Jun 21, 2010
Posted on Jun 21, 2010 | 3 comments
Mommy,
Like any mother, you’ve taught me so many things through my youth and adolescence. As a baby, you were the model I based my walking and talking off of. You helped me read and write. You even supported me in things that I wasn’t very good at as I got a little older. Thank you for that. Thank you so, so much.
Do you want to know what you’ve taught best, mom? With all those things that you’ve taught so well, you’ve taught me best to hate myself. When you started yelling and stopped trusting, I started wondering what I was doing wrong. (more…)
Jun 21, 2009
Posted on Jun 21, 2009 | 10 comments
Dear Dad,
You weren’t supposed to die. It wasn’t your time. It couldn’t have been. You were 58… and played racquetball almost every day. You were a happy, healthy person. Everyone–Mom, my brothers and me, and your friends–thought of you as their “best friend.” I can still see you toasting us at the Pope’s Table at Bucca. You went to all those Cavs, Indians and Browns games. You still had so much life in you, ahead of you.
Melanoma caught us all by surprise. That day I called to see how the doctor’s appointment went, Mom blurted out you had a brain tumor. I couldn’t stop crying for days. I don’t know how I took care of my toddlers, but I‘m sure it involved snacks (like you taught me). The next thing we knew, there was the surgery to find out about this brain tumor. The neurosurgeon told us in the waiting room it had metastasized from somewhere else. Several weeks later, we got the news: melanoma.
(more…)
Mar 14, 2009
Posted on Mar 14, 2009 | 17 comments
Dear Daughter,There was a time when I thought I would never be able to write those two beautiful words.
While I watched the rest of the women in my small universe all giving birth to daughters and sons, I remained barren. For a woman who loved children with such ferocity and who longed to hold a child of her own and who had years of experience caring for all ages of children, the blow was hard to take. I mourned. There was not going to be a daughter to pass the antique locket to. It had gone from eldest daughter to eldest daughter since the 1800s. (more…)
Like any mother, you’ve taught me so many things through my youth and adolescence. As a baby, you were the model I based my walking and talking off of. You helped me read and write. You even supported me in things that I wasn’t very good at as I got a little older. Thank you for that. Thank you so, so much.
