I have officially been a homeowner since October 20, 2008, and since then I have been slowly but surely attempting to make it my own. And now, nine months later I am going in for the kill … that’s right … dun, Dun, DUN … renovating the kitchen, which in my family has always been the heart of the home. 
No matter the occasion, everyone always ended up in the kitchen – standing around eating, drinking, cooking, telling others how they should be cooking, washing dishes, telling others how they should be washing dishes – and here I am getting rid of all of it … wait, do you hear that??? Yea, that would be the screeching sound of my Catholic guilt!
As the layers have been peeled away over the past week, old memories have been brought back to life (they even found a newspaper stuffed in the wall with the insulation from 1970). The cheese doodle orange walls that my sweet Mama chose in the ’70’s (yeah – we were totally hip and with it), Daddy’s old tools from the dedicated ”tool drawer” (about a gazillion screwdrivers of all shapes and sizes, there just in case, cuz ya never know…), and layers and layers of flooring (some more hideous than others) that used to vibrate as my brothers’ rock bands would play in the basement below.
Oh, it is definitely exciting to be making the kitchen my own, but nonetheless, the guilt is there. It hits me, firstly, when I wonder what my parents must be thinking as they watch over me. I imagine my father is at a bar in heaven somewhere enjoying a Boilermaker with the boys and muttering something a
long the lines of “What the hell
are you doing to my kitchen,” and come to think of it, there has been a whole lot of thunder and lightening lately, no doubt messages from my father! Secondly, well, secondly is kind of a combo of the issue of the money I’m spending and the purging of all the “things” - certainly a result of growing up with a mother who had lived through part of the Depression era. I still feel guilty only blowing my nose in a tissue once before throwing it away. I can only imagine what she thinks of the 25 yard dumpster in the driveway that is filled to the brim, and there will probably be another one to fill soon with more “things” from other parts of the house.
But, despite the guilt, I know that I’m doing the wrecking with all good intentions. The most exciting part of it all is looking forward to the finished product and being able to have all of my family over – for Thanksgiving and Christmas and birthdays … or for just a good ‘ol plain cup of coffee and conversation – because a house is not a home without family, and the heart is not full unless it can be shared with others.
Filed under: Uncategorized
- Never let the gas in your car go below half a tank.
- If you set your mind to it, you can survive through anything.
- Never leave home without cash in your pocket.
- In NYC the streets go up from south to north and the avenues east to west.
- You can be strong and fearful at the same time.
- If someone is stealing your dessert out of your lunch pail, put a laxative in your treats and then you’ll know who did it and they’ll never steal ‘em again!
- How to spit.
- Faith.
- Never refer to your mother as “she” or “her”.
- Shit or get off the pot!
Filed under: Uncategorized
- ‘Tis better to give than to receive
- If someone is being mean to you, stop and think, what must be wrong in their lives to make them that way
- Kill ‘em with kindness
- If someone asks you if they can borrow a quarter and you have one, give it to them, and ask them not to pay you back but to pass it on to the next person who needs one
- We need God more than God needs us
- Pray to Saint Anthony when you’ve lost something
- Pray to Saint Jude when you feel hopeless
- If your poop floats you have enough fiber in your diet
- If you sprinkle when you tinkle be a sweety and wipe the seaty
- Love one another
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alison, Allyson, mother, name, Peyton Place, purpose in life, writer
A lot, actually. More than I thought, now that I think of it. By the time my parents got to me, numero seven-o, they had a hard time coming up with a name. I’ve been told that I was without a name for some time (back then, moms and new babies stayed in the hospital for more than two days, can you imagine?), and they called me “She She” for a while.
According to my Mother, my Father wanted to name me Angelica so that he could call me Angel. Ahh bless … And Angelica is a family name on my mother’s side so it would have had some meaning behind it, but my Mama didn’t think that was the name for me. Nope. She liked the name Allyson. Allyson – not Allison or Alison – Allyson, with a “y”. Like June Allyson. But June was not the inspiration for the name (just the spelling) my Mama gave me; that came from a movie and soap opera called “Peyton Place”.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I’d actually never seen the movie or show that was the motivation behind my name. As I watched, it got me to thinking … does a name somewhat define a person’s character or does the person define the name?
