Jacksonville Beach, Florida

As a surprise for me for our 39th Anniversary and also for Memorial Day, Mike made reservations at the Quality Inn in Jacksonville Beach, Florida for the weekend. We went down on Saturday after he got off work and came home on Tuesday. We really didn't do a lot--just relaxed. But I have to say, as much as I love Jax Beach, somehow this trip made me sad.

Everyone tells me I have such a great memory--I remember things most people don't. It can be great to be able to remember where we put something, or who did something for us that we need done again, or when we did something. But it can also be a curse when your memories take over.

On this trip the first thinkg I thought of was, "the last time we drove down here and stayed in Jax Beach was on our way to and from burying my father in Alabama. That was just last March. I also thought of my dad because we passed the hotel in Richmond Hill where he always stayed on his way to our house. I also thought of my mother. She used to love to read all the road and river signs--the ones that were odd like, for instance, Okefenokie. She was always going to find the place with the strangest name and go live there.

I also thought of the year we traveled this road to go to Pennsacola so we could spend the very first Christmas with our very first grandchild. Now she is 7 years old, and has two younger brothers. She no longer lives in Pensacola, but in Lemoore, California, and I also have another granddaughter in Alaska, and I am scared to death I will never see any of them again.

Our room was on the water and was beautiful. On the east coast I think Florida has some of the most beautiful beaches. They are so white and are kept so clean. I love Jacksonville so much because when Mike was active duty we were stationed in Mayport. At first we lived in Jax Beach, and every day the kids and I used to go down on the beach to walk and look for sharks' teeth. I also felt I grew while we lived in Florida. Mike was gone a lot since he was on a ship, and I had to do everything. I had to be the mother and father and I also proved to myself and others I could do it all. Everywhere else we've been, including here in South Carolina I have Mike to lean on and if there is something needing done that I don't want to do, I know I can ask Mike and he will do it with no problem.

The Quality Inn is next to the Red Cross Building. This building has not changed since we were there. We lived there when Christopher started Kindergarten, and he will now be 37 years old in July. As I looked down the beach I could see Christopher, Victoria, our friends Sue and Amy Rubinstein and myself walking near the water and finding the sharks' teeth. Amy was fantastic at finding them and sometimes she would find one and draw a big circle and tell Christopher or Victoria to find the tooth. Somewhere around the house we still have the teeth in a little margarine cup. The Rubinsteins had tons of them. We never were as good as they were.

While things have changed in Jax Beach and Mayport, there is still enough that is the same that makes it feel comfortable. It is like when I go to Baltimore for a visit. I know I can never go home again, but there are some things that are still there that make it home.

My biggest fear in all of this is that I will always just have my memories. My children are adults and on their own. I am so afraid with them all being so far away I will never see them again. We don't even know where our son is and it kills me a little each day. He may have done things I disagreed with and we butted heads frequently, but he is still my son and I still love him. My daughter has been easier on me and we have gotten along better, although we have had our differences too. I love her very much too. My grandchildren are 7, 4 in July, 2 in July and 2 in August and as I have said I am afraid I will die and never see any of them again. I have more love than I ever thought possible for all my grandchildren.

So I have my memories, and some are good and some are bad. I wish I had a switch in my head that I could turn off to stop remembering so much. Believe me, remembering is not always the greatest thing. I sometimes feel I am like my parents and grandparents and live in the past. I have two brothers that I have very few memories of--they are 6 and 4 years older than I. I don't know if one brother realized it but there were times when my father and mother were living that my feelings were hurt. He would tell me they were going to Alabama and my parents and my sister-in-law's parents and her sister, and my other brother and his wife, and my mother's brother and siser-in-law, who lived about a mile away, were all going to have a family reunion. I was never invited. Mike and I have never been invited to my brothers' homes, nor they to ours. I think when we were going to Florida this time one of the reasons I felt so sad was I don't think I will ever see either of my brothers again either. One lives in California and one in Pennsylvania. Up til now what caused us to all get together once in a while was my father, but now he is gone, and I feel as though my entire family is gone.

Well, maybe someday I will learn how to stop all this and remember only good things and the things I want to remember. Maybe someday we will have a huge family reunion and all of us will be together at least for a while. Maybe. It is something to dream about.

TO MY CHILDREN (AND GRANDCHILDREN)

TO MY CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN

THIS IS A PICTURE OF MY DAUGHTER, VICTORIA AND MY SON CHRISTOPHER, TAKEN SEVERAL YEARS AGO.

AND THIS IS A PICTURE OF MY FOUR GRANDCHILDREN--CLARA, MATTHEW, TEAGAN, AND JONATHAN, TAKEN ABOUT A YEAR AGO.

This is my promise to all of you:

I am not your friend... I am your mother (grandmother)

I will stalk you, flip out on you, lecture you, drive you insane be your worst nightmare, and hunt you down like a bloodhound when needed.

When you understand that, I will know you are a responsible adult. You will never find someone who loves, cares and worries about you as much as I do. I love all of you so very much.

First Admendment Rights

Free to Say What I Want When I Want About Whom I Want

Recently I received some E-Mail from someone I hadn't heard from for awhile. He is someone who is very important to me and also someone I love very much. I had happened on his E-Mail address on line, and since I had not heard from him I wrote a two sentence message to ask him how he was and tell him I love him. He wrote a note back, just as short as mine, to tell me he was fine, busy and to leave him alone. Well, me being me, I could not leave well enough alone, and I wrote back and to this person to tell him I would leave him alone for the rest of his life if he would just do a couple things for me: explain to me what we had done to him to make him hate us so and to be so angry with us; and to at least once in a while let us know he is OK. He doesn't have to tell me what he is doing, who he is with, or where he is, just a short note to let us know he is OK. I don't think this is too much for a mother to ask of her son.

