My Martin's Moment

I live at the grocery store.  I walk in to our local Martin's and it's kind of like when Norm walked into Cheers

I walk in and everyone says DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!  I have been living there even more than before.

Anyway, I have been feeling out of sorts lately, wishing to find a way to be relevant, wishing I could be the type of person who can change the world, or at least do something noteworthy.  I have been feeling so unsatisfied, so unimportant.

All of that would have to wait, I have a house full of people who need to eat so off to the grocery store I went, with a daughter and her friend in tow so they could "help" me shop.  Yes, their brand of help is unique, I usually wind up spending way more than I intended and they drive me batty through the whole store.  This trip was no different.

By the time we had gotten to the drink aisle we had filled up one cart and the underneath too.  My "helpers" volunteered to get another cart.  There was an older woman in that aisle that laughed as they went to get it and said, "great help you have there".  I countered with how I loved them to death but they were driving me nuts.  Then, for whatever reason I finished with, "I know I am going to miss these moments though, so I am thankful for every one".  Really??  Why on earth did that just pop out.  I don't know this woman from Adam.

I'll tell you why - this woman had a story to tell me, she had a message for me, for the me struggling with feeling inadequate and insignificant, and she started to tell it.

She has one daughter I learned.  One daughter she had mommy/daughter time with every Tuesday without fail.  Through grade school, through High School, when they could during college....Then her daughter graduated and moved to Wisconsin.  "Broke my heart that she left me, but like all good parents you support your child and hope they are happy and successful."  My eyes grew kind of rheumy, I know what she means.  You want your child to spread their wings and fly, positively soar to the heights you dreamed of for them, I shook myself back from my own thoughts, she continued her tale.

"I found out I had cancer.  I knew I had to call her and tell her, hardest phone call I had to make.  I told her how we were going to treat it, how long it would take.  I told her I would beat it, because you're still a mom and don't want your children upset.  You're their mom and even in your moment of need, you need to still be that mom that keeps your kid safe."  I won't even tell you how welly I got at that point, that I am in Martin's Coke aisle, tears threatening to roll, absolutely rapt at the story a total stranger is telling me.

"So I don't call her for a day," she continued.  "I figured I'd give a day for her to digest every thing and we'd talk again when she was over the initial shock.  But I didn't hear from her the next day, so I called, no answer. I was worried.  And as I hung my phone up, I kid you not, she walked in the door. She had hung up with me the day I told her, packed a bag, got in her car and drove home to me.  Then she told me she was home for 5 months and would fight with me.  Go to my treatments with me, take care of me".

Yes, the tears are trickling out now.  Slowly, deliberately, kind of like the way she was telling her story.  I was so moved by this daughter, I was moved that this woman was telling me this....

"I beat my cancer.  I'm a survivor!" she said next.  "So my husband says I'm buying you guys tickets, tickets to Africa, you're going on a Safari, your life's dream, that will be your next mommy/daughter moment.  So we went and had the time of our lives!!"  I am smiling along with her, so happy that she had such a colossal mommy/daughter moment, WOW a safari.  Too cool, I've always wanted to go on one myself I was thinking.  Then I realized she was speaking to me again, she said, "you never know do you?  Never know what is going to happen.  Don't live your life wishing it away.  Enjoy every moment in the now, because you never know, it could be your last..."

With that, she gave me the tightest hug, smiled, winked and walked away.  I was left in the middle of the Soda aisle wondering if that just happened, and smiling, wiping away the tears that her story brought.

I like to think it was a higher authority's way of giving me a kick in the butt.  Telling me that I am significant, I might not find the cure for cancer, but I have 3 kids in this house, and one that lives on her own, that need me.  I make a difference in their lives every day.  I have a husband that I love and support through all of his endeavors, even like when he tried to kill me with the Sharkfest Swim from Alcatraz hahaha, and who I know depends on that support to make it through his crazy days..  I have two dogs and one foster dog that need me.  They need me to love and take care of them.  I have spent the last how many weeks nursing Barney, a severely neglected poodle back to health, he wouldn't be flourishing the way he is without me.

So I guess I do have a purpose.  No, I'm not curing cancer, but I can kiss a boo boo away, help mend a broken heart, nurse an abused animal...and maybe all of my little things make up a big thing...

Whatever, all I know is I was given a gift in the Soda aisle in Martin's, one that I really needed to receive.

Mio Nonno

I woke up this morning at 5 whatever and had the strangest thought going through my mind.  I was trying to remember the last names of the 5 mafia families in NY.  What could I have been dreaming about, I have no recollection whatsoever.

Then I got thinking of the lunch I went to yesterday. I signed my kids out of high school early so they didn't have to sit through the pep rally and we went to get sushi.

