Thank The Stars For Aunties

In the whole world there are no greater relationships than those you can have with an Aunt.  I have two very special Aunts.  I've always known and loved them of course, but, our relationships solidified after the passing of my mother.  I think we all provided a link to my mom for one other in a way.  We've developed relationships of our own outside of my mother over the years. We all helped each other heal after our loss and then we built our own very personal relationships.

My Aunt Ann and I write weekly and sometimes two or three times in a week when there are lots of exciting newsy events going on. She has been an ear for me and a constant support.  My Aunt Dianne is my mom's sister and just being with her I'm reminded of the little things my mom did on the daily,  they share too many similarities to count!  Both of these women love and sacrifice always putting family first. They always make time for me and for that I'm forever grateful.  

Women need one another and although the family unit may look different in this day and age the fundamentals of family have not  changed and our roles as women in our families don't change.  My Aunts are my support and my wings and they have had such a hand in shaping me.  I hope they know how much I admire them and have learned from them, I'm forever grateful.

Aunt Dianne & Ann

Peonies

Memory Lane

I heart peonies as much as the ants do!

I bought these peonies yesterday at the Washington Farmer's Market. I'm so happy the farmer's market is up and running again! Finley and I strolled uptown to the peruse the wares and came home with home made BBQ sauce, fresh local grown strawberries, a dozen fresh eggs and this bouquet of Peonies.

The side of the house of the home I grew up in, was lined with great big Peonies bushes. They were planted there by my mother when she and dad bought the house. The Peonies plants were from her father's garden in her childhood home. We had pink and white ones but the pink were always my favorite.

At the end of the school year my mom and I would go out to the side of the house early in the morning to cut some peonies so I could take them to my teacher. The grass was cold and dewy wet, mom was usually in her nightie, bathrobe and sandals. She showed me how to cut the peonies stems on an angle just below the leaves. "They drink up the water better if cut on an angle." she told me. She would run the heads of the Peonies under the garden hose to get the ants off. "The ants help the flowers open," she told me. I just thought she didn't want me to carry the ants to school with me. Carefully she wrapped the ends of the stems in wet paper towels and covered them with a plastic bag held secure with an elastic. "It's to keep the flowers from wilting until you get them to school,"she told me.

I loved presenting the peonies to my teacher. I felt special all day. I loved seeing them there on the desk knowing they had come from my mom's garden, my mom's ants had helped them open, my mom's thoughtfulness had landed them on the teachers desk.

I bought a bunch of Peonies and thought about all these things on my short walk home pushing my daughter in her stroller. One day I will tell her about the ants on the Peonies buds and hopefully she will also know the unexpected joy of bringing such beautiful flowers to her teacher.

37

Me. I'm 37 years old today. I got to do 25 minutes of power yoga ALONE and take and shower ALONE, not rushing either and then arrive downstairs to a beautifuly cooked breakfast by my sweet hubs. Fin was in her highchair -she raised her arms up overhead and squeeled a greeting to me then tried to share her scrambled eggs with me. How's that for a birthday morning!?

The best part about this birthday is that it's my first one as a MOM. From here in it's all home made cards, macaroni necklaces and gifts of tacky shirts, I'm gonna have to wear, because Fin gave it to me. I can think of NO BETTER GIFT!

My friend John said:

You have reached your age maximum... from now on, this will be your age forever... happy birthday!

I think 37 is a perfect age to reside the rest of my life in don't you?

Finally, It Looks A LOT Like Christmas

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Our front door even says, Welcome Christmas!

It's TRUE! It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, which for me is a Christmas Miracle in itself. I have to admit to being quite a Grinch over the past few years. What I have not allowed myself to write or speak aloud until now is this:

My mother spent 8 years dying of Breast Cancer. Every Christmas had the underlying, unmentioned feeling that it could be mom's last one. She spent her last 4 Christmases either undergoing or finishing treatments. We nick named it the annual Christmas Chemo like it was a seasonal holiday treat like egg nog. And then she died just before Christmas December 12, 2000. Yup. That was the worst Christmas ever. I spent the whole day in bed in a rental house in Nags Head NC with Steve's family. I got up to get very drunk then I went back to bed. Sad really, but, it was my way of coping. On Boxing Day I woke up and carried on.

The Island of Misfit Toys sit on top of my painting.

