Gone, but forever with me

I believe the people who we lose in death are never really gone from us. Since my Dad passed back in 2000 I feel him around me all the time. My siblings report similar experiences - dreams, "coincidences", and sneezing fits which we know in our bones mean that Dad is making himself known. My Mom on the other hand, well, she died when I was just 6 and a half. I have felt the hole left in my life by her passing as a giant gaping crater for as long as my memory stretches. While I have always felt a love, I haven't really felt a strong physical presence from her. I know she's here, I just think she takes kind of a subtle approach because anything more would just be way too emotional for me to handle on a daily basis (and also, that may just be more her personality). I totally accept that.

My Mom's death was tragic. She was so young, only 49. She had so much life still ahead of her. She left behind 5 children, including a 16 year old and a 6 year old. My father was devastated - and although he went on to marry again, he never got past the loss of his true love. Our family is strong, bonded together forever in part because we share this terrible loss, but we're quiet about it. We can laugh and joke and use really inappropriate "death" humor and talk about my Dad, and a half dozen other dead relatives, but when it comes to Mommy - well, sometimes we choke even on the name. It just...hurts so much. I worry sometimes that because we don't talk much about her she is being forgotten. My children are so close with their Dad's Mom..."Grandma", I wonder how the occasional mention of their "Grandma in Heaven" can hold any place in their hearts.

My daughter Curly is named for two special people. Her first name is the same as that of my Aunt, my mother's sister, and her middle name is Patricia - which yes, is my name, but is also my mother's name. I have a beautiful old black & white photograph hanging in a frame in Curly's room. It is a picture taken on a rooftop in Brooklyn of the two sisters, newly arrived in America. They are wearing new clothes and smiling widely. The picture was taken and sent home to Ireland as proof that the hardships endured by my grandfather in sending two of his daughters off to a better life, were indeed paying off. I especially like the picture in Curly's room because my Aunt is on the left and my mother on the right - so the picture is of "Finola and Patsy" - literally Finola and Patricia - my daughter's namesakes.

Tonight I was laying in bed with my sweet girl - a luxury as usually her bratty little brothers take up so much of my time at bedtime that she is already in dreamland by the time I come to "tuck her in". As we laid together I was looking up at the picture hanging near her bed, and I asked her if she ever looked at that picture. She told me she does, that she likes to look at it. I asked her what she thinks about it and she told me that she likes to think about her "other Grandma". I got all choked up, but tried to hide it. She went on to tell me that she always pictures her in her mind, young with short brown hair, then turned to me with tears on her cheeks...at that point I couldn't hide mine anymore. My sweet little seven year old reached out her hand to wipe my tears and said "I know...it hurts that she's not here" REALLY? Where did you come from you Angel of Heaven! You beautiful thing. My love. She asked me if she was young, and demanded to know why she had died. I explained as best I could about growing up poor in the 1930's and 40's in Ireland and that she had contracted Rheumatic Fever as a child - that she was very sick when she was a little girl - and that it had made her heart weak. That her heart got better for a while, but then one day it just wouldn't work anymore. My Curly girl wept openly for the grandma she has never known but for the picture on her wall. Then she announced, "well, one good thing...I am glad she got better when she was little, or else we wouldn't be here now." I told my Curly girl that her Grandma in heaven is with us all the time, that the love she taught her children is the same love she gets from her Mom and her Aunts and Uncles and is the same love that she shares with her brothers and someday with her own children.

All my life I have wanted to be a Mom. Maybe because I had some unfinished business in the Mommy department, but always this life of mine, these kids, they have been my vocation, my calling. Before I had children I thought that I would feel the absence of my Mom even more strongly when I became a mother. In the beginning after Firstson was born I thought a lot about her- the fact that she had gone through many of the same things I was now experiencing- rocking my baby to sleep after a feeding in the wee small hours, staring at him as he slept just to watch him breathe... The effect was quite the opposite of what I expected, as I grew into my own role as Mommy - that is, the more I defined myself as "mother" - the less I defined myself as "motherless". The job came so naturally to me, and I was, am, good at it. I am blessed. And maybe the reason that I don't feel that huge hole as much anymore is because my Mother is close beside me now, guiding me through everyday. (Wow...seriously THAT idea just came to me as I typed , excuse me while I wipe the snot and tears off my face and keyboard....)

Just a minute ago my Curly girl, who is supposed to be long asleep by now, crept into my room to make sure my tears were dry ....yes, I do think there's a reason, a very good reason that my Mother feels so close to me tonight...

Opportunity Cost

Remember when you were little and people used to ask you what it was you wanted to be when you grew up? I aspired to many varied things, a teacher (but then, I think every little kid, or at least little girl, dreams of being a teacher at some point) an actress (I dabbled, but never professionally), a waitress (fait accompli!) , a lawyer and yes, a priest (not a nun mind you, a priest! - I have to settle for catechist until the Catholic church starts welcoming divorced women to take up the cloth). Truthfully though I spent a lot of my day playing with baby dolls. Being their "Mommy". I don't know if it was because I lost my own Mom when I was so young, or because I was always surrounded by my older sister's babies, but being a Mommy is all I ever truly wanted.