One of my kids brought up their grandfather and spoke rather fondly of him.  Now let me explain that this kid isn't really mine, I am just borrowing him for the hockey season.  But it made me think of my grandfather.

My father's father, Americo Tavernese, and I had a relationship that I wished my girls could have had with their grandfathers.  I have tried to write this line about him so many times, trying to describe how I felt about him but how do you write something that there is no way to truly express?

Let me start by saying I am one of four grandchildren to him, and as stuck up as it sounds I was his favorite.  He and my grandmother had three children.  My Uncle Joe, the oldest, my dad was next and my Aunt Tina.  My Aunt Tina and her husband were killed in a car accident about a year before I was born.  My grandmother never got over it, I can remember her sitting up well into the wee hours of the night watching TV and saying prayers whenever my cousin Tina (my Uncle Joe's daughter, we were born two months apart) and I would sleep over there, which was every Friday night for the most part.  I remember my mother saying we weren't allowed to talk about it to her ever.  But whenever my grandmother wasn't paying attention my Grandpop would take me to his desk, pull out my Aunt's wedding album and show me her pictures.  Me Oooooing and ahhhing over her pretty dress, or her bridesmaids dresses, all stunningly retro and positively 50's, or laughing because he still had hair in the pictures, or amazed that my father was ever that young, but I am guessing it was his chance to talk about his daughter that he obviously missed so much, and have someone like me ask questions about what was supposed to be this taboo subject.

My Grandfather and I were a kindred spirit.  He loved music, could play banjo, guitar, mandolin or his harmonica so well.  I was learning to play the guitar and the flute.  I would beg him to play his harmonica, it was the only instrument he had until we bought him his mandolin for his birthday one year, and he would and tell me how he and his friends used to earn money playing their instruments in bars as kids.  He would have me play my flute for him, and loved when ever I would play a new piece, whether it was the theme from M*A*S*H or something more classical, he didn't care.  He would teach me Italian, because  no one, not even my father and his siblings, wanted to learn it and be Greenhorns, even though he never learned how to read it or spell, he eagerly taught me.  He loved how I would sit and learn, and I loved his stories about when he was a boy, that always got thrown in as the Italian flowed.

And there was his love of nature.  He had this reverence and respect for it that was before his time.  I cannot begin to remember how many hours I spent in his garden with him.  I learned how to protect tomatoes from cut worms, and aphids, zucchini and yellow squash from slugs, things like that from when I was just a little bit of a thing.  I can remember picking his tomatoes straight from the vine and eating them like apples...

He loved to fish so he would take me and my cousin Tina when she was around.  When I knew snapper season was coming, I'd start calling him asking if the season started and when could he take me.  He'd get the little silver siders, teach me how to bait my hook so the fish wouldn't "make a monkey" out of me by stealing my bait and getting away, and how to take the fish off the hook once I caught it.  I would come home, hands covered in scales, bucket full of fish to be cleaned and happy I spent the day with my Grandpop.  He took me to Snapper derby fishing competitions.  He was so proud every year I won the girls division.  I feel I should mention he did have two grandsons, my brother and Tina's brother, but I was still the one he did this stuff with.

I am a doodler by nature and he had a knack for it too.  He would draw me pictures, just using his pencil.  I would draw pictures of Charlie Brown or Snoopy for him, his favorite cartoons.  Speaking of cartoons he would come over some Saturday mornings to watch Bug Bunny with me.  He never missed coming to my house to watch a Peanuts Holiday special.  How I can remember him laughing when Snoopy would dress up like the World War I flying ace and he'd fight with the Red Baron.

I think his favorite was when Snoopy would fight with the stupid cat next door and his dog house would get attacked, how he'd howl at that, I haven't heard that laugh in so long!

I will fast forward a little bit to college.  If I put down every happy time with Mates from when I was little, this blog would be pages long!!  How proud he was of me, I was going away.  My brother and Joey didn't go to college, my cousin Tina didn't go away but I did.  He never could understand how I could leave the safety of my family, and spread my wings.  I would get these care packages from him.  Sometimes it was food, which always contained a sopresatta and pepperoni lol, sometimes it was just a cassette.  He'd tape playing his harmonica and tell his stories to me.  Me sitting there on my bed with my eyes closed imagining I was in his kitchen cooking pizzas with him and missing him oh so much.  Did I say how I minored in Italian in college and how proud that made my Matesy (his nickname was Mates).  Four years came and went, I graduated and he came up to see it.  He was so proud, he had to see me cross the stage and get my dipoloma.

Jump ahead again to me getting married.  He loved my husband right away, anyone who treated his "Cookie (his nickname for me)" well was good in his book.  My husband played golf with him, ate his pizzas and drank his beer.  Brad loved him.  I remember how Matesy cried when he saw me in my wedding dress, dancing with him at my wedding, me head taller than him, but him leading me around the dance floor and him saying on my wedding video when they handed him the mic, "Cookie, I'm gonna miss you...."

