Ghosts and Mother's Day

I have a lot of ghosts that haunt me. The flit in and out of my mind and life at odd minutes. Thoughts of things lost and gained. Trying to find the strength to go day to day. Finding the strength and still feeling like I'm lacking. Deep thoughts.

My grammy. I miss her so much. She was the greatest woman. Her husband died really young. My own dad was only nineteen when my grandpa had a massive heart attack and died on the front lawn. Just like that. I never knew him obviously. But I would take her to the cemetery whenever she wanted to go. And she would walk up to his grave and put her hand on his grave stone and whisper "Oh, Jim, why did it have to be this way?" Then she would stand quietly for moment and stare. Straighten up. Then she would say she was finished and ready to go home. And that was all.

To her dying day she never said a bad word about her husband. Even though I am sure she was a little bitter that she had to go to work and support her family without him. Her family came from "old" money. She had never wanted for anything in life growing up. She was strong enough to laugh through the rest of her life. She always had something witty to say for any situation. Anything. And the stories she would tell about her life were classics. Of course, I never really knew what was fact and what was fiction but she always made her point.

I guess it's comforting that I come from that woman's' genes. That strength is probably hardwired into me.

My other grandmother (my maw maw) came from a completely different background. She was the daughter for Sicilian immigrants. They spoke no English at all when they came to America. They scrapped every penny and worked hard in the factories to make a good life in America. My grandfather was an alcoholic that overcame his demons sometime after I was born. But still, my grandmother remembers those times. Less now, I think, that my grandfather is gone, but still she carries those memories. She had seven children, one that died three days after he was born. And, yet, the bitterness of those memories rarely show. She is a little harder than my grammy was. A little more worn by life. But she never questioned that what she did was the right thing. She has never said that she would have rathered have another kind of life. She is the one that gave me this advice "When you marry, marry your best friend."

My own mother was the child of and alcoholic father and an immigrant mother. And Irish man and Sicilian woman came together to create my mother (and yes the temper runs hot in me too at times) :) My mother who married the wrong man for her the first time, the second time, the third time.

She worked two jobs to send us to private schools so that we could have a great education. She would drink milk for breakfast lunch and dinner when there was only enough food for us kids and none for her. She paid the bills and cleaned the house. She loved us enough to keep our bellies full and a roof over our head when it would have been easier to maybe do something else. I would fall asleep when I was little listening to her pounding away on the typewriter keys as she typed out mortgage information late into the night for her second job. My mom never missed a single tennis match, volleyball, baseball, basketball game. She was THERE. We never had a single thing that my friends did. No cable, pizza, fast food, phone in our rooms, only one tv in the house. But what those other kids missed out on...MY MOM WAS THERE.

And through all of my mistakes, my drama, my heartache and my joy...she has been there. She has held my hand, counted out contractions, dried my tears.

These are the women that are my examples. The women that I want my girls to be. The greatest sum of all of the parts. The heartbeat of the family. The drier of tears. The humanity that humanity has lost. I want my children to laugh through the trials...work for what they want...hold the hands that need held.

In my girls I see my grammys impishness, my maw maws bs detector, my mothers compassion. Already they are little bits of the best parts. And it's a beautiful mother's day gift to realize that maybe someday one of them will be sitting here adding me to the list of the great women who made them the people they will be....