let my father know that I was thinking of him in this regard today and he let me know he thanks me from Mom and him. I don't know of this date, the dates of her birthday and anniversary of her passing will get any easier as the years go on.
I just wanted to sort out though that separate from my parents anniversary, I am also blessed that he has found someone that is enjoying tripe with him, enjoying tomato sandwiches and enjoying life with him. I wish for all those that I love to know that take a bite of everything you eat and really taste it, look out your window and really see, open up your curtains and let the light and love shine in, and experience every adventure and absolute beauty that the world throws at you with open arms and open eyes and open mind. Don't close them because you might be really missing out on life.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Mommy's New Hair Cut - Her mother's daughter
Ok....so I'm now posting that I finally got my haircut. What's this world coming to? Little things make me happy.
Today I took the plunge, into my short hair cut again. I haven't had it this short since Matthew was a year old.
I was a little scared, because of my own insecurities about my mom's illness. My mom's illness in her later years, deprived her of being able to have a nice hairstyle (to say the least). Because of her disease, her movements and jerking of her muscles kept my father and anyone else that wanted to cut her hair, impossible. She would wake up every day with knots that were unbearable to control and so a really short hair cut was mandatory for her.
For the last 10 years or so, anyone that would see me would say "You look just like your mom". As long as I kept my hair long, in my mind that meant "when my mom was healthy" and I would be so proud because she was so beautiful. But then on bad hair days or days when I would just get out of the shower and look in the mirror, her image in her later years has started to catch up with me. They say after you have kids, something changes hormonally and you start looking like your mom. I'm not vain or shallow. If my mother hadn't had a horrendous disease that destroyed her inner and outer self, my hair and my looking like her would be the last thing on my mind.
For the last two years I've been debating cutting my hair all off again, just because with Matthew it is easier for me to get out the door. I've mentioned before that I don't have the time anymore to primp and curl or blowdry with product etc. But I didnt' want to give up my last few moments (it feels sometimes) of sexiness, of me - the me who I don't want to let go of. The me that is terrified of being at risk for that illness and what the future might hold for me, being Matthew's mom.
I finally got my hair cut today because I feel like you know what! Cut it all off! Eric is going to color it for me tomorrow night and hopefully that will spice it up a little to just add a little of me, to the look.
I am very happy that I got it cut. I did start to tear up when the girl started getting shorter and shorter and I kept looking in the mirror and my mother started appearing more and more in the reflection. Once she was done, it looked fresh and beautiful and I am going to now be proud to say You know what! I do look just like my mom and even her in her later years, but I am making her proud. After the amount of years she suffered, the least I could do is walk around with a smile with my haircut and say - Here I Am and I'm still living (with my mom in my heart) !!!
Today I took the plunge, into my short hair cut again. I haven't had it this short since Matthew was a year old.
I was a little scared, because of my own insecurities about my mom's illness. My mom's illness in her later years, deprived her of being able to have a nice hairstyle (to say the least). Because of her disease, her movements and jerking of her muscles kept my father and anyone else that wanted to cut her hair, impossible. She would wake up every day with knots that were unbearable to control and so a really short hair cut was mandatory for her.
For the last 10 years or so, anyone that would see me would say "You look just like your mom". As long as I kept my hair long, in my mind that meant "when my mom was healthy" and I would be so proud because she was so beautiful. But then on bad hair days or days when I would just get out of the shower and look in the mirror, her image in her later years has started to catch up with me. They say after you have kids, something changes hormonally and you start looking like your mom. I'm not vain or shallow. If my mother hadn't had a horrendous disease that destroyed her inner and outer self, my hair and my looking like her would be the last thing on my mind.
For the last two years I've been debating cutting my hair all off again, just because with Matthew it is easier for me to get out the door. I've mentioned before that I don't have the time anymore to primp and curl or blowdry with product etc. But I didnt' want to give up my last few moments (it feels sometimes) of sexiness, of me - the me who I don't want to let go of. The me that is terrified of being at risk for that illness and what the future might hold for me, being Matthew's mom.
I finally got my hair cut today because I feel like you know what! Cut it all off! Eric is going to color it for me tomorrow night and hopefully that will spice it up a little to just add a little of me, to the look.
I am very happy that I got it cut. I did start to tear up when the girl started getting shorter and shorter and I kept looking in the mirror and my mother started appearing more and more in the reflection. Once she was done, it looked fresh and beautiful and I am going to now be proud to say You know what! I do look just like my mom and even her in her later years, but I am making her proud. After the amount of years she suffered, the least I could do is walk around with a smile with my haircut and say - Here I Am and I'm still living (with my mom in my heart) !!!
