Thoughts on Getting to be a Mom

     Back when I was 19, in the era of  the Summer of Love, and Woodstock, I found myself pregnant and was in a bit of a panic because I knew I was not in any way ready to be a Mom. I was still living at home with my Mom and Grandmom and single moms were not that easily accepted back then.  A friend offered to drive me to a neighboring state where abortions were legal at that time, and the guy involved offered to get me some rat poison but neither option appealed to me.  I chose to carry the baby to term and place him for adoption. I mean I was young, and there was  plenty of time to settle down and have children.  I had no intention of getting married until I was at least 30.
     Funny how life has a way of happening according to some other plan.  I met Jack, my first husband, about a year and a half later when we were working together at the local Woolworth's and were married within a short time. A couple of months after the wedding we were watching TV when a commercial came on showing breakfast sausage frying in a skillet. All of a sudden I felt sick in my stomach. I found out shortly later that I was pregnant. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it past six months before I miscarried. We weren't able to have any children and Jack had a fatal heart attack a little more that five years after we were married. If I had waited until I was thirty I would have missed out on time with this special guy.
   The following summer, I went on vacation to Canada with a group from my Mom's church. One day in Quebec was sunny and warm and it seemed a lot of guys were walking around in little more than cutoff jeans and work boots..Being only twenty-seven and starting to come back to life after months of grieving,  I looked around the local pharmacy for some kind of contraceptive, but didn't find anything. I met a handsome young man vacationing from Evian, France and we enjoyed each other's company that evening and into the night. I  came home pregnant and again was not able to complete the pregnancy.
     I was more careful after that and stayed single, dated and avoided pregnancy for the next ten years or so. Around the time I was in my mid thirties, I was dating a younger guy and though I knew that we weren't ever going to get married, I thought that this might be my last chance at having a baby before I got to be too old. I did become pregnant and that kind of ended our relationship because, this time, he was the one not ready to be a parent. A couple months later I miscarried again.
     It seemed I blew my chance to be a Mom when I was nineteen and after grieving that part of my life, I was able to accept that I was childless and move on. Again, life had other plans.
     I was in my early forties when I met Joe, who would in time become my second husband. We were both cautious about starting a new relationship, yet felt it would be worthwhile, and took our time allowing it to grow. He told me on our first date that he had a son, but they were estranged and he was trying to reestablish their relationship. They began to have visits for short periods of time and eventually I met Sean.
     Around this time, Joe had a roommate who worked at the local shopping mall. Denis would sometimes bring home merchandise that was usable but was meant for the trash because it was scratched or the box was damaged. One day Joe presented me with a pretty trinket box that about broke my heart, On the cover of the box was a picture of a seated woman with a child kneeling next to her. I guess I hadn't yet shared with him about my failure to become a Mom, so he couldn't have known the hurt that gift would cause. Again, not my plan at work!
     About two years after I first met Sean and a year after Joe and I got married Sean came to live with us after his Mom  died. For a while I was Dad's new wife, I was the step-mom. There was a period when he wouldn't address me - he would walk up to where I was standing and start talking to me- and I could understand that it must have been incredibly hard for him. I on the other hand had no experience as a parent and was suddenly responsible to co-parent a sullen, angry thirteen year old boy. Nope, I was not feeling any warm and fuzzy Mom moments yet.
     The first time Sean actually called me "Mom" was when he had a friend over after school and they were up in his room. Instead of coming downstairs and out to the kitchen where I was, he yelled out "Hey Mom, do you know where my blue shirt (or whatever he was looking for) is?"  So maybe it was just a matter of convenience rather than any affection that he first called me Mom, but I do remember a break in the ice.
     Joe was still the primary parent and they still had a lot of healing to do, so I allowed things to unfold at a slow pace. I helped with the math homework, rides to dances and games, and later on with driving lessons. I was working full time and Joe was at home so he did the cooking. He made sure we sat down to dinner as a family most nights and took time for a quick prayer before we ate. We celebrated birthdays and holidays and vacations as family. In time it was clear that we were family, the three of us, with Joe as the center. the glue. the music of our life. When Sean was 14 1/2, I formally adopted him, with his consent. This way if anything happened to Joe, Sean would always know that he belonged.
     Sean left school before graduation, moved out and back a couple of times and always Joe was the one that was there for him. About the time Sean was twenty-two and getting ready to move out on his own, Joe was diagnosed with cancer and needed chemo and radiation. Usually Joe was able to get himself to and from treatments, but sometimes Sean would drive him or go with him. After a year and a half, Joe was taken down by pneumonia and a stroke on top of the cancer. During the ten days that he was in the hospital on a ventilator, and I was there as much as I could, Sean would come and sit with us or bring me dinner. Joe fought hard, but in the end we lost him. Sean and I planned the funeral together and got through that time together.
     Then we we learned to be a family without Joe there to hold us together. I remember the night when Sean came home from work and told me he got a new car. It took me a little while to realize that he and his Dad would have been out the door looking it over and talking and telling stories. So I got my shoes on and went out to look over the new car and let Sean tell me about what he liked about this one and what else he looked at.
     Eventually he did move out on his own, - across town, over to New Jersey, back down the street and even to southern California. We kept in touch,  but I felt he was living his independent life and didn't need to talk to Mom as much. When he was in San Diego, he went through a rough time and I flew out for a couple of days. It was good to sit and talk with him about the old days and remind him he'd been through tough times before and gotten through them. It was right that I should be there as Mom, as family. The following year He decided to move back East and I offered to fly out and drive back with him. He managed to get back alone in one piece, driving through a week of pouring rain.
     We spent a year and a half at the family home together while he was getting back on his feet and I was getting ready to sell the condo and downsize to an apartment. We sat at the same table saying a prayer before dinner a lot of nights, we've celebrated birthdays and holidays together, and I always try to remember how it was when the three of us were together.   I certainly would not or could not have planned this path to motherhood, But I am so grateful to call Sean my son, and to hear him call me Mom. I am very grateful that God gave me Joe and that Joe made us a family.

