Day 14: "What Is Something That Adds Sweetness To Your Life?"

 Love adds the largest dose of sweetness to my life.

 I have been blessed to have the two greatest loves of my life. First, there was Rich. He came into my life at a time when I was sure I would never marry and never have children. But he, with his gentle and loving ways, showed me that there could be a marriage of spirits that didn’t include bitterness and domestic violence.

 

I lost him in 2001, when he was only forty years old. At 28, he’d had congestive heart failure due to cardiomyopathy. After a consultation with a cardiac surgeon at Johns Hopkins, a geneticist was called in. Rich was very tall, severely myopic, double-jointed, and had unusual stretch marks on his shoulders. The geneticist determined that he had Marfan Syndrome. The cardiac surgeon replaced Rich’s leaky aortic valve with one made of metal. When all was quiet, the kids and I could hear Rich tick like a watch. In fact, he put all our cranky babies to sleep by placing them on his chest.

 One morning, we found he was gone. No more ticking.

 Rich, as his health declined that year, said he wanted me to go on and find someone else after he passed away. I was horrified. I didn’t want to think of the possibility of Rich’s passing. If he did, there could be no other.

I blogged earlier about how I came to meet Ted.  I signed up for a 3 month membership with a dating service because I was lonely and looking for a pen pal. When Ted’s profile first appeared in my email, I deleted it. His photo reminded me of Rich, and his interests were similar. I deleted a lot of other profiles, too. There were one or two who lived in the Midwest that I corresponded with briefly, but we didn’t have enough in common to continue. I decided to cancel my membership.

Just as my membership ended, Ted’s profile showed up again. As my finger moved to the delete button, I heard Rich’s voice say, “Give him a chance.” So, I did. Ted lived in New Jersey and the kids and I lived on Long Island. We began emailing each other. We had so much in common, and he really was a lot like Rich. It was semi-painful but also comforting. We began calling each other and spent hours chatting back and forth. Then we began a real long-distance relationship, taking turns visiting each other and going out on dates.

 I didn’t think I would ever find a love like the one I had with Rich. It’s almost miraculous that I have such a strong love again with Ted. It’s the same but also very different. At this point, Ted and I can just about read each other’s thoughts, finish each other’s sentences. We are in tune, body and soul.

 

There is even more love adding sweetness to my life: my children with Rich, Bill, Heidi, and Kristin. I couldn’t be prouder of the wonderful young people they’ve grown to be. I look at them in wonder sometimes because in their growing years, I was full of mothering doubt. Was I like my mother, who was mentally ill and abusive? Sometimes I felt confident I’d learned enough not to be. Yet there were times I became angry and yelled. Did my face look demonic then, as my mother’s had to me? But now as I reflect, I believe I must have done something right for the way they’ve turned out.

 

When Ted and I married, we blended our families. He had two grown daughters, Michele and Linda. Michele was already married then with three little ones and Linda was dating a young man named Kennan. Blending wasn’t easy. Michele and Linda missed their mother dearly. My kids missed Rich.

 

Over the years, though, we’ve learned to accept and love each other. Michele was widowed a few years ago. Recently, she re-connected with a guy she knew from her high school years, Gary. Just a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated their marriage. We supported Michele all the way. We’d been in her shoes, and we knew the fall out from kids missing their deceased parent. Michele and Gary are in the midst of blending their families.

 We have eight grandchildren between Michele and Linda. Sadly, all but one live far from New Jersey. Three are with Linda and Jay in Virginia; Michele, Gary, and Michele’s adult kids are all in Tennessee. One grandchild is in New Jersey, Linda’s firstborn with Kennan. Tomas is and has been a source of love and joy for all his nineteen years.

 

I absolutely cannot leave out our four-footed feline babies: Gus, Bandit, Bootsie and Nugget.

 

 

Nor can I leave out the love of my dear friends.

 My life would not be so sweet without all the love that’s been added to it.

I am participating in the American Cancer Society’s challenge to write for thirty minutes each day in May. I do a lot of writing and I can meet this challenge. I plan to make a blog entry each day with what I’ve written.

I wanted to participate in memory of loved ones who fought cancer bravely but succumbed:

My brother-in-law Jeff

My sister-in-law Ann

My dear friend Kay

My Uncle Bob

My Uncle John

 

I also wanted to help raise money to support research and a cure for those currently fighting this vicious disease.