Alison MacKenzie from Peyton Place was a small town girl who was destined for bigger things. I grew up in a town that was considered somewhat small; you knew most of the people around, and you couldn’t go to a store without running into someone you knew or that knew your mother or father or grandfather. And Peyton Place is in New England; it just so happens that I love New England! I often daydream about moving to a cozy, small New England town. And I have, for most of my adult life, had this pang that there is something bigger meant for me; that I haven’t yet found my true purpose in life.
Alison also leaves her small town and goes to New York to start a career as a writer. She’s given the opportunity to go to college and study writing, but she’d rather do it and learn hand on rather than sitting in a classroom and listen to someone to tell her how to write. I am a writer, or at least I try to be. And I’ve thought about going back to school for an MFA in Creative Writing, but it just doesn’t suit me. I didn’t flee to New York, but I did quit my job and escape to Ireland for six months, and while I was there I did a lot of writing.
So … are these similarities merely coincidences or is it all in the name? Did my Mother’s choice in name influence who I’ve become and the person I still have left to find within me?
What’s in a name? A lot. If it actually does play role in the person you become that’s one thing. But even more importantly than that, it’s the name my Mama chose for me. Whether she thought I’d become a writer or a strong woman or someday live in a small New England town or if she just simply liked the sound of the name … whatever it was, it was chosen just for me. And that is who I am. I am my mother’s child. Allyson.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: death, father, greiving, health, hoodia, hoodwinky, KFC, McDonald's, memories, mother, Puritan's Pride, vitamin
… No, it’s not a real word. And it doesn’t have anything to do with being tricked, as in “I’ve been hoodwinked!” (Although I do love that phrase and should definitely use it more.) It’s what my Mama used to call Hoodia. You know, that herbal supplement that is supposed to suppress your appetite and help you lose weight.
My mother was a vitamin nut. She always had a variety on hand … B6, B12, iron, calcium, zinc, cod liver oil, vitamin E, and on and on …. She was somewhat of a naturalist I guess you could say. So, one night, as I placed an order on-line from Puritan’s Pride to stock her up on the goods, I decided to give Hoodia a try. For weeks she would remind me to take it … “Did you take your Hoodwinky,” she’d say. Hoodwinky. It makes me smile. She was such a funny lady.
Lately I’ve been trying to take better care of myself. It’s a lot of work. While my Mama was dying and for months after she passed away I just neglected myself. When you’re grieving the loss of the life of a loved one, you don’t realize how you’re neglecting the life you yourself have left to live. I used to get so upset with her for not taking better care of herself when my Dad was very ill the months before he passed away. She ended up in the hospital with pneumonia just two weeks after his funeral. Now I understand her.
It’s so much easier to focus on other people and other things. And simple things like feeding yourself seem so complicated and exhausting. Rather than having to put thought into a grocery list, go to the store, put the groceries away and then prepare meals, it’s so much easier to just zip through a drive-thru and get a meal to go. Especially when you’re eating alone. For several months, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s became my new best friends. My mother always loved fast food or her junk food as she called it. Surprise her with an extra crispy meal with potato wedges and extra biscuits or a Happy Meal and she would be so pleased. It was the simple things that made her happy. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed spending so much time with my new nest buds KFC and MceeDee, because they reminded me of her.
Now, almost eight months after my sweet, silly Mama moved on to a better place, I am finally paying attention to myself. I’ve awakened from my fast food coma, and KFC and MceeDee are now more like acquaintances I see every once in a while. I am putting time into making the most of the life that my parents gave me. The life in which they saw so much potential and invested so much and made so many sacrifices for. It is a lot of work. But it is worth it. Because as I recollect the pieces of me that had fallen apart I honor the beautiful people who are responsible for putting me here on this earth. And with the wonderful memories they’ve blessed me with and a little bit of Hoodwinky, I think I might just become whole again.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: baby, biological clock, buying a house, children, first time home buyer, home owner, parents, single, tick tock
Do you hear that? Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock … yep I believe that would be the sound of my biological clock ticking away. I’m sure everyone starts hearing the annoying clicking in their own time, although, I recently read that a woman’s biological clock starts ticking in her 20’s – jeez, that seems pretty early, don’t ya think? It probably starts when you’re in your 20’s, but it just gets progressively louder the older you get, kind of like the annoying alarm clock beep Beep BEEPING to get you out of bed in the morning or the annoying seat belt alarm in the car that persistently reminds you to buckle up for safety.
