Sadness + Joy

I’ve been meaning to write about these two topics for weeks.

My parents were laid to rest here. Anne in 1981, John in 2011. Sis and I put hydrangeas on the grave at George Washington Memorial Park cemetery in Paramus on Tuesday, July 23. Photos taken 3:22 p.m.

I cried for them, I missed them. I found some courage there. 

Oh yes, they were smart and strong, as were their parents, immigrants from Italy and Ireland (except my grandmother Alice, a New Yorker who lived in an orphanage after her mother died). 

I come from a line of Irish people with charm, with twinkle, with friends, my ancestors' Galway blue, chestnut brown or NY jet-black eyes sparkling, merry, soulful or mischievous. People with the gift of gab. Italian people who loved their families deeply with a love that traveled person to person even without words or gestures. From a line of Catholics. From my parents, who laughed and read, who sought the ocean, Manhattan, art, music and culture, who were highly educated (Fordham, City College) and intelligent about everything, even quickly surmising what type of person someone was inside. 

There were issues, too. I recognize that now, and it's sad and painful, the tragedy and alcoholic trauma the family held inside. It took my life's journey to arrive there, doors opened and closed. And the journey continues, the doors still appearing. Truth and beauty.

Standing there in the grass in my tank top, flip-flops and skirt, I could see my mother in her 1970s long-sleeve print dress with matching fabric belt, "suntan" colored pantyhose. The shoes, I can't remember the shoes. And my Dad, well, as I always saw him, in pants and a collared, buttoned, short-sleeve shirt, white or pale blue oxford, open at the neck to reveal a white, short-sleeved undershirt. (His collar size was 17 1/2, which we all knew.) Leather shoes with laces.

I had gone alone to the cemetery a couple of weeks earlier (Spice/Spike attends school in Paramus, so I was nearby) but couldn't find the grave. The grass was overgrown, and the gravestones are flush/flat with the ground. Sis said something about no above-ground stones or statuary allowed there.

My good sister took on the task. From her home in Connecticut, she called the office on the grounds, spoke to an efficient woman who pinpointed the location. That's my sister. She goes the distance to help family and friends. 

"Walk past Jones and McCracken, then make a left, pass five graves, and it's in that row," the lady said. (I'm making up the details now.) She gave us a map to the stars' homes, which I still have somewhere. We pulled up the heavy, muddy inverted metal vase attached underground with a chain to the gravestone and stood the vase right side up. 

"I'm glad Daddy got that vase," I said. "I'm glad he paid extra for it. He knew Mommy liked flowers." Sis had gone with him to choose the casket and other dark details at Frech Funeral Home in Dumont. 

That vase is a bonus. Dad must have known he would bring flowers for the woman who passed over the rose-trellised bridge at age 56, his bride, the mother of his four children, the woman he met in a carpool from NYC to their first jobs as chemists (at Lederle, in Pearl River, NY) in the late 1940s. He was a good Italian boy married to an Irish girl. Like most people in long marriages, they had weathered some storms. Tough times with their own teens, problems and worries with their young adults, stresses about my father's work, bosses and salary. (By the time I was a teen, the youngest of four, I did everything I could to get their approval and behave well. Pretty well, I guess. That may have been a gift for them, IDK, but it turned out to be a hard task for me in the long run.)

When I was working at Woman's Day and Good Housekeeping magazines, Dad would call me with updates. Not just "Hey Al? I got the free turkey at ShopRite for Thanksgiving and it's thawing in the garage," but also "I made a little Christmas tree and brought it to the cemetery today." He fashioned it from clippings from our holiday tree or evergreens in our backyard. (And what was I doing? Not going to the cemetery with Dad. Enjoying life as a young woman with her dream job in a dream city. I was there for my Dad, but see I could have been there more.)

After a few minutes by the grave, Sis said to our parents, "I brought your baby girl. Help her." I'm crying even now as I write this. Things were/are rough with Spice/Spike. Family crisis mode. I/we also have concerns about our Figgy. Our parents wanted the best for us, for all four of their children. And Dad of course for Figgy. He adored her. He met Spike as a baby.

"And you're not even going to have a grave," I blurted through tears as Sis and I walked back to her car. "Right," she said. She wants her ashes scattered somewhere.

Alas, in my life, I am working the "three C's" of recovery. I attend 12-step support groups. "I didn't cause it. I can't cure it. I can't control it." That wisdom applies to any troubling/unhealthy behaviors we see in people around us, things we wish we could fix. My former therapist once said that parenting is the most codependent relationship of all--or at least it can be.

Now a happier topic....

Look at our sweet nieces, three Maine flower girls at our big New Jersey wedding. From left, Pat and Donna's daughters, Anna and Mariah, and John and Jerri's daughter, Leah. You can see a hint of my parents' 1970s living room sofa in tones of gold and green.

Handsome Greg and lovely Leah at the Mere Point Yacht Club wedding celebration in July, a summer after they eloped on a sandbar with a minister and Greg's two children.

Well, I'm going to rest now. Good night.