Brad and I moved away after we got married.  The packages came still and I have so many of his letters.  The day I found out I was pregnant one of the first people I wanted to tell was my Matesy.  He counted down the nine months and we had our first daughter.  My oldest Bailey was blessed with having a close relationship with her great "Padrino" as he called himself.  She loved him and how he fawned over her.

He was loud, due in part from making aircraft for Grumman Corp. These were the days before OSHA regulations and the noise took it's toll after all of those years, and he was gruff but how Bailey would run to him as soon as she saw him.  He would play his mandolin for her and she would dance making his day.

Next granddaughter came from us, Katie, or Caterina to him, and she adored him too.  But our visits to NY were getting fewer and fewer as businesses were bought and established, and school started to be more than pre-school.  She didn't get the benefit of seeing him as much as she should have, but the letters still came.  Addressed to Bailey and her sorella (sister).

I'd call, but it was impossible to talk to him on the phone in those later years.  He really couldn't hear and he refused to get a hearing aid because he was a "handsome devil" as he'd referred to himself, and didn't want to wear one out of pride.

Add daughter number three, a new business and well the trips up north came even more infrequently.  I'd send pictures, he sent his letters. I missed him, but what could I do?  Life was what it was.  I would hear in my ears, "Cookie someday you're gonna be too big for your grandparents. You're gonna move away and have your life".  I was in that moment wasn't I?  The moment I swore as a little girl that was never going to come, there I was....

I was pregnant with daughter number four when the phone call from mom came, she said my Matesy had a heart attack.  He was in the hospital and in bad shape.  Insert that tire screeching sound here.I believe my own heart stopped when those words were spoken to me.  The tears welled up in my eyes, I tried to find my voice to answer my mom back, I couldn't get past the lump in my throat. I got off the phone managing to say I wanted to go to NY.

In the process of trying to juggle school calendars and business so I could get up to NY before it was too late, he left me.  I was too late...

My grandmother made the decision to take the tube out of his throat that was breathing for him because he wouldn't want to live that way, and in a matter of seconds that beautiful spirit of his was riding the wind and finding it's way home.

I like to believe he went to this massive garden in the sky.  The Lord probably needed someone to tend his personal garden, and he is there.  Maybe eating a tomato and watching me and my girls as we grow older. Maybe playing his harmonica, strumming a beautiful melody on his mandolin, tapping his foot with his eyes closed, the way he used to look when he was here with me....it's kind of like he is with me though when I think of him.

Mi manchi nonno...ogni giorni....sempre

I want my mommy....

My mother always used to say, Mother's can't get sick.  As a kid I would wonder what she meant by that.  I obviously saw her sick, what did she mean? Well here I am, with a cold that is one of the worst I have had in recent memory, I am dragging soooo badly this morning and I want my mommy.  (Why am I thinking of this scene?? ) Who will sing Soft Kitty to me??

I have a list of to do that if I don't do, don't get done (excuse the grammar there lol)  I have to get stuff for lunches, and grocery shop in general.  I have deposits to do and I know my accountant is coming this week so there is work I need to get started on for that.  Then there's everything going on this week with Back to School.  Back to School nights, orientations etc.

But wait, I don't feel good, I don't want to do anything, I want someone to sing Soft Kitty to me dammit!

All I want to do is be in my nice warm bed and rest.  I know I won't be able to with all of the stuff I need to do swirling around inside my head.

WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE ME A POT OF CHICKEN SOUP???  It's what I am jonesing for, but who makes it for the mom when she is sick??  I guess I can make it for myself and lay down on the couch while it's cooking.

TEA!!  I need mug after mug of steaming decaf tea.  It soothes my scratchy throat.  I suppose I can make it when I am getting up to check on my soup.

TISSUES!!  I need those good ones with the Vicks in them.  My box is almost out, my husband is away on business and I am the only driver in the house.  I guess I will get them when my soup is simmering away and in between cups of tea.

HALLS!!!  Honey lemon or spearmint.  I will get them when I am getting my tissues, the soup is cooking and in between cups of tea.  Since I am going out, I might as well get the groceries I need to make it through the first part of the week so there is one less thing and I can come home and rest some.  While I am on the couch resting maybe I will bring my laptop over and get to work on the bookkeeping stuff for my accountant this week.

Then there's that birthday dinner I haven't made for my daughter yet.  She wants ribs, crab and shrimp.  I couldn't do them on the grill last night with the rain, and I was sooo feeling poorly I was thankful it rained and I didn't have to stand over the grill.  She was at a soccer clinic on her birthday proper so we went out to dinner afterward and got her calamari, which was another thing she wanted. I will get that stuff to make for dinner tonight finally while I am out getting stuff for the week and my Halls and my Vicks Tissues.