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Untangling The Webs & Matthews discoveries - From Mommy To Matthew
OK....I've really been missing my blogging! It really is an avenue to clear the mind and unfortunately, my mind has been a cobbled web for years that needs alot of untangling.
Yesterday for the first day in over 20 days, we had seasonable temps and sunny skies!! Yeah!! It's something how being out in the warm sunshine and blogging for me, go hand in hand. We had the whole afternoon to play with Matthew and rake some leaves in the process. It was so cool watch him again discovering things.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of smiling while I watch his reaction and can probably post about just that subject for the rest of his life. And I might just do that, because this is something I want him to have from Mommy when he gets older. Due to my being "at risk" for my mom's illness (subject for another day), I want him to have these moments from me, these pictures with my thoughts, these loving wonderful times that only I as his mom, can share with him. To let him know how much I loved him and never have any doubt about his mom's love and good intentions for his life to be the best it can be and to know what I was all about inside and out. What made me - me. Stories only I can pass down about my childhood, our family musical trait or memories of his grandmother. I would have loved to have something like this from my mom, but she didn't know the disease she faced until I had already moved to MA and was 22 years old and by then her mental state and physical state wouldn't let her type out her thoughts even if she had a computer. So for my son, I am doing this on behalf of his grandmother and his mom. Only I can pass down my heritage to my son, tell him the stories of how he is a great-grandson of a coal miner and teach him to be just as proud of that fact as he is about his father's heritage. It's easier now for that to come natural because we live in that state, with his relatives in Boston and his everyday life is molding MA into him. I am the only one who can teach him to be just as proud of the other side of his roots.
I plan on praying to God every day for that strength, to keep doing just that and praying that he will turn out to be the most well rounded -well traveled, well loved and never ever have any question of why his mom and dad prayed for our miracle someday. That we wanted to give him the best life and the best of both of us.
Yesterday Matthew discovered the bark on the trees. He loves peeling and picking at things and he has discovered bark before, but yesterday he stood at this one tree for a half hour, peeling it and picking it. He screamed at finding the green underneath the bark and finding little bugs and yelling to Daddy to come here!!!! He loves looking under every rock and screaming at new bugs he finds.
Also, typical boy just like his Daddy he loves rocks. Although Eric doesn't love the amount we have in our yard. Eric started throwing little rocks into the lake and soon Matthew wanted to be doing that with his dad...and they had the best time. Matthew really has a good arm. I sat on the steps to my deck and watched him throw those rocks. In my mind I heard my Mom yelling to my brother J to stop throwing them. My brother used to love throwing them as well, but I actually remember my mom trying to keep him from hitting the cars in the road. At least Matthew has the lake and won't throw them at cars...for now anyway.
Well, today is going to be another first time day for him. We are taking him as a family to go fly a kite and enjoying day #2 of the nice warm sunshine this time with a little fun it it for us as a family.
Yesterday for the first day in over 20 days, we had seasonable temps and sunny skies!! Yeah!! It's something how being out in the warm sunshine and blogging for me, go hand in hand. We had the whole afternoon to play with Matthew and rake some leaves in the process. It was so cool watch him again discovering things.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of smiling while I watch his reaction and can probably post about just that subject for the rest of his life. And I might just do that, because this is something I want him to have from Mommy when he gets older. Due to my being "at risk" for my mom's illness (subject for another day), I want him to have these moments from me, these pictures with my thoughts, these loving wonderful times that only I as his mom, can share with him. To let him know how much I loved him and never have any doubt about his mom's love and good intentions for his life to be the best it can be and to know what I was all about inside and out. What made me - me. Stories only I can pass down about my childhood, our family musical trait or memories of his grandmother. I would have loved to have something like this from my mom, but she didn't know the disease she faced until I had already moved to MA and was 22 years old and by then her mental state and physical state wouldn't let her type out her thoughts even if she had a computer. So for my son, I am doing this on behalf of his grandmother and his mom. Only I can pass down my heritage to my son, tell him the stories of how he is a great-grandson of a coal miner and teach him to be just as proud of that fact as he is about his father's heritage. It's easier now for that to come natural because we live in that state, with his relatives in Boston and his everyday life is molding MA into him. I am the only one who can teach him to be just as proud of the other side of his roots.
I plan on praying to God every day for that strength, to keep doing just that and praying that he will turn out to be the most well rounded -well traveled, well loved and never ever have any question of why his mom and dad prayed for our miracle someday. That we wanted to give him the best life and the best of both of us.
Yesterday Matthew discovered the bark on the trees. He loves peeling and picking at things and he has discovered bark before, but yesterday he stood at this one tree for a half hour, peeling it and picking it. He screamed at finding the green underneath the bark and finding little bugs and yelling to Daddy to come here!!!! He loves looking under every rock and screaming at new bugs he finds.