A Certain Summer

Going back to the beginning - English 102
Something I wrote when I went back to college after being out of school a while.
Still enjoy the memory of that summer

My Only Constant Is Change

     The other day I was taking a walk in the park, not far from the Friendship Tree that I mentioned in a previous piece, and I felt like my Dad was there with me, I sometimes feel the presence of loved ones who have passed, but more likely it would be one of my husbands, or my Grandmom or an Aunt.  Anyway, I felt he wanted to tell me why he had not been more in my life after he and my Mom separated when I was young. I'm not even sure how old I was when they split, but I know it was before I started school. He would sometimes come over to the house where we were living with my Grandmother and I remember him teaching me the alphabet and letter sounds and how to put letters together to make words. I was surprised when I got to first grade and realized not everybody knew that stuff.
     Anyway going back, three years before I was born I had a sister who was hit and killed crossing the street when she was 3 1/2 . I don't know if that's when the marriage began to be troubled, but I don't really have memories of us all being together. I know that I was spared a lot of chaos and insanity that my Mom and older sister and brother lived through. His second wife and my younger brother and sisters also had their share of it.
     As a probably five-year-old child, I just pieced stuff together with my little girl mind. I didn't know why Dad wasn't in the house, and at one point he took me with him for the day to visit his friend. She seemed nice enough, but I spent most of the day outside playing with her kids. It wasn't until that evening when the three of us went somewhere and were sitting at a table, there was music playing and they got up to dance together. That was when I realized she wasn't just a friend and I started crying. He took me home and I never went to spend the day with him again, unless we went to his Mom's house. We often visited Grandmom as a family especially over the Holidays and  I later would spend  weeks at her house over  the summers with my cousin Patty. At any rate, I don't remember Dad being present on a regular basis, but kind of hit or miss. He would sometimes come around late at night to visit Mom, but I was not generally included in those times.  I had a lot of hit or miss relationships over the years and a couple of good marriages that ended in widowhood. Long term was apparently not in the cards for me.
     So the other day as I was walking, I felt a loving energy and got the feeling he was telling me that he had backed away because he didn't want to hurt me. Compared to what the rest of the family lived through, I was spared a lot of pain and confusion, While they all had a lot of stuff to overcome, I just had a lot of feelings of not being included.
     For a long time I had felt abandoned, but now it feels more like I had been spared. I have a bit of him in me - I can be a bit unconventional, I share his love of words, and for a little while was drinking more than I needed. We sobered up about the same time and were able to have a closer relationship. I remember one time I drove 20 miles up to visit him at the house on Second Street and he wasn't home. It was raining pretty heavily and I thought about waiting, but headed home. When I got there, I found a container it the doorway with a piece of Grandmom's Easter pie  that I had asked if he had the recipe for. I later got a Valentine card with this thought:

    So just in time for Father's Day, he showed up again. I have been reading another blogger who shared that while people come and go, there has been one constant in life, on any Sunday, and it's in his blood. While I enjoy hearing his vibrancy on the topic,  I wondered why I haven't found my constant. I mean some people love to paint or bake or parent.  I think that my constant has been that people come and go and I am so grateful for all the wonderful relationships I've had,  and for the not so great experiences that I've learned from.

     Happy Father's Day!

Home Alone

     In case I haven't mentioned it, when I started this blogging thing last month it was the first writing I'd done since college, aside from journaling and nurses notes.  When it began, ideas would come to mind when I was out walking, but lately thoughts have been showing up around 4 AM and I try to make a mental note to remember them when I wake up. They seem to have a life of their own however and once arisen, thoughts keep whirling around until I get to writing later in the day. This latest idea is actually a lot of  stuff, but I'll try to stick with the living alone piece for now.
     Almost nine months ago I downsized to a one bedroom apartment from my two bedroom condo. When I was planning to retire I knew it would be easier to do away with home-ownership since I still owed a lot on my mortgage, and taxes and home repairs are ongoing expenses. The first obstacle was the fact that the guy I'd been living with and I weren't really getting along, but he was having trouble getting his own place. He had tried his own apartment for a while, but it wasn't working out and he asked if he could stay with me temporarily (which is kind of how we started out - can you say hobosexual? as in, someone who enters a relationship to avoid homelessness)  A few potential jobs and potential apartments later, he got a job and a new friend out of the area.
   About this time, my son was finally moving back from three years in SoCal, and I was glad to give him a safe place to land and get back to what had been his roots since he came to live with his Dad and me when he was 13 after his first Mom died. The apartments I was moving to had a one year waiting list and I had to sell my condo. So Sean and I had some time to catch up while I was waiting to move and he was finding a job and getting back on his feet.

Anyway, it's been about nine months now of living alone for the first time in about 25 years and only the second time in my life . Growing up we lived with my Grandmom and there was always a houseful.  I moved out after I got married the first time and within a year of Jack's death, after five years of marriage, l had found a new guy. We moved in together for six tumultuous years of drinking/ not drinking, multiple break-ups before we finally called it quits. That was when I bought my first house, in my home town and enjoyed being on my own. Fours years later my sister had gotten her real estate license and found me a suburban condo two miles up the road. Eventually I met Joe, got married again and Sean moved in. I had a lot of good times there, but like I said, financially it made sense to move.

After years of sharing my home I was ready for my own space and peace and quiet.  My dream retirement home might be a cabin in the country and this apartment isn't that, but there are trees and grass and morning bird song to wake up to. And it's mine and right now that feels wonderful!