38 years ago

38 years ago a chain of events was set in motion that led to me.

38 years ago a man and a woman decided to try again.

38 years ago a woman tried to let go of her past and start fresh with her children.

38 years ago a man tried to create a new future for himself and his son.

38 years ago my Mother, complete with my older sister and brother, married my Father who came to the union with my other brother. A few years later I, the youngest and chosen one, would enter the picture. We always joked that we were like the Lucille Ball movie, Yours, Mine and Ours. It was said with humor but it also spoke truthfully about the divisions that existed in our home. Blended families have their own unique challenges.


Oh they were a difficult couple, my parents. They loved big and they fought bigger. They were simultaneously filled with passion and with rage. 38 years ago today they were married. 3 and 1/2 years ago my Mother died. Ravaged by dementia and reduced to a shell of her former self by the end she died in her home with her husband by her side. Unable to communicate beyond a word or two. I am sure she did not know who I was when I saw her shortly before her death, she did not even know her sister's name when I mentioned it. It was beyond tragic. It was excruciating to watch her slip away. The beginning of her end spiraled out of control as I became a mother myself. Literally as my son took his first breaths my mother slipped away from me. It wasn't until he was 9 months old that she was diagnosed, frontotemporal dementia. By then though we had struggled through his first months and she had missed so many milestones. Never once did she babysit her Grandson. She did not bathe him. She did not feed him. Rarely did she even hold him, I cherish the photo from the day he was born where my Mother holds him and looks at the camera with such joy, it was the last time I had what I considered to be a "normal" interaction with her. The dementia made her apathetic. She couldn't bond with my sweet boy. The disease took away her empathy, her compassion, her ability to love.


She was a passionate woman. Larger than life. Very much my Father's opposite. He's a very reserved man, stoic almost. I have seen him cry twice. When his Mother died-man do I miss my Grandma-and the morning that my Mother died. He loved her. He spent those years following his retirement playing nurse to my withering Mother. At the end he was there. It was a long and complicated relationship. But at its core was love. They saw something in each other that no one else saw. They stuck together through thick and thin, they fought, they kissed and made up. They separated, they reconciled. They loved. It wasn't always pretty, but it was love.

So, Happy Anniversary to you Mom and Dad. And Mom I hope that, wherever your soul is, you are able to take a moment and remember the love. Remember the passion. Remember the man that woo'd you with love letters and roses and promised to make it all better. Maybe he didn't make good on his promises but it wasn't for lack of love.

I miss you.