Each Christmas has passed since then without it's luster. I believe it was because we didn't have my mother's home cooked meals, our Christmas morning rituals sucked because we were missing our matriarch. We tried to hold fast to them and replicate them. On Christmas morning I didn't look across the room to see my mother in her burgundy velour housecoat, her eyes filled with anticipation as we opened our gifts from her. There was just awkward silence and then my voice making stupid jokes to sever the tension. We tell a few "remember when mom" stories then look at the floor, choke back tears and leave the room.

Our trees graced our wedding table. They make me happy.

The wrapped gifts under our tree came from; Santa, the elves, Mrs. Clause, the birds in the back yard feeder and even from the dog. Her tourtieres were always made with fresh ingredients, she made her crusts cutting out holly leaves and berries to decorate the tops, she woke early to make her stuffing from scratch, we would always have to beg her to stop or hurry up so we could open our gifts. Our stockings were filled with the best things in them and even into adulthood included a toy of some sort. Crumbs were left on window sills and carrots were half eaten in the snow. As kids we never clued in that it was always mom or dad who discovered and brought this wondrous Santa evidence to our attention. These are the things I think of every year. These Christmas memories are my mother.

A girl is never ready to lose her mother no matter how old we are. I found out my mother was sick when I turned 20, she died a month before my 28th birthday. Those are the formative years. When a girl discovers her mother is a person, a woman, not just a mother. It's in that time I wanted to know about what my mother thought, dreamed of and wanted for herself and for my sister and I. I know some of these answers. They are pieced together by what my dad, and my aunts have shared, they help fill the hole that mom's passing has left. But, they aren't her words.

I have been angry that my mother never wrote a letter to my sister and I telling us her thoughts. She never pulled out her Christmas cookie recipes to make sure we had them, she never went wedding dress shopping with us just to make sure she saw us in a dress. Other mother's have done this with their daughters when they new they were terminal. Not ours. I can only surmise that she was optimistic to the end that she would beat her cancer and not have to leave us. I hang onto the fragments of my memories of her. I pause when I come across her hand writing on a birthday card tucked away in her makeup case in my drawer. It used to smell of her but has long since faded away.

The mantel in our dining room.

This is the first Christmas I feel Christmassy. It's because of my little girl. It's because I can now share in the delight my mother and father must have shared in as they readied our house for the arrival of old Saint Nick. It's in every cookie I bake, ever gift I wrap and every little bit of decor I place around the house. It's in Finley's face every time I look at her toothy smile shining up at me from her favorite spot at my feet. Christmas is back! It's here in my house as I take from my mother's ideas and replicate them in a way we do when we take on customs making them our own.

Cookies I baked. Not mom's but Joy's (of cooking)

Finley's little shining face looking up at me. Then the Grinch's heart grew and grew!

A beautiful glass ornament from a new and dear friend hangs in the kitchen.

Finley opens a gift from her Grampy (and his new finace') Grammy.

And so this Christmas marks a new chapter. I'm having my Christmas cry while I write this post. Saying goodbye to the last decade of sorrow and hello to new beginnings. Wondrous new beginnings. As evidence by the signs of Christmas all around my house. The fact that I have allowed myself to write this means only one thing. I am finally healing. I am letting mom go and keeping only the very best parts of our story together. Merry Christmas Mom and thank you.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree

To say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree can mean quite a few things. One could affix this saying to physical attributes, mannerism, tone, gate, thought, likes, dislikes. It can carry a positive and a negative connotation depending on the relationship we have with the person who's tree we have fallen from.

The first time I met my husband we were hanging out at his house when the phone rang. He checked the call display and said "Hey it's my dad. Do you wanna hear something cool?" He put the phone on speaker and answered. His dad's voice rang out clearly from the receiver. Steve looked at me with a grin. I was slack jawed at the sound of the voice coming through the phone. He sounded EXACTLY like Steve - or rather Steve like his father. I giggled and commented that I would always ask who was on the phone lest I think I had Steve on the phone and said something naughty. Steve was used to being mixed up with his dad and had been on the receiving end of a few such mistaken identity calls.

