Tag: Mother

Me, the early years

When we were young, my mother wanted us to get the best possible education.  She wanted us to do better than she did in life. The public schools in our area at the time were not very good.  She went to our church  parish and asked for tuition help.  My mother was a Catholic born and raised.  We went to church every Sunday.  I never fully understood her belief since they felt she was a bad Catholic because of her divorce, but week after week we went. For the help with tuition,  we all worked.  I raked leaves at the convent, cleaned desks in the school over the summer and moved things between classrooms.

It taught me all an important lesson in life, nothing in the world is free!  If you are to succeed, the road is not easy.  If you are not willing to put your back into it, work hard, success does not come.  This is a lesson my husband and I are trying to instill in our girls.  It is tough these days with the media generation and immediate gratification.  We are able to give our girls many of the things neither of us had as children.  We often battle with the “what is too much” line.

In 5th grade they were a bit worried about me. I was a latch key kid.  Back then leaving young kids alone was not as frowned upon as it is today. I had a strong imagination. Idle time and I were not the best of friends. I had a wonderful teacher by the name of Helene Kunicki who kept me after school many days.  I would help her do whatever, clean out closets, move desks.  Spending time with her helped close the gap before my mother would get home from work.  She was a wonderful woman who through a simple act of kindness probably helped change the course of my life by keeping me out of trouble.

My mother ruled with an iron fist.  There was none of this “mommy friend” thing we see so much of today.  She was the boss. In hindsight it is easy to judge her but I saw a woman left to raise 3 children alone.  A woman limited professionally due to her own background and single motherhood.  A woman who battled cancer for 10 years.  It is always easy to judge when you do not have to walk in that persons shoes.

The rules in our house were clear!  If your grades were down there was nothing else, period.  By high school I had begun to excel and when I graduated college I did so on the dean’s list.

As I look back at how we were raised, I wish many things would have been different.  But such is life.  She was far from perfect but I am glad for many of the life lessons I learned . Those early years leave an impression of course but as time goes on each person must make a decision.  What type of person do I want to be?  What will I hold on to and what must be left behind? Will I allow the not so pleasant moments to be baggage or fuel to do better?

Life is all about decisions.

Blogs, boobs and the future

I have been communicating via this blog for roughly 5 months or so.  I started as an outlet for my feeling surrounding my upcoming Bilateral Prophylactic Mastectomy.  I found great comfort in the support of others who were in similar situations.  I hope I also provided some for others.

I continue to recover but for the most part the roughest parts are behind me.  I have completed the nipple reconstruction and revision and have been cleared for regular activity.  Although still sore, each day gets easier and more normal.  Today was a day of laundry and food shopping, can’t get much more normal than that! 🙂 I will see the doctor again in 6 weeks and may need 1 more small procedure but nothing to the scale of what I have been through the last few months.

SO, now what?  I enjoy the outlet the blog provides.  I named it Decisions for my Family but initially had a header of Boobs don’t make the Woman. A few weeks ago the blog went through a face lift and I dropped the “boobs” title.  I will continue to write the blog about things that affect the most important thing to me, my family.

This summer’s surgeries have changed me as a person and will be a constant foundation for many of my decisions.  In my situation, a reminder of how important actually making a tough decision is as well as  the impact of such decisions on everyone around me.

I have not fully decided what the future of the blog looks like and may not fully define the parameters.  Quite honestly there are no parameters it is truly a wide open topic.  From the upcoming election which I feel is the most important in my lifetime, to continued updates on the boobs.  There will of course be many words describing the most beautiful things in my life, my girls, my husband, my family. The future is thankfully, wide open!

Rambling just a bit

My daughter came home from karate and was a bit down because they sparred and she did not do well.  The Sensei is tough (and btw great with the kids).  I told her it was fine because it is a lesson well taught in a safe environment.   She does not understand what I mean by that.  I wanted them to take karate.  I worry  so much about them. I want my girls to be able to handle any and all situtaions that come their way. I hope they both follow through and make it to black belt.

Laying in bed last night, not sleeping (which has been a common theme again lately) I could not clear my head.  I flipped on the DVR and watched a Burn Notice that I had recorded.  In it the main characters brother was killed..he was not a main character, only been in a few episodes.  I found myself in tears..not because of this guy on the TV but for some reason the funeral scene flashed me back to the night my mother died and the image of her lying motionless in her bed.  That was 10 years ago…where the heck did that come from and why?

My children never met either of their grandmothers.  When Megan was a baby there were several strange occurrences.  One time she was maybe 2ish she was talking.  When I asked who she was talking to she said “grand mommy, your mommy”.  I thought nothing of it, a child at play.  Then another time we were on the front step and she had a bowl of blueberries.  She kept putting her hand out with 1 blueberry in it as if offering it to someone.  I asked what she was doing.  She told me she was giving it to grandmom.  I asked if she saw grandmom and she laughed pointed and said yes right there.  I again for the most part, wrote if off to child at play but was a little freaked out.  Then one day she was singing, Happy Birthday to be exact.  I started to sing with her and she finished and clapped.  I asked why she was singing and she told me because it is grandmom’s birthday.  It stopped me in my tracks, I had to think for a second but she was right, it was.  There is no way she could have known that.  I took her for the first (and to date one of only a few visits) to my mother’s grave.  She stood over the grave waved chatted for a few minutes and then told me she was finished.   We never had another sighting.

I have never seen her but I often “feel” like she is around.  I wish she had been when my girls were born.  Who knows I guess she has always “been around”…who knows right?

A shot of my mother in a much younger day..about 30ish years ago.