As I am cooking I will keep drinking the tea I make for me, sucking the Halls I got for me, use the tissues I got for me, have the soup I made for me and sing Soft Kitty in my head all the while.

*SIGH* I finally understand what my mother meant.

Coming to my sense

I am visiting my mom with my girls after our New England hockey jaunt.  We had fun watching the team and since their games wrapped up in Connecticut I figured we would stop by and visit my family on our way back to VA.  It's been nice.  I am getting to see my niece.  I haven't seen her in two years easily.  The visit has been really wonderful so far.

Last night I made my way upstairs to wash my makeup off and get ready for bed.  As I was washing my face I was suddenly back in my Nanny's house.  The sensation was so strong I needed to hurry up and wash the soap out of my eyes and look around to make certain I was indeed in my mother's bathroom.  It dawned on me it was the soap.  Nan used nothing but Dove soap, the white kind, and I was using the same at her daughter's, my mother's house.  The smell of that soap was so distinctive, that it took just washing my face to be back in Nan's old, green bathroom.  The memory was so vivid I was convinced I could hear my Nan humming, as she always did, right there behind me while I finished rinsing my face.  I have to admit I was smiling when I was done.

It got me thinking about other smells that will bring you to another place or time.  Like if I smell diesel fuel.  The odor of diesel fuel being burned by a truck or bus will instantly transport me back to my summer trip through Europe.  We traveled by bus, sometimes for long stretches, and we'd smell that exhaust quite a bit.  But I can be sitting in my car at a traffic light next to a diesel vehicle and that smell is enough to have me on the bus with Patricia our tour guide talking us through what our next destination would be.  I can hear David Bowie on the bus radio and be giggling away with my seat mate and roommate Stephanie.  What a fantastic experience that summer was for me at 16 and how lucky am I to get to live through that just for a split second every time I smell diesel??

They say the sense of smell is the one that can evoke the strongest response from people.  I believe it.

Don't get me started on Thanksgiving smells.  My mouth just started watering at the thought of all of them!  That roasted turkey smell is so homey to me.  Another thing that puts me at Nan's house.  I still wonder how Nan managed to fit our ever expanding family in her dining room.  It seemed expansive once upon a time, but when I look back now it is pretty amazing that we all squeezed in!

As I was making bacon as part of our lunch, my 13 year old came up and started smiling.  She said to me, not realizing what I was blogging about, you know what the smell of bacon reminds me of mom? It reminds me of Pop!  Do you remember how he would steal pieces of bacon even when he wasn't allowed to eat it and Nan would start yelling at him?  She went on to reminisce about her favorite Pop moments.  The smell of bacon cooking was enough to bring my daughter to a time and place that brought her such happy memories. It made all of us laugh, what a great moment to share.  All from the smell of bacon cooking.

I posed the question to my other daughters. What smells do you like, what ones will bring back happy memories.  Heather piped up Pillow! She has a pillow case from this sheet set my Nan gave her that became her favorite thing ever.  She still snuggles with it and actually smells it to fall asleep. She explained to me it smells like home, whatever that smell is like for her.  But it's enough to comfort her and relax her to fall asleep from.  It is obviously a comfortably place.

Not all smells are good ones.  There are ones that do indeed bring you back in time, to a place you'd rather not visit.

I hate the smell of flowers, absolutely despise it, ever since my father's wake.  The funeral home was so packed with lovely floral arrangements.  They were really spectacular.  It brought the thought to mind why do we waste such beauty on someone who can't enjoy them?  I guess it brings up that line in my blog that funerals aren't really for the dead person are they?  But all I need to do is smell flowers and it makes me sad.  I told my husband after that time to not bring me home flowers.  I can tolerate roses, but that's about it.

I cannot stand the way hospitals smell.  Even if I am in them for a good reason, like when I had my babies, I cannot stand the smell.  My dad spent so much time in the hospital that that aneseptic-y smell, as soon as it hits my nose, is a smell that brings me to a not so good spot in my life.

Random smell I cannot tolerate, Downy fabric softener.  When I was pregnant with my first daughter the smell of Downy was enough to make me barf, so was the smell of dirty hair that needed washing and newspaper print, go figure.  To this day I cannot smell Downy, the other two don't bother me as much.  But they all do remind me of being pregnant.

I believe my other senses don't move me to memory the way my sniffer does. My mom told me about her favorite supermarket and how it plays 50's music from time to time, that was her time. She got laughing when she said she was there the other day and caught a couple doing the Lindy in the condiments aisle.

I would have loved to have seen that!  It got me thinking, maybe her ears and music are to her what my nose and smells are for me!

Well there's the timer going off!  I have to go take the birthday cake we are baking for Heather out of the oven.  The smell is absolutely heavenly.....