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.

Hope on Two Wheels

Please excuse any typos. I again misplaced my reading glasses, this time perhaps at the Dockside Restaurant in Belfast at dinner last night. I can't go back to check yet because it is closed today (Monday).

Our hotel has bicycles all ready and waiting, tires pumped full and hard. Bells on the handlebars, a basket, helmet and lock for each bike. Guests can use them for free. I plan to bike Route 1A over to the old foot bridge into Belfast. I think it will lift my spirit, which has been lagging and dragging since Saturday night due to sister squabbles, mean words, tight quarters, four of us in the hotel room. Toxic times and scary stuff. Today is a good window to go because the weather is sunny and sweet, Figgy went shopping in town, Dan drove in to see his Mom and his bros, and Punchy's cousin, Izzy, took her to the beach.

Meanwhile, some photos:

My nuclear family with our nephew's son, Wilder, at Leah and Greg's wedding party Saturday at Mere Point, Maine. The wedding couple, so much to love in each other, and the world loves them back. The abundant mason jars of farm-grown pink peonies and sweet peas, yellow snapdragons--so perfect. Excellent coffee (it was chilly and overcast), tapas and an ice cream truck from Stone Fox Farm Creamery.

Our niece Anna, who was a flower girl in our wedding 33 years ago, and Figgy.

River Bridge view with fairy lights, pocket-size ice cream shop in Camden.

View from our hotel.

I pray/aspire to stop simmering in fear and resentment. To put them down. To trust God to watch over and guide me and the ones I hold close.

"We don't struggle," my longtime friend reminded me.

Okay. The view is pretty here.

I've been sitting here in the lobby, went on a 10 a.m. Zoom support group on my phone. Figgy said she gathered shells for me yesterday and left them on the hotel dresser. Will go and see them now.

D.C. State of Mind

Ben and Kait's wedding. Lovely. Happy occasion. Streaks of sunlight. An outdoor fire on the deck. A million different stories in the room (or were many of them the same?) and scores of beautiful people. Sun-kissed bridesmaids from a tight-knit Virginia clan, younger blonde sisters of the pretty, gracious blonde bride, good-looking groomsmen, college friends of two generations (Ben's and Kait's, plus our friend Celia's, from Wesleyan in Connecticut). A dream NYC born-and-bred groom we watched grow from boy to man. Family who drove into Stuyvesant Town to read the Torah with Celia, her husband, Greg, Ben and her parents every Passover. Celia's grandmother's kiddush cup, the rabbi from New York City, a richly flowered chuppah symbolizing a new home for the bride and groom. The bride's godfather. Women my age, with daughters Figgy's age--every mother zipped into just the right dress, with a movie-star blowout, expensive but discreet jewelry. Handsome, fit, suntanned husbands on their arms. (Accessory note: Next wedding, I swear, I will have a pretty, organized purse, not one that is overstuffed and cannot close.)

It feels good to be just the two of us, Dan and I navigating the weekend (tho with many wedding guests, too). I would not have been able to leave comfortably without my sister staying back at home base in Montclair with Punchy. It's a freedom.

We visited the National Portrait Gallery today, got lost in that playground for about two hours. It was like following a candy trail, another and another goodie to make our eyes widen. Not just people, but also hibiscus blooms in Hawaii by Georgia O'Keefe (who was sent there by the Dole Pineapple Co. for an advertising campaign), a high Maine cliff over the sea by Winslow Homer, on and on and on. (I went to the Gallery with Kim, Nan and Liz, too--twice lucky.)

Among the Presidential Portraits, it was a treat to see Ike, George H.W. Bush, Abraham Lincoln, Jimmy Carter, Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, Nixon (the last by Norman Rockwell, who made him look more likable). I loved the 1963 painting above of JFK by Elaine de Kooning from sittings in Palm Beach, Lilly Pulitzer country. Note the beautiful Lilly colors. So in other words, you came to the National Portrait Gallery and found Lilly Pulitzer, Dan said. Exactamundo.

John F. Kennedy / Elaine de Kooning / Oil on canvas, 1963 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / © 1963 Elaine de Kooning Trust. The following copy from https://npg.si.edu/blog/elaine-de-koonings-jfk  "When I first saw him, he was bigger than life. It wasn’t that he was really taller than the others. But he seemed to be in a different dimension. The eyes were a total surprise to me. I have never seen the color in photographs—the violet of grapes!" In the golden sunlight of Florida, Kennedy seemed to radiate warmth and color—and an energy that became a struggle for the artist: "All my sketches from life as he talked on the phone, jotted down notes, read papers, held conferences, had to be made very quickly, catching features and gestures, half for memory, even as I looked, because he never sat still. It was not so much that he seemed restless, rather, he sat like an athlete or college boy, constantly shifting in his chair. At first this impression of youthfulness was a hurdle, as was the fact that he never sat still."

President Obama.

Stardust ballroom portrait of me with our longtime friend Celia, the mother of the groom.

P.S. Celia and other Jewish friends, I hope I got the Jewish traditions right.

Notes from a Wedding Weekend in Maine

I literally have 9 minutes before I have to walk home and relieve our sitter, who has to get home and make dinner for her and her son.

So, quick dash, weekend memories. Would do at home but our WiFI bill is late, so I can't work on my laptop, just on my small, squinty iPhone screen.

• The bride and groom are winning triathletes. Lauren and Matt are pretty amazing. Her family is from Charleston, South Carolina; his is from Belfast, Maine.
• They looked lovely. I liked the vows they wrote for each other. I liked the Vesper Hill Children's Chapel in Rockport, where they married. Matt's parents had married there as young lovers just over 38 years ago!
• My favorite dress, next to the bride's strapless gown, was the one her friend Misty wore. It was blue lace the color of Wedgwood, short and fitted. She is in incredible shape and I think an athlete, too, like Lauren.
• The food at Primo Restaurant in Rockland was so good. Farm-to-table. Salad with tiny goat cheese-hazelnut "truffles," cut-with-a-fork tenderloin, baby potatoes mixed with tender corn. We walked around during cocktail hour and saw dozens of chickens, pigs, apple trees, lettuce patches, flowers growing. Loved it.
• I liked meeting the bride's family from the South--imagine going up to Maine! I liked Lauren's grandmother, born and raised in Charleston. Her name is Patsy, like my close friend. But her formal name, if I have it right, is Violet Patat. Love that.
• My mother-in-law looked pretty, on the eve of her 90th birthday on October 10. She wore a strand of pearls over her outfit. Her white hair looked lovely.

And now it's time to walk home. I will write more tomorrow.