Also, typical boy just like his Daddy he loves rocks. Although Eric doesn't love the amount we have in our yard. Eric started throwing little rocks into the lake and soon Matthew wanted to be doing that with his dad...and they had the best time. Matthew really has a good arm. I sat on the steps to my deck and watched him throw those rocks. In my mind I heard my Mom yelling to my brother J to stop throwing them. My brother used to love throwing them as well, but I actually remember my mom trying to keep him from hitting the cars in the road. At least Matthew has the lake and won't throw them at cars...for now anyway.
Well, today is going to be another first time day for him. We are taking him as a family to go fly a kite and enjoying day #2 of the nice warm sunshine this time with a little fun it it for us as a family.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Remember When Wednesdays - In Memory of Mom & Sandy & Victims of Virgina Tech - warning might be painful to read.
Today I have wasted about 2 hours trying to learn about adding new templates and blog skins and one was awesome but when I tried to do it, it came out beautiful but it took out everything but my blogs?
I need more help in this department, so that project will have to wait for another day.
I might not get to post much because my sweet niece is coming for a few days and we are looking forward to her visit. But who knows I might surprise you.
Last night I was thinking about my mom, again. And for some strange reason, it will hit me really hard in my chest when I think of the fact that "she hasn't visited me since she passed". I know that sounds strange, but you are always hearing stories of that happening in dreams. And I 'm a little hurt that she hasn't dropped by in the last 14 months since she passed. Due to the amount of years that my mom had no voice and her illness really depreciating her communication for the last almost 10 years, I was looking forward to seeing her healthy state come and talk to me or show me herself.
Whenever I start thinking this way, I also think of all the people she had to catch up with and then some that I haven't thought of one day will overwhelm me with their thoughts and I'll wonder if she has talked to them or given them a hug.
Last night for some reason, I remembered my childhood friend Sandy. She lived a few doors down from me and was a year older but we played together for years. She was a little bit of a toughy and I was a little wimpy stringy thing, but she never gave me a hard time. When she was a senior in high school, she got pregnant and got married right away to a guy whose family owned a bike shop. One day a few years later, the place caught on fire and they found her holding her baby boy. They had gotten trapped in a bedroom and the back door in that room was blocked in by bicycles. They died of smoke inhalation together.
I remember going to the viewing and almost collapsing at the sight of her holding her baby in the casket. They were buried holding each other. Her mom cried and held me and said "You played with my Sandy". Her grief was unbearable and I'm sure it must still be unbearable. We lost touch when I moved up here 17 years ago.
Every once in awhile Sandy's presence is around me. I remember her and I always will pray for her and here family. I hope my mom and her have hugged by now.
That was my first glimpse as an adult of a child loss by a parent, and a grandchild loss by a grandparent.
My prayers are also with those families affected this week by that horrific tragedy in Virginia. Luckily I've been busy with Matthew so I don't keep the TV on and watch it as much. The children though, were all going somewhere in life. And as parents they had so much too be proud of. God Bless you all.
I need more help in this department, so that project will have to wait for another day.
I might not get to post much because my sweet niece is coming for a few days and we are looking forward to her visit. But who knows I might surprise you.
Last night I was thinking about my mom, again. And for some strange reason, it will hit me really hard in my chest when I think of the fact that "she hasn't visited me since she passed". I know that sounds strange, but you are always hearing stories of that happening in dreams. And I 'm a little hurt that she hasn't dropped by in the last 14 months since she passed. Due to the amount of years that my mom had no voice and her illness really depreciating her communication for the last almost 10 years, I was looking forward to seeing her healthy state come and talk to me or show me herself.
Whenever I start thinking this way, I also think of all the people she had to catch up with and then some that I haven't thought of one day will overwhelm me with their thoughts and I'll wonder if she has talked to them or given them a hug.
Last night for some reason, I remembered my childhood friend Sandy. She lived a few doors down from me and was a year older but we played together for years. She was a little bit of a toughy and I was a little wimpy stringy thing, but she never gave me a hard time. When she was a senior in high school, she got pregnant and got married right away to a guy whose family owned a bike shop. One day a few years later, the place caught on fire and they found her holding her baby boy. They had gotten trapped in a bedroom and the back door in that room was blocked in by bicycles. They died of smoke inhalation together.
I remember going to the viewing and almost collapsing at the sight of her holding her baby in the casket. They were buried holding each other. Her mom cried and held me and said "You played with my Sandy". Her grief was unbearable and I'm sure it must still be unbearable. We lost touch when I moved up here 17 years ago.