I’d heard about this ticking time bomb theory, but I guess I never put much thought into it before because it didn’t apply to me. Now, at the age of 32, whether I want it to or not it definitely applies. But it doesn’t just tick tock, it tugs and pulls at you, at your emotions. It makes you question life as you know it.
Lately it seems a lot of my friends and acquaintances (and by acquaintances I mean Angelina Jolie, Tori Spelling, Jennifer Garner, Gwen Stefani … because of my slight addiction to celebrity blogs I ”believe” these people are my acquaintances and sadly, I probably know more about their lives than some of my siblings) are getting pregnant and having babies, and I’m thrilled for them of course – I love spoiling babies (not that I have the opportunity to spoil famous people’s babies, just the ones in the friends category)! But I’d been having this weird feeling, an undercurrent of sorts sweeping through my insides, that I couldn’t explain, and then I realized the annoying buzzing about inside of me was that infamous biological clock.
So why, all of a sudden, did the hands on my personal clock get so creaky and loud? Maybe it’s because I’m getting old and am in need of a lube job. Or maybe it’s been prompted by more than just my age. Part of the reason I hear the seconds ticking by so loudly could be because of all the baby news, but also, perhaps, because I am in the process of buying a house, the house I grew up in, which seems too big to live in alone forever. Foooooorrrrrrreeeeeevvvvvveeeeeeerrrr! I am spending time making this house a home of my own and what if it’s just an empty house? Just me and the cats. What if I don’t get to share it with anyone else? Suddenly, a house that always seemed so cramped seems awfully big and overwhelming.
I always wondered how my parents raised seven children in such a small house. Now I wonder how, I, alone, by myself will be able to handle it, take care of it and care for it. I look at my parents picture almost every night and ask them “What the heck am I doing buying the house? It’s the right thing, isn’t it?”
Sometimes I’m thrilled, ecstatic even, thinking about what I’ll do to the beautiful old house to make it mine. And then there’s the times when the more than 40 years of clutter overwhelms me to the point I feel like I’m drowning and I don’t know how I’ll make my way out from the huge waves of knick knacks and books and CD’s and dolls and dishes, to keep it somewhat presentable let alone make it my own. If I can’t conquer the clutter and care for a house, how on God’s green earth am I going to be able to start a family, care for them and the house all at the same time? I feel my heart palpitating just as I write about it.
I would love to start a family. Mostly to carry on the traditions and the love that was so generously given to me. And how great would that be to do in the very house I became familiar with those traditions and unconditional love. But tick tock tick Tock Tick Tock TICK TOCK … will I be able to do it, to accomplish it all, before the seconds run out, and the hands on my clock become rusted and fall off? And who invented this whole biological clock, ticking time table? Can I just pray to God for an extension or pay an extra penance?
The thing is, I really don’t want an extension. I want to have kids sooner rather than later. My sweet Mama had me when she was almost 45 and my Dad 50. I was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and while they should have been starting to enjoy their retirement years, they were taking me back and forth to college and shopping at bulk food stores for supplies to make sure I was eating well while I was away from home.
Part of the problem is finding someone to commit to in order to even start a family. And it’s a catch 22 because the longer you spend out of a relationship the more tired you are of being alone and want to find someone to settle down and share the rest of your life with, but at the same time, the more you’re on your own the harder it is to fit someone into the life you’ve become accustomed to. So, if I can’t find THE ONE aka Mr. Right, I could adopt. Hmmm …. maybe a little girl from China. But then I’ll be a single parent with a HUGE HOUSE to take care of, all ALONE. Single. One person. Numero uno.