For the last nine and a half years I have had my dream job. I have never felt that I gave up anything for my kids, I have always known that I have been on the receiving end of this arrangement. I have looked at my "have tos" as "get tos". I don't "have to" get up with my crying baby 3 times a night, I "get to". I know that it won't last forever and so I cherish it. Of course, that is not to say that I don't have my moments (every day) when I want to scream and yell and pull my hair out, or that I don't wait each day for the moment when they finally "go the F**K to sleep" (as the clever book by Adam Mansbach is titled) , because believe me, I do. I am not about to paint any rosy fairy tale pictures of my dreamy June Cleaver life. It's messy, and ugly and loud and... I LOVE IT.

My daughter, all seven years of her, dreams of one day being married and having babies of her own. So sweet and familiar. Bittersweet though because I struggle with how to protect her, how to try and see that she not make the same mistakes in life that I did. But then, that's not really fair is it? To say that I made a mistake? My life is good. I have four amazing people that I "get to" guide on this journey with me. I wake up every day to their smiles and every morning I wrap them in my hugs. I send them off to school with the Sign of the Cross on their forehead and a wish that God will bless them, that they each have a "wonderful, beautiful, very good day" because, "I love them very much". But still...nothing in life is certain and I want my babies, my daughter especially, to be prepared. I have tried to plant the seed that marriage is not the goal, just part of the game. I have told her straight out that I want her to be able to take care of herself first. I have explained my situation, I don't have a career to fall back on. Nobody is hiring professional Mommies. If I could have done anything differently in my life it would have been to not be in such a rush. I would have taken my time getting married and having babies - I would have tried to trust that you can have a career and a family. I still would have stayed home with my cherubs, but at least I would have options better than the ones I have now.

Here's the crazy thing. I am smart. Really smart. I could have been anything I wanted to be when I "grew up". I still can, right? I have a degree in business. I started earning it while I was working full time and finished it when I was bouncing Firstson on my hip. One of the things I remember learning in business school was about "opportunity cost". That is, everything you do comes at the cost of not doing something else. I am at a place in my life right now that while it is so good, it is also fleeting. I feel very strongly that I have to figure out what I am going to be. I meditated on this for a while after I became a single stay at home mom. I want to take this opportunity I have been given, this time when my bills are still being paid and while my family is still so willing to help, to figure it out and make it happen. I desperately do not want to get stuck behind a desk doing some "job". Been there, done that, hated it.

I would be a great lawyer. I have always thought about it. I am a good writer, an excellent reader, I have an eye for detail and I am creative. I would love to feel like I was helping people and still be making a decent salary. (how awesome would it be to use child support payments to cover family vacations - in other words, be able to provide for myself and my children everything else) I waited for a sign and when I felt I had received it I jumped right in. I registered for classes at Empire State College to finish my bachelor's degree. Independent Studies. Not online courses, independent studies. As in, read this textbook, write a paper and give me a call to discuss.

Here's where that opportunity cost thing comes in...every time we say "yes" to one thing we are automatically saying "no" to something else. I have had a hard time with these classes, not the content, the time management. At the end of my day I am spent. I go full steam ahead from early in the am until those sweeties fall to slumber - which is usually after quite a battle. I have taken some incompletes in my classes, and I really don't know when or how to complete them. It's a mess, because I think I have to do something, time is running out!

I think to myself, if I can't handle this, how will I ever handle law school? Not to mention the fact that law school is expensive, and I am poor. There's the fact that jobs for new attorneys are hard to come by these days. The Niece's husband just graduated and passed the bar. Thankfully he had a job lined up, but apparently with his student loans now coming due they are actually netting less than they were before he became a lawyer and will be for the next ten years or so. Also, I think about all the sacrifices he made while in law school, and wonder if I would be willing to make the same ones. I have four cherubs who are my life. I am a Catechist and a Girl Scout leader. I am baby "G"'s favorite great aunt and thrice weekly caregiver. I make dinner. I do laundry. I decorate my house for all the holidays and I make cupcakes. All of these things are part of my job, remember my dream job? I am just temping, but I am giving it my all, I don't know what I could give up.

I remember when I was a teenager in HS and I wanted to be in every after school club that was offered, my father had an important conversation with me in which he said "you can't give 100% to one hundred different things, you need to pick something and be good at it." How could I know that some 20 years later those words would be so relevant? So, for now I am going to continue working hard at my job everyday. I am a good Mom (I am assured of this everyday when Paddy-boy yells that I am the 'wurst mommy evah!' ) I am going to live in the now as much as I can and heed the advice of my Heavenly Father to not worry about tomorrow. After all, the only thing that is guaranteed is today, right? So, I will continue hugging and blessing my babies each morning, packing their lunchboxes with carrot sticks and sandwiches, filling their drawers with clean clothes and pulling my hair out each night waiting for them to fall to sleep. I am going to give 100% of myself to this job, to this calling and have faith that God will provide.

Maybe someday I will go to law school, maybe someday I will weep proudly when Curly Girl calls to tell me that she passed the Bar Exam. All I know is that right now, I am going to pack up some snacks and pile the kids into the car for religion. It's Tuesday and the slow cooker is on. Life is good today, and today is all I've got.