Every once in awhile Sandy's presence is around me. I remember her and I always will pray for her and here family. I hope my mom and her have hugged by now.
That was my first glimpse as an adult of a child loss by a parent, and a grandchild loss by a grandparent.
My prayers are also with those families affected this week by that horrific tragedy in Virginia. Luckily I've been busy with Matthew so I don't keep the TV on and watch it as much. The children though, were all going somewhere in life. And as parents they had so much too be proud of. God Bless you all.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Mom (Grandma) and Me going to church 1969
I have been wanting to post this picture of my mom and me, for the last few months. It has taken awhile to finally get it on my computer.
It just shows how much my mom loved dressing us up in matching clothes. Everyone tells me how meticulous I was and how she always had me dressed so beautiful.
Mom (Grandma) and Me going to church 1969
It just shows how much my mom loved dressing us up in matching clothes. Everyone tells me how meticulous I was and how she always had me dressed so beautiful.
Mom (Grandma) and Me going to church 1969
Monday, March 26, 2007
Last Moments with My Mom
When my father and mother were trying to get pregnant with me, my father and my aunts always tell the story of how my mother couldn't wait for grandchildren. She would say "I can't wait to be a grandmother" and my father would say "You're not even a mom yet, slow down!".
Being a grandmother was only one of the titles in life she was robbed of. She was physically a grandmother, but due to her disease she couldn't be the one she wanted to be and dreamed to be.
My mother's illness was a neurological disease that slowly, and painfully deteriorated her brain and her physical abilities. My father was her sole care-taker and lost everything emotionally & financially taking care of her, all while raising 3 children (basically by himself). He lost two homes, went into lower income housing and would always try to get the government to help, but at the time, they didn't offer any assistance financially for the caretaker. Now they do. He couldn't bring himself to put her in a nursing home until 5 years before she passed away. The reason he finally did, was because when he would take her for her much loved rides in the car to see the world and beauty around her, he would have to lift her to take her out of her wheelchair and put her in the car. Because of her illness, her body was always fidgeting and moving, he would constantly be fixing her so she wouldn't fall down or always had to have his extra senses working in case she fell out of bed, or just while trying to sit in a chair. He would feed her, dress her, bathe her and basically would do everything that later I would have to do with my own baby. He would cut up her food into tiny bites and get her cups with straws and try and hold the straw still so it didn't choke her with her jerking movements. He would brush her hair and sing to her.
She really wasn't able to communicate for those 5 years (although she did a little to my dad) and her body and mind were almost in a vegetable like state. I would hear her telling me something, or hear her moaning to me like she was trying to say something and maybe she was. I would bring Matthew down to see her and share his stage of development by at first singing lullabies that she sang to me, so could see me sharing that moment with my son, later it became Matthew singing to her of The Wheels on The Bus or whatever children's song we knew at the time.
When she would lie in bed, her head would automatically rest in a position facing the wall. So I covered the wall with pictures of my son 350 miles away. There were 11 x 14's, I love Grandma ones, etc. Every time she would look at that wall, he would be smiling at her. The aides at the nursing home would tell me sometimes they would walk into her room and she would be smiling looking at him.
I thought I had built myself to be strong. I definitely have had more than my years of hard times. My mother started the mental part of the disease when I was around 7. I am now 39. I missed my mother my whole life as she deteriorated even though she was physically there. There were and still are no "groups" for me. The motherless daughters groups over the last few years I looked into before she passed. They were all for daughters whose mom had passed or gave them up for adoption. I have been grieving most of my life for my mom without her being physically gone. When I was planning my wedding, going to Ireland, when I had my son times when most daughters need there mom, I didn't have her in the state that I needed her. Now that she is gone, I thought it would have been easier. Some people said why are you taking this so hard? You knew it was coming. Unless you have walked in my shoes, don't judge me on the grief process of my mother. There is no way to describe the pain I've felt.
My mother started with fluid in her lungs in November of 2005. My SIL in PA called me and told me I had basically a few hours to get 350 miles if I wanted to see her before she died. I made it in time and luckily for me, she held on a few more months.
In February 2006, we had to postpone Matthew's birthday party due to the weather and wound up having it the same weekend as Eric and my 11 year anniversary instead. His party was on Sunday. My friend "L" at the time lost her father - in -law and on the Monday night I was planning on going to the viewing. Monday morning I was coming down my hardwood stairs and I fell down all of them. Eric was home when it happened and made sure I could still take care of Matthew and then he went off to work. The pain in my leg was horrific that day. I couldn't go to the bathroom because stretching my skin around the area, was painful enough to bring tears to my eyes. I decided that unfortunately, I wasn't going to be able to drive myself to a viewing that night and eventually by the next day the pain in my leg would lessen. The bruise stayed for a month though. My whole upper part of my left leg was purple and black. The last time I had seen a bruise that big on me, was after having Matthew.