My Facebook to the fundraiser is here. 

Day 12: Mother's Day

I am participating in the American Cancer Society’s challenge to write for thirty minutes each day in May. I do a lot of writing and I can meet this challenge. I plan to make a blog entry each day with what I’ve written.

I wanted to participate in memory of loved ones who fought cancer bravely but succumbed:

My brother-in-law Jeff

My sister-in-law Ann

My dear friend Kay

My Uncle Bob

My Uncle John

I also wanted to help raise money to support research and a cure for those currently fighting this vicious disease.

My Facebook to the fundraiser is here. 

 

I am looking forward to celebrating Mother's Day with my family on Sunday. We’re meeting up at one of our favorite parks in Hamilton. My favorite gift is the company of all of us together, Ted, Bill, Heidi, Kristin, Tomas, and me. This year, one of Heidi’s friends will be joining us so she doesn’t have to spend the day alone, and I’m happy to have her along.

 Veterans Parks has lots of lovely trails to explore. In addition to that, they are having an Azalea Festival. I just love azaleas!

 Mother’s Day wasn’t always a happy, celebratory day.

My mom didn’t learn good mothering skills from my grandma. That’s weird because Grandma became my role model for what a mother and grandmother should be. I believe Mom didn’t develop the skills because she didn’t spend enough time with her mom. My mom and aunt were both born Deaf in 1930 and 1928, respectively.

In their school years, education for the Deaf was much different than it is today. In my mom’s and aunt’s cases, they were sent to Lexington School for the Deaf in New York City. The philosophy for most schools for the Deaf during those years was to forbid the use of sign language, the natural and native language of Deaf people. Instead, my mom and my aunt were subjected to hours of lipreading classes. They lagged in written English, reading, math, and all the other skills because of this focus on lipreading.

My mom and my aunt lived in Lexington almost year-round. They came home for Christmas and for the summer. This was true of most Deaf schools. The children’s role models became the teachers and dorm supervisors, who didn’t necessarily mother their students. The students learned to depend on each other, but they were all children.

Because signing in public was forbidden, the kids learned to communicate secretly. A popular place to sign with each other was in the restrooms. Bold students might try signing under the table in the dining room or under their desks in the classroom.

When my mom and aunt went home on vacation, they felt isolated. My grandparents and their brothers, my uncles, had all been instructed not to use any kind of signing, not even gestures. Conversations around the dinner table were impossible for the girls to follow. They couldn’t tell who was speaking when.

 Because they were away at school for most of the year, they didn’t have much opportunity to see mothering modeled by Grandma.

So, what was the result of this?

Mom was ambivalent about mothering not only because she didn’t know how but also because she had an undiagnosed mental illness. She would try to engage with my brother and me but often would become enraged. It scared us. Sometimes she hurt us. Dad worked full-time and some days he’d come home to find Mom in a state of hysterics so he would take my brother and me someplace, like the beach, to give Mom a chance to collect herself.

When I was ten, Dad got laid off and got a job six hours away in Baltimore, MD. He hoped this would be temporary and that he would return to our home on Long Island. Mom got through six months and couldn’t take it anymore. We moved to Baltimore too to be with Dad.

There they discovered a club for the Deaf. They began going there every weekend night, enjoying the fellowship of other Deaf adults. They also discovered the bar. Mom self-medicated and, if anything, her violent episodes became worse. My brother and I never knew what would set her off and tried to make ourselves invisible.

With the drinking came the fighting between my parents. That led to episodes of domestic violence between them.  Growing up wasn’t much fun. Holidays weren’t much fun either because those were a good excuse to drink.

When I had children, I was so afraid I would be like her that I began attending 12-step meetings to learn how to deal with my trauma and how to learn good parenting. I used my Grandma as my role model. She was always happy to see me and loved me unconditionally. She didn’t ever say that she never wanted children, as Mom said to me.

I don’t hate my mother. I am sorry about her separation from her parents, and I’m sorry about whatever was troubling her mind. When I think of Mother’s Day, I always think of my Grandma. She was my surrogate mom. Then I think of myself. I do think of Mom, but not first.