I guess I have to have faith in that what is meant to be will be – “che sera, sera …”. Maybe I’ll meet the man of my dreams and start a family. Maybe I’ll start a family on my own and tackle being a single parent head on. Or maybe the house is my baby. After all, becoming a homeowner, while exciting, is also tiring and painful, which could be kinda like giving birth. And right now, as the tick tock keeps tick tocking away, I’d settle for a decent man who’s handy and can help me around the house.
Tick tock …
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: acceptance, Anna Quindlen, children, happiness, high school, marriage, success, Thoreau, weight loss
The other day while I was out with my sister, I ran into the mother of a girl I went to high school with. We said hello and she politely asked me how I was doing, and just as the “…ay” of “I’m okay” parted from my lips, she, like the road runner taking off from Wile E. Coyote, zoom … beep beep… somehow launched into “Well Kim has been married for two years and they own a house and Sarah is having a baby any day now and Michelle, well, she’s getting married and she lost all that weight. Remember how big she was …” Before she could go on any longer she was interrupted and pulled away to something else. I immediately told my sister “I need a better poker face and a better story than ‘I’m okay’.” How boring!
Then I got to thinking, is that how people judge success? By marriages, and children and weight loss … Geez, if that’s the case, I am at the bottom of the barrel for sure. Marriage? Negative. Children? Negative. Weight Loss? More like weight gain. Throw in the fact that I live alone with two cats and my score registers way below zero on the success-o-meter.
Don’t get me wrong, I am guilty of judging myself in that way. If I lose weight I think I’m successful. If I manage to hook a man with the potential of it going somewhere serious – woo hoo, success! And children, well, of course once I have children I will truly be a success – duh! I guess I’m okay judging myself that way but for other people to do it … not so much. After all, we are and have the right to be our own worst critics.
But when did appearance, marriage and family become somewhat of a standard for success? It must have been once upon a time, long, long ago in a land far away because now in the year 2008, I say to you my brothas and sistas, there is much more to life and much more to look at in terms of success. Can I get an AMEN?!?! But how do we break that cycle; that archaic way of thinking.
I don’t look at my friends and think “what a loser she has gained weight and still isn’t married, isn’t even in a serious relationship - she’ll never amount to anything.” But when the cackling of the world gets inside your brain it’s easy to judge yourself in that way. “I’m too fat … I’m getting old and I’m gonna be single foooorrrreeeeevvvvvvveeeeerrrrr…maybe I should freeze my eggs before they go bad and I am completely barren.” This can’t be healthy and it can’t be a “successful” way of thinking.
Some of the people who fit the mold of the traditional ideals of success may not be very happy. Sure they might be fit and in shape, married to their high school sweetheart and have 2.5 kids but are they truly happy? If they are, then I say yes, that is success. But you can’t truly be successful unless you’re happy.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anna Quindlen says ”If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.” Others may deem us successful, but unless we are happy from the inside out, does what they think really matter? While some days may seem to move by slowly, the reality is that life is shorter than you think, and I bet if we took a look at the amount of time we spend trying to please others in order to be seen as a success rather than focusing on feeling like a success, we would find that we have wasted a large percentage of our lives.
The journey isn’t about being who people think we should be; it’s about becoming who we were destined to be. Searching for and finding that inner happiness that fulfills you to the point that there is no room for worrying about what others perceive. That’s what success is, or at least what I think it should be.
In that case, have I found success? No. Why? Because I have spent the majority of my 32 years seeking acceptance from others; trying to mold my self into what I thought I was supposed to be. But maybe if I just let myself be me I would find that inner happiness, the acceptance from the people who really matter, and a level of success incomparable to anyone or anything else.
Just a (long) thought.
“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: beauty, digging, exploring, gardening, home, house, journey, life, peace, seamus heaney, stress, writing, yard
The house ...
It’s kind of like golf. I never understood why people enjoy golfing so much. Trying to hit a little ball with a big club seems stressful to me, but I’ve been told that it’s actually the opposite. Because you focus so much on hitting that little ball there’s no room for thinking about the horrible day you had at work on Friday or the people that seem to take pleasure in attempting to make your life miserable. When I’m out in the yard digging up dirt and planting new life, it’s refreshing; it’s peaceful. It’s the beginning of a new chapter.