On that Tuesday I started to develop a cold in the nose and head and got a call from my father, saying that again my mom had fluid in her lungs and that again she was modeling (meaning no blood and her limbs were turning blue). I called Eric at work and told him he needed to come home and watch Matthew so that I could drive to PA. He immediately came home and I was at the nursing home by the evening. I'll never forget that fear of walking into that room. My whole life I was the one who in the Italian/Irish family, the oldest was always in charge of keeping us together or being the strong one, to hold up my dad and my brothers. How was I going to walk into that room and stay strong for my father? But I did, from somewhere deep inside my soul, and with God's help from holding me up...he carried me and held me up and gave me the strength I needed.
My cold was also getting worse as each day went by. I would wear those hospital masks in fear of making my mom worse. Not understanding the aides when they said that it didn't matter now. Not understanding when they started bringing in trays of food for us which they never did before. Thank God at the time, the nursing home she was in had the most loving, thoughtful, caring and wonderful staff although my father was always on top of them setting them straight and never taking his eyes off of my mother.
My brothers, my father and I were there for her for those last 3 days. I hadn't been able to sleep since I got there, so by Friday I thought I would be able to finally get some sleep. My mother spent the last day or so blue, with my brothers, my father and I just trying to keep her covered. We all sang, said our prayers and told her everything we ever wanted to say. My brother would try to get more drink in her (name in now gone of what it was). We wanted so much to ease her pain, her suffering, her lips were parched and there was nothing we could do. Our hearts were broken and we were pleading with God to finally take her at let her be at peace.
I swore I wasn't going to close my eyes until her last breath. My brothers and I said the rosary which I had not done since holy communion, but somehow it came back to me. I held my mom's hand all night and wasn't going to let go. Her hand that when I look at my own typing, is the same hand, the same skin, the same blood. My father and my brothers would occasionally take 5 minute naps between our grief, but I couldn't. I sat next to her and prayed and let her know that we forgive her for everything that was "due to her illness", that we always loved her, that we were sorry we couldn't have been there more for her, that I lived so far away etc. In hindsight, now I believe she held on those last 3 days because for the first time in at least 3 years, she had her 3 babies with her and there was no way she was going to let us go. She had every right too. At 4:45 am on February 25, 2007, her breaths were so rapid, so hard to watch her chest and her eyes so gazed. I looked up at my baby on the wall in his 11 x 14 picture and let go of her hand, because something within me was thinking of how I can't let Matthew go, how attached I am to my baby. I grabbed the picture and held him across my heart and closed my eyes. I fell asleep for what seemed like only a few seconds. I woke up to hearing my brother yell to get the nurse because her breathing was getting harder. The nurse came and as I am holding my father's arm, she said " She is taking her last breath".
Then at 4:55 am, she was calm and an immediate shaky smile came over me and I said Dad! She's Free! Did you see the movie City Of Angels? She is flying over our heads right now, out of this nursing home and for the first time in 5 years, she is going to see her mountains, she is going to have a party with her mom & dad, she is going to see the sunrise with us driving back to my father's about a half hour later, She is going to do it with the beauty that was robbed her so many years before. She is going to fly to my house and peek in the window at my son, she is going to see her other grandchildren and have health again! The whole world and such a wait just lifted off me in my heart.
Before we left the nursing home, I had the horrible task of going through her things that we later decided to donate to other patients. But I did grab one little stuffed dog, that back in January when I last brought Matthew in to visit her, he loved playing with. This dog is the spitting image of our dog Pooker Bear (see my photos in Flickr). This dog was my mom's caretaker before my father lost his house. We adopted him at the time and then he passed away when Matthew was 6 months old after 14 wonderful years. He never left my mom's side when she would walk up the avenue in the town they lived and forget to turn around. Anyone that went near her, he barked at to protect her. I wound up burying his ashes with her.
The day that she passed, I somehow remained strong and positive that a wonderful thing had just happened, while I helped my father and brothers plan our mom's viewing and mass and get through that. I wound up having my cold getting so bad that by the day of my mom's funeral on Tuesday Feb. 28th, I wound up getting a perforated eardrum and going to the hospital and then having to have my father drive me back to MA due to the Demerol they gave me for the pain. My own father on the day he buried my mom, had to go to the emergency room with me just hours after the dinner we had at a restaurant. It broke my heart that this was happening. I thought I was going to send him over the edge, witnessing my pain, I thought he would have a heart attack from the stress of it all.
