The Long Goodbye

Watching someone you love battle Parkinson's Disease

and old age in general is a heartbreaking thing.

Two weeks ago our Sweet Mum passed away.

Now we suffer through the pain and sadness from losing

her from our lives but at the same time we are happy she

 is no longer in pain.  Luckily, our kids got to come home

from college so they were able to say their last goodbye

to their beloved Grammie.  In the end, my sister and I 

cared for her like she was the child, we would tell her she

was our brave little girl and cheer for every spoonful of

food that she could eat.  We are happy that we could

make her final wish come true, she ended her days in 

her own little house, in her own little bed and she was

cared for by those that loved her.

So now it is time to try to focus on the happy memories.

In her final days we had a lot of time to reflect on the 

wonderful life she had lived.  Not always an easy life

but a life filled with love and happiness in whatever 

circumstance you were given.

The photo above was taken in 1924.  My Mum is in 

the baby stroller, at this point she was the youngest

with one more child to come. She would always talk

about her childhood in a happy way.  I think the younger

years, through the 20's, things were quite happy.

This photo was in 1936.  After the crash in 1929, the

world changed for so many people in our country and

for many of my Mum's friends.  Luckily, my grandparents

owned their home and my Pop Pop was an engineer for the

Pennsylvania Railroad, he had a job throughout the Great

Depression.  I can remember stories my Mum told of her 

friends at the time, many of their families were not so lucky,

many no longer had homes and had to move from apartment 

to apartment or their Dads left in search of work and other

Dads got sick and had to go live in sanitoriums to battle

TB in the days before antibiotics and vaccines.  Mum said

Nana would always have bread and butter or a sandwich

to give to the men that came knocking on the door looking

for food.  Times were tough but they made the best of it,

since the family could ride the train for free, Nana would

take the kids down to Asbury Park or Point Pleasant and 

they would spend the day at the beach and eat a picnic

meal that they brought from home to save money.

Mum went to St Mary's for grammar school and

then on to public school for high school.  She stayed

friends with many of her school friends for her entire

life.

My Mum and Dad lived across the street from each other

but since my Dad's family had just recently moved there

they didn't know each other.  My Dad and my Uncle Bob

were on the same baseball team down the shore and got

to talking and realized they were from the same town and

then realized they lived just across the street from each 

other.  That is how they met, this photo shows them standing

on that street in front of the house where my Mum was born.

She graduated from high school in 1941 and by the

end of that year the US entered WWII and so many 

of the guys in her class went off to fight, as did my Dad.

Mum and her friends worked after high school and she

was a USO girl during the war.  

I think since this high school class lost so many of

their classmates in the war, those that remained took 

their class reunions very seriously.  Mum always was part

 of the planning committee up until she moved out of 

state.  She kept going to the reunions up until her 60th

which was just a few weeks after 9/11 had happened.

She flew into Newark airport and it was so confusing 

to get around due to all the new security that she said

that she wouldn't do that again.

After the war, Mum and Dad got married in a double

wedding ceremony with one of her sisters.  They had

my brother and sister early on and many years later

I came along.  We lived a happy life in our small town,

our aunts, uncles and cousins lived nearby and we had

a very close family relationship with everyone.  As we

grew older, Mum and Dad traveled more, they took

many trips including Hawaii, and Europe.  In those

days it was a big deal to travel to Europe, my Dad 

always wanted to take my Mum to Italy since he had

been stationed there in the war, so off they went.

After I got married, I moved to the Midwest.  In a

few years I had the Irish twins and my parents were

crazy in love with them.  My Dad wanted to move 

out to live near them but sadly he was ill and that

never got to happen.  Dad died 20 years ago and 

after a while Mum decided she didn't want only a 

few phone calls a week and only getting to see the

kids a few times a year, so she decided to move out 

here.  We had the luck of the Irish and the house 

behind us came up for sale and she bought it.

This picture was taken the first night Grammie was

starting her new life as a Midwesterner at Kate's dance

recital.  Our dreams had come true.

And it only got better from there.  We were able to spend

every holiday together, Mum could go to everything that 

the kids participated in, Saturday nights were always 

sleepover night at Grammie's until they left for college.

Sunday night dinners were at Gram's, Wednesday night

dinners were at our house, the kids were able to run over

and kiss Gram goodbye everyday before getting on the

school bus.  It was heaven...

So that is what we are trying to focus on now, holding

on to the good memories.  But we still miss her terribly...

So we beat on, boats against the current, 

borne back ceaselessly into the past.”