- … becoming a home
And as I work steadily in the yard infusing new beauty to make the house my home, I am at peace enjoying another side of me, of life, and beginning a new journey. We all have our own way of digging deep, and though it might be scary to face all of it – the good, the bad and the ugly - this crazy circle of life would be incomplete without it.
I have always enjoyed digging with my pen to explore the colors of my soul, and now I will take pleasure in digging with my shovel, my pick, my rake … to further discover the beauty and the peace of what lies ahead.
—-
As I drove into work this morning thinking about writing about my new found hobby, I thought of one of my favorite poems by Seamus Heaney called “Digging” which inspired me to write this post. For those of you who are not familiar with the poem, I’ve included it for your reading enjoyment:
Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
-Seamus Heaney (1939-)
from Death of a Naturalist (1966)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: accountants, doctors, family, first time home buyer, getting old, growing up, lawyers, mortgage broker, safety net
My mother used to tell me, “It stinks to get old,” and now I know what she meant. Okay, so I’m not really old, and she said that to me at a much later point in life than where I am now at the age of 32, but when did I suddenly grow up and have to make so many decisions and deal with so many hassles? Within the past month I have been on the phone with doctors and lawyers and accountants – oh my! I just want to click my heels together three times and be five years old again at home with my mother and father.
A couple of months ago I was diagnosed with MRSA. Yep, that’s right, the “super bug”. And of course, yours truly would end up getting it. I used to always tell my Mama “I’m a freak of nature,” and she would either say “you’re not a freak of nature, I didn’t give birth to freaks of nature” or (lovingly) “yes, but you’re my freak of nature.” Poor Mama had to put up with all of my crazy neuroses.
Anyway … the MRSA was treatable, thank God, but of course I had some crazy side effect caused by the antibiotics and I became a prisoner chained to the phone waiting for a call from the doctor – for more than 24 hours! Mind you, when I initially called I had a fever of 102 degrees - wouldn’t ya think that warranted a call back within at least, oh, let’s say eight hours?!?! Why is it that doctors can get away with not calling you back promptly or with having you sit in the waiting room for an hour only to have the nurse then call you into an exam room to wait another hour before the doctor actually sees you?!?
Then there’s the lawyers. I am, perhaps foolishly, in the process of buying the house I grew up in. The house I lived in until I graduated from college and then recently for the past seven years after moving back for what I thought would only be one year. With real estate transactions, comes lawyers. Some good, some not so good, some God awful. I am lucky that my lawyer is good and personable and reliable, and I am lucky to have her on my team. On the estate side of it all however, well, there dwells one of the attorneys that falls into the God awful category. And it’s horrible for everyone involved – in this case, seven siblings and their spouses. “Oye vey,” as my far-from-jewish father used to say.
Then there are the accountants. Again, here I am lucky. I have a good guy on my side. An Italian, Staten Island (by way of Brooklyn) accountant. Badda boom, badda bing … and things are good to go. However, when you have to deal with transferring 401k funds from former employers to a new IRA account to do your best to make sure you are financially secure for the future, things get messy and the paesan’s badda boom, badda bing magic doesn’t work so easily, he gets frustrated with the idiots on the other end of the phone and in turn so do you!
Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the wondrous mortgage broker, which would fall somewhat under the accountant/number cruncher umbrella. Now, the one in my situation, well, she’s a doozie and I could write an entire post on her alone. All I can say is, do you have to take tests to actually hold that position? Because somehow, I don’t think this one did. That, or she cheated or had her husband (he’s a God awful lawyer) take the exams for her. And is customer service just not a requirement in this industry? I would think, especially in times like the ones we are living in now, these creatures would work a little harder to keep clients and potential clients a little bit happier.
The worst part of it all, is that when the craziness reaches new levels I can’t just go and tell Mama and Daddy about it. Not that they could fix it or make things go faster, but they would listen to me and humor me. I can call my brothers and sisters, I know that. I have lots of wonderful people in my life that have listened to my freak of nature ranting more often than they probably bargained for. But it’s not the same.