But somehow he survived, I survived, my brothers are all somehow surviving and we go on.... and just pray and love each other because life is short and that is why you have to love your neighbors and just be nice to people in general, be nice to strangers on the street, be nice to people in your life and always just live life to the best and be happy that your life is still yours to live and breathe and see God's world because if you look at it through the eyes of someone like my mom who had no choice in what happened to her, you would so not take each day for granted.
Lastly, I wanted to add my mom's mass card with the most beautiful picture and prayer that we could find that matched her to a tee.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Prayers for Grandma in Heaven
I wasn't going to blog tonight since I am visiting with my father, but again Matthew's antics leaving me wanting to share them with the world.
This morning at 7 am while I was getting ready to leave for my long drive, he was so helpful and sweet. He made sure he found me by baseball hat so no one would have to see Mommy's real hair (which was so overdue for a cut and hideous). He held the door open for me on my many trips to the car and then gave me one final tight hug around the legs that could have just made me drop everything and just stay there in that moment all day. I had only talked to him twice today and each time he was so loving and wonderful, making my already hard trip so much easier on me.
Tonight while talking to my husband, he mentioned that Matthew was so tired tonight that he said "Daddy, I got good news, and bad news"...Eric almost dying from this announcement said "Well lets start with the bad news?" He said, I can't go to sleep without Mommy tonight (but he wasn't crying about it-just stating a fact). Eric assured him that Daddy would help him sleep...they got distracted and never got what the good news was.
When Eric took him up to bed, Matthew had his hands in prayer (which is something we might -regretablly shown him twice in his life). We usually just pray while lying in bed together. Matthew said, we have to say a prayer for Ringo. (our german shorthair dog that passed away when Matthew was 18 months old). Daddy, said...ok...how about a prayer too for Grandma (my mom)....Matthew said, ok....he put his hands together and said...Grandma playing with Ringo..some kind of prayer for both of them.
I am just so proud of my little man, adjusting to being without me and being so understanding right now and being so thoughtful and insightful at the same time. He really always has me in awe...
Tomorrow is our mass for my Mom and we will be going to her grave in the afternoon to put flowers on it and also spread our soil from Ireland. We had brought back soil in 1998 when my husband and I took a trip there. The soil was from my great-greatgrandmother's land in County Mayo. We will then go to mass before I head back to MA on Monday. I probably won't be on again for a few more days...
Good night.
This morning at 7 am while I was getting ready to leave for my long drive, he was so helpful and sweet. He made sure he found me by baseball hat so no one would have to see Mommy's real hair (which was so overdue for a cut and hideous). He held the door open for me on my many trips to the car and then gave me one final tight hug around the legs that could have just made me drop everything and just stay there in that moment all day. I had only talked to him twice today and each time he was so loving and wonderful, making my already hard trip so much easier on me.
Tonight while talking to my husband, he mentioned that Matthew was so tired tonight that he said "Daddy, I got good news, and bad news"...Eric almost dying from this announcement said "Well lets start with the bad news?" He said, I can't go to sleep without Mommy tonight (but he wasn't crying about it-just stating a fact). Eric assured him that Daddy would help him sleep...they got distracted and never got what the good news was.
When Eric took him up to bed, Matthew had his hands in prayer (which is something we might -regretablly shown him twice in his life). We usually just pray while lying in bed together. Matthew said, we have to say a prayer for Ringo. (our german shorthair dog that passed away when Matthew was 18 months old). Daddy, said...ok...how about a prayer too for Grandma (my mom)....Matthew said, ok....he put his hands together and said...Grandma playing with Ringo..some kind of prayer for both of them.
I am just so proud of my little man, adjusting to being without me and being so understanding right now and being so thoughtful and insightful at the same time. He really always has me in awe...
Tomorrow is our mass for my Mom and we will be going to her grave in the afternoon to put flowers on it and also spread our soil from Ireland. We had brought back soil in 1998 when my husband and I took a trip there. The soil was from my great-greatgrandmother's land in County Mayo. We will then go to mass before I head back to MA on Monday. I probably won't be on again for a few more days...
Good night.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
IN MEMORY OF MOM
Loving mother, grandmother and wife passed away one year ago, Saturday, Feb. 25, 2006. Surviving is her loving and devoted husband of 40 years; her three children, two granddaughters, two grandsons, her sister and many nieces, nephews and family.
COME WITH ME
COME WITH ME
The Lord saw you getting tired
And a cure was not to be,
So He put his arms aroud you
And whispered, "Come with me."
With tearful eyes, we watched you suffer
And saw you fade away,
Although we loved you dearly,
We could not make you stay.