My sister does not fall far from my Mother's tree. Neither of them can stay awake on any sort of distance car ride, they have the same bottom, to my sister's disdain. Although, Sue works hers out and it's never going to be near the pancake mom's was! They can be easily hurt and then carry that hurt forever. They also share this ability to be light and flirtatious in any situation. They share the ability to be the glue amongst the tough times. They are admired my many but often forget or somehow don't even know how truly they are valued and loved which can lead them to dips in moods and depression. They have the same family values and are excellent mothers. I write this sentence as though they are both here, however, my mother is long since passed away. In her absence, and as we age, both my sister and I begin to resemble our mother in so many ways. We take turns remarking on each other's "just like mom" moments, sometimes we are offended but mostly we laugh and are pleased to know we keep her alive and near in the subtlest of ways.

To say that I can't see myself in my parents would be negligent for as much as each of us carves a pathway on our own to become the people we are, we have too many obvious shared traits to deny the tree from which our proverbial fruit fall. I have my grandmother's stubbornness, my dad's meticulousness, my mother's hands and lately her expressions, my mischievousness is all mom and my dark sense of humour from my Granny Dodie. I look at photos of myself with my daughter and they could be that of my mother with me 36 years ago. Both my sister and father have remarked on this in the past few weeks which just proves they share an insight, and the apples continue to fall from our parental tree.

At birth there was no mistaking Finley was her father's child. The nurses remarked as much at each shift change. They would wait until I was out of earshot to tell Steve so. They said the mother's don't like to hear the child does not look like them after all the work they went through to get them here, one said. Another said, they resemble the dad so the dad will know to take care of the baby - the mother instinctively knows how.

Steve claimed Finley had my body and his face. Our daughter now 5.5 months old has changed so much. She has my hands and my feet. The cursed long second toe that has given me a lifetime of ill fitting shoes is now hers. I ought to nip this in the bud early buy moving our family to a climate where flip flops are the daily foot attire. The child has my temper and her father's voice. She shares our stubbornness and curiosity, she's easily board and in need of constant stimulation. She has the Huff pouty lip from my mother's side, the Shipley eye shape, the colour all her own, and the nose and expressions of the Pare' side. As she matures we will see so much more of ourselves and our parents in our child.

Steve and I will stand and smile proudly when we are told she looks like us. We will be conscience of the fact that despite her being comprised of all of our good and bad traits, characteristics, looks, likes and dislikes that she is in fact her own person.

We will stand behind and guide her as she emerges into the independent person she is. We will nurture the skill sets and interests she will come to on her own, that have nothing to do with her father or I, or the generations that comprise us. For as much as we are made of of our pasts we are our own futures and in Finley we see the spring blossom emerging on our apple tree. The blossom is new, bright, cheerful, dainty yet hearty and when she is in bloom a generation blooms along with her.

Miss You Mom

It was eight years ago today that my mother lost her battle with breast cancer.  We always set off fire works in her honor on this day.  Last year it was -27 in Ottawa and the matches wouldn't stay lit long enough to light the fireworks...this year in NC we won't have that problem.

Miss you everyday mom.  Enjoy your fireworks!

Tag: 

Yeah,  so we did have the firework problem in NC this year because...we couldn't get them lit. This time it was not the weather - it was in fact- a gorgeous evening under a full moon.

Steve was outside lighting the firework wicks ...running back a few feet while I stayed a safe distance watching from the porch.  Each wick burnt out and no explosion.   Steve propped the firework behind two pieces of wood to shield the wick from any possible breeze and still the wick would not stay lit.

Then Steve asked me to go into the house to get another firework from the box of 15 I had bought.  I came out and handed Steve another firework,  he shook it and then pulled the "wick" - I covered my eyes - then Steve burst out laughing.  I peeked through my fingers to see streamers and confetti floating through the air covering Steve's arm and the ground around his feet.  

"Michelle you bought "poppers" not fireworks! No wonder they wouldn't light - it's just string!"

We were laughing so hard I could barely breathe.  I ran into the house to grab a few more - we popped them in mom's honour - then we went for the back up plan - sparklers.  We lit the sparklers so we had one in each hand and waved them around spelling out my mothers name in the night sky - under the full moon.  

I took it as a sign/message  from mom  - not to be sad - to revel in the delights and surprises of our life. 

The next day I promptly cancelled my appointment with John Edward - his services no longer required. Okay so I made the last sentence up ... humour does conquer all!