It’s kind of scary actually. It’s like living life without a safety net that has been there since you were born, and then suddenly, when you weren’t looking, it’s been pulled out from under you. Not that it always catches you per say, but it reminds you when you do hit the ground to, as my Mama would sing, ”pick yourself up, brush yourself off and start all over again.”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: christmas, family, father, holidays, memories, mother, sadness, subconcious
It’s amazing how your body, mind and soul are just aware of things, like certain dates or significant times of the year. You might be feeling sad or anxious for what seems like no reason at all, but subconsciously it all makes sense, and when you consciously realize the reason behind it, you wonder why you didn’t connect the dots sooner.
It’s like every year at the beginning of December, I become kind of melancholy. And every year I don’t realize immediately why that is. At first I think “Oh, it’s the holiday blues,” you know, how they say a lot of people get depressed around the holiday season, and then I realize that it’s because the beginning of December was the beginning of the end of my father’s life on earth.
It was Sunday, December 8th, 2002. We had come home from church and Daddy and I were going to head out to the mall to see the Christmas decorations. He loved Christmas, and he definitely passed the fondness for the holiday along to me. He was upstairs getting freshened up and he called down for my mother. His leg was extremely swollen and he didn’t know what to do. Off to the emergency room we went. We didn’t get to see the decorations that year.
He had a blood clot in his thigh, an effect of chemotherapy. About two weeks in the hospital and he was back home. I put the big tree and the stockings up to prepare for his homecoming.
Mama & Daddy
We had two artificial trees – a big one that Daddy and I loved putting up, and my Mama’s “Charlie Brown” tree, which she preferred. I remember while he was in the hospital praying to God to just let him be able to have a good Christmas. And he did.
It was shortly after Christmas that he began being confused – mistaking day for night and vice versa. He was weak and couldn’t make it to the bathroom on his own. He spent most of the time in bed, and he would need assistance getting dressed or to come downstairs to be with the family. He would forget how weak he was and attempt to get out of bed and fall to the ground. Many times I would have to pick his heavy, limp body up and back into bed or guide him with his walker into the bathroom, only for him to collapse when we got there and then have to call my sister and nephews to help me get him up.
On January 21st I was home from work when the doctor called. Daddy needed a vitamin K shot. They had been sending a nurse to monitor his blood levels at home. It was either the emergency room or the doctor’s office by noon and there was no way my mother and I could get him ready and out to the office by then. My sister and nephew came over and we brought him to the ER. It was the first time my mother had never accompanied him on the trip to the hospital, and it broke her heart to stay home. But it was freezing outside and the air was not good for her breathing. We made that call for her.
He was too weak to sign papers so I had to sign for him. When it was our turn and the doctor saw us, he said “This man needs more than a Vitamin K Shot, he needs a blood transfusion.” Exactly one month later, late at night, he peacefully passed away. He lived with cancer for 17 years of his life. It had spread to the bone, formed a mass that blocked his kidney and had taken him over.
Exactly five years later to the day that we brought my beautiful, courageous father to the hospital , my sweet Mama passed away at home, just as she had wanted it. Emphysema and COPD had gotten the best of her, she couldn’t fight anymore. When she came home from the hospital on that Friday, she told me “God gave me a good life.” I couldn’t understand how she thought that, after all the suffering she’d been through in her life. I told her I admired her faith and wish I could have a faith as strong. “You do,” she said. “Be good to one another.” She made her journey to heaven just three days later on Monday night, to join Daddy in a place where there is no more pain, no more cancer, a place where they can breathe easy and be together forever.
Yesterday I was sad and didn’t know why. I wasn’t uncontrollably crying or outwardly sad. I was feeling kind of empty inside. And then today, as I was driving on my way to work, it hit me. Yesterday was July 21st. Six months since my Mama left this earthly world for a better place. That’s when I began uncontrollably crying. That’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks sitting on my chest, like I couldn’t breathe. Because the reality set in that the amazing woman who gave me my life, who gave me the very breath I breathe, has been gone for six months. It was sixth month sadness.