A golden heart stopped beating,
A beautiful smile at rest,
God broke our hearts to prove
He only takes the best.
It's lonesome here without you
We miss you so each day,
Our lives aren't the same
Since you went away.
When days are sad and lonely,
And everything goes wrong,
We seem to hear you whisper,
"Cheer up and carry on."
Each time we see your picture,
You seem to smile and say,
"Don't cry, I'm in God's keeping,
We'll meet again someday."
We love and miss you Mom….Love, MatthewsMom, MatthewsDad, Matthew, Matthews Grandpa, Matthews Uncles and Aunts, and friends
Monday, February 12, 2007
Someone's turning 40! Our wedding anniversary & one year since Grandma passed away
Thank God for family. Because of various reasons, Matthew's Aunt was nice enough to let us have his party at her house in Boston. This way my little guy could be with his cousins and have more than just mommy and daddy to sing him Happy Birthday:-)
We wound up surprising him by having him fall asleep in the car on the drive in "to Grandma and Grandpa's" he thought. When he woke up 5 minutes before my sister-in-laws house, Mommy had run into I-Party and had my hatch filled with balloons...and I thought I was good, but the bugger, looked around and said like in a dreamstate...are these my surprise Mommy? My husband dropped me off with all the decorations and cake while he went to pick up my in-laws and when they came back Matthew was in his glory!
It was a nice, loud few hours and he slept the whole way home. Whew! Now Mommy can finally relax for a day or two before thinking of our anniversary in a few days:-)
Next weekend I will be heading down to visit with my family. My mom passed away one year ago on Feb. 25th.....With all that is going on, it will be nice to just stop and embrace one moment at a time. With Matthew's birthday to our anniversary to the anniversary of my mom's passing...it's hard to catch my breath. One minute I'm happy, the next I'm planning something else and then I know on the 350 mile drive I can finally just breathe a sigh of ok...now this.
I know it will be hard for me but at the same time, there is no way I could miss it. For too many years my mother suffered from a long terminal illness, where I felt guilt of not being there. The last few days of her life, I was there until the end, her last breath. The first month was the toughest with every week getting worse with the memories of what I witnessed, but once we got passed that one month mark, my father and I felt like ok....now we can start healing. Without going into detail, she had suffered for 25 + years and so she is finally in peace and without pain. She is in God's joy of Heaven with her family and is now an angel always with me. And now she sees my son every moment and kisses him at night, whereas in life she couldn't.
I know this drive is going to be one of the toughest ones I ever made, and I've made some really tough ones. The distance between my family and where we live now is and always has been the biggest problem with my choice a million years ago, to move up here and as my mom deteriorated over the years, it only got worse as each year passed. The drive used to be one of excitement to get to either direction - either the excitement of coming back to my husband after a vist there or the excitement of the drive down to be with my family/hold my mom's hand or eventually share in my son's life with her.
It has been like one long vacational state of mind that takes alot of adjustment (and I'm not talking like a vacation of beaches and sunsets). It's like 17 years worth of turning the lights on and off in my heart, my mind and my physical state. I love so many people or things about both places that I just have always struggled with reality of it.
When I would visit my mom in the later years of her life, it was like ok..turn off your self of who you are now, drive down, visit with her in a nursing home, feel those guilt and horrid feelings of what kind of daughter would not be there for her and then in a few days, turn around and come back to living my dreams with my husband. And each time I would come home to him and now my family of him and my son, it's like there is no way in the world I would trade my son's life or destroy his family due to my geographical problems. When I say I am blessed to be my son's mom, it is because I feel that way every day and there is no way I would do anything to destroy that miracle from God, by desolving his family. All I'm trying to say about all of this, is juggling your emotions for 17 years for every event in your life no matter, what state it takes place in, is trying on anyone.
I can not understand other women that put everything material and otherwise before their children. I'm talking about women like Anna Nicole for instance. I would have never left my 5 month old baby in Nassau to go stay at a Hard Rock Casino Hotel in Florida! My heart aches for that now baby without a mom and for her that her life had to tragically end no matter how terrible her life might have been. I don't think I would hire a nanny even if I could. You are the mom and you are given that role for a reason. If you work due to financial stressors that's different, but to have a nanny in charge of your child for reasons other than your other "issues in life" are more important is a shame.
Maybe it has been because I had no choice since Matthew was born and that we have used a family member babysitter literally 2-3 times in his life, that is making me harder and more determined to say Hey! Yeah I would like some help sometimes but it's not that I'm complaining, it's because I'm human and I'm a woman (two wonderful combinations:-)
I wish I could get away for some Mommy time that had absolutely nothing to do with anything else except me being pampered or enjoying a weekend with my best girl friend, but it ain't happening.
But if we could both win the lottery (that I never play), we could both buy a plane and everything would be alot easier, at least in the hug department. By the way this same best friend that I never get to Tropical beaches with is going to be 40 in 20 days!!!! But who is counting????? Don't worry my little friend, I'm not going to tell the world who you are:-) LOL Maybe show them a pic? I'm just KIDDING!!!!! LOL
We wound up surprising him by having him fall asleep in the car on the drive in "to Grandma and Grandpa's" he thought. When he woke up 5 minutes before my sister-in-laws house, Mommy had run into I-Party and had my hatch filled with balloons...and I thought I was good, but the bugger, looked around and said like in a dreamstate...are these my surprise Mommy? My husband dropped me off with all the decorations and cake while he went to pick up my in-laws and when they came back Matthew was in his glory!
It was a nice, loud few hours and he slept the whole way home. Whew! Now Mommy can finally relax for a day or two before thinking of our anniversary in a few days:-)
Next weekend I will be heading down to visit with my family. My mom passed away one year ago on Feb. 25th.....With all that is going on, it will be nice to just stop and embrace one moment at a time. With Matthew's birthday to our anniversary to the anniversary of my mom's passing...it's hard to catch my breath. One minute I'm happy, the next I'm planning something else and then I know on the 350 mile drive I can finally just breathe a sigh of ok...now this.
I know it will be hard for me but at the same time, there is no way I could miss it. For too many years my mother suffered from a long terminal illness, where I felt guilt of not being there. The last few days of her life, I was there until the end, her last breath. The first month was the toughest with every week getting worse with the memories of what I witnessed, but once we got passed that one month mark, my father and I felt like ok....now we can start healing. Without going into detail, she had suffered for 25 + years and so she is finally in peace and without pain. She is in God's joy of Heaven with her family and is now an angel always with me. And now she sees my son every moment and kisses him at night, whereas in life she couldn't.
I know this drive is going to be one of the toughest ones I ever made, and I've made some really tough ones. The distance between my family and where we live now is and always has been the biggest problem with my choice a million years ago, to move up here and as my mom deteriorated over the years, it only got worse as each year passed. The drive used to be one of excitement to get to either direction - either the excitement of coming back to my husband after a vist there or the excitement of the drive down to be with my family/hold my mom's hand or eventually share in my son's life with her.
It has been like one long vacational state of mind that takes alot of adjustment (and I'm not talking like a vacation of beaches and sunsets). It's like 17 years worth of turning the lights on and off in my heart, my mind and my physical state. I love so many people or things about both places that I just have always struggled with reality of it.
When I would visit my mom in the later years of her life, it was like ok..turn off your self of who you are now, drive down, visit with her in a nursing home, feel those guilt and horrid feelings of what kind of daughter would not be there for her and then in a few days, turn around and come back to living my dreams with my husband. And each time I would come home to him and now my family of him and my son, it's like there is no way in the world I would trade my son's life or destroy his family due to my geographical problems. When I say I am blessed to be my son's mom, it is because I feel that way every day and there is no way I would do anything to destroy that miracle from God, by desolving his family. All I'm trying to say about all of this, is juggling your emotions for 17 years for every event in your life no matter, what state it takes place in, is trying on anyone.
I can not understand other women that put everything material and otherwise before their children. I'm talking about women like Anna Nicole for instance. I would have never left my 5 month old baby in Nassau to go stay at a Hard Rock Casino Hotel in Florida! My heart aches for that now baby without a mom and for her that her life had to tragically end no matter how terrible her life might have been. I don't think I would hire a nanny even if I could. You are the mom and you are given that role for a reason. If you work due to financial stressors that's different, but to have a nanny in charge of your child for reasons other than your other "issues in life" are more important is a shame.
Maybe it has been because I had no choice since Matthew was born and that we have used a family member babysitter literally 2-3 times in his life, that is making me harder and more determined to say Hey! Yeah I would like some help sometimes but it's not that I'm complaining, it's because I'm human and I'm a woman (two wonderful combinations:-)
I wish I could get away for some Mommy time that had absolutely nothing to do with anything else except me being pampered or enjoying a weekend with my best girl friend, but it ain't happening.
But if we could both win the lottery (that I never play), we could both buy a plane and everything would be alot easier, at least in the hug department. By the way this same best friend that I never get to Tropical beaches with is going to be 40 in 20 days!!!! But who is counting????? Don't worry my little friend, I'm not going to tell the world who you are:-) LOL Maybe show them a pic? I'm just KIDDING!!!!! LOL
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