Well, was I wrong. I got a message back telling me he doesn't hate us, he just basically lives in world different from ours and we are not welcome in his. He also assured me he is fine, is being well taken care of by his boss, and is doing nothing illegal. He asked me to stop E-mailing him, to stop searching for him on line, and to stop referring to him on my blog. And then he said "Good bye."

Well, at first I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach, then run over by a train. I cried and asked my husband what I have done. Naturally, my husband tried to console me, but I had to find a way to work this out on my own. I'm already seeing a therapist and feel I have made quite a bit of headway with her. I was NOT going to let this set me back. So then I stopped crying and I got angry (I once had an English instructor who made the class write a theme for punishment, and when she saw mine she told me "People get angry, Monica, not mad--thanks Mrs. Sherbondy).

Well, the more I thought, the more angry I got and this is my answer to my son:

I do not have the ability to just forget someone I love. This is true of people who have died like my mother, father, grandmother, aunts, uncles and so on. I also don' t forget living people I love such as my children, my grandchildren, my brothers, my cousins, etc., even though because of distance and everyone lives far away from everyone else I don't see any of them very often. Therefore, Christopher, I will not just forget you. I will worry and wonder where you are and what you are doing. I will continue to look for you on line whenever the spirit moves me. I love you more than you will ever know, understand or care. You were my first child and when I first looked at you I knew everything I went through was well worth it. I loved you then, I've loved you for the last 36 1/2 years, and I love you right now. I have not always liked or agreed with your actions, but you have had to deal with whatever the consequences were over the years, except the support we gave you and the money it cost us (we nearly went bankrupt), but we have survived.

Oh, and last but not least, I will refer to whomever I care to in my blog, whenever I care to, for whatever I care to as long as it is truthful, does not exploit anyone and does not embarrass anyone. My First Amendment Rights, which your father spent 30 years protecting, give me the right to do so.

Again, I love you very much. Our address and phone number are the same as when you left, as is my and your father's E-Mail addresses. And we love you at least as much, and probably more, as when you left. We will be here for you and love you as long as God allows.

Staying Warm on a Rainy and (almost) Snowy Day

Since last week we have been getting weather forecasts of a terrible storm that was suppose to hit us from Sunday night into Monday. They were talking about snow and rain and sleet and accumulation and every horrible thing you can think of. Then last night they started putting the schools on 2 and 3 hour delays, cancelling meetings, closing facilities, and it hadn't even started raining yet. Today the schools are closed, the government offices are closed, all the colleges are closed, any meeting that was going to be held today is cancelled, and there is not one snowflake on the ground. We did get some rain and it froze to the tree limbs, but even that is gone and it is just raining now. It is cold--in the low 30's, but we always have crappy weather here in South Carolina in January and February. We are in Charleston so since we are closer to the coast we don't usually get snow, and when we do it is usually gone by the afternoon of the day it snows. On the other side of I-95 and from Columbia up they do have more accumulation and worse weather. But as you can see by this picture my husband and pets know how to keep warm. There is ole' Gunney in the front, next to him is Samurai, who is on top of Thumbs. If you look behind Samurai you can see Meiko's ears, and way in the back is Mike. Hope everyone stays warm and safe.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Now that the holidays are over and all the decorations are taken down and stored away for next year, I have been thinking of holidays past. They used to be so different when I was little. We lived in Baltimore until I was about 7, so I still believed. Every year after my brothers Bobby, who is six years older than I, and Pat, who is four years older than I , and I went to bed my father began his magic. First there was a platform put in the corner of the living room. On this he would put the tree--a real tree, not one of the prelit fake things from Lowe's. Of course, real trees didn't cost $150.00 then either. He would decorate the tree with lots of lights and glass balls, and strands of tinsel that had to be just so. Then he would do the garden. Everyone had gardens around their trees. There were salt roads and pebble side walks and people sitting on the bench in the park. There were houses and churches and trees. There was a train circling around and snow everywhere. The train would even have a tunnel to go through my dad made and it whistled when it came to a road crossing. The next morning when I came downstairs I knew there really was a Santa. There was one Christmas I came downstairs before anyone was awake and walked into the living room and NOTHING was there. As I went back to my room Bobby was going to the Bathroom. "Bobby, was Santa supposed to come last night?" "No, silly, he comes tonight. Go back to bed."

When you went to downtown Baltimore during the holidays it was a wonderland. Heckts, The May Company, Hutzler's, Hockschild Kohn's--they all had windows decorated with Santas, and reindeer, and elves and bright, shiny colors and everything was just perfect. It was cold--I always remember Christmas as being cold, and usually snow on the ground--maybe it didn't snow on Christmas, but sometime around then it did.

One year I got a Tiny Tears Doll. I had to be no more than four. She could be washed and she was the first doll whose hair could be washed. When you fed her a bottle of water it went right through her, so you had to change her diaper. Of course I had to give her a bath, wash her hair, feed her a bottle and change her diaper on Christmas Day. I still have that doll, She is made of rubber and is dry rotted now and falling apart. I named her Bonnie, and I just don't have the heart to throw Bonnie away. Someday when I'm gone and my kids are cleanng up after me they can wonder why I saved this piece of junk and then she'll go in the trash. They will never know how much I loved her and how much she meant to me. She slept with me every night and was my best friend.

Christmas Dinner was always a big deal. Mom would start cooking days in advance--pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, apple pie, lemon meringue pie, cookies. On Christmas Day she would get up at 4 am to start the turkey--it was usually a HUGE turkey. She made her own stuffing, and had no choppers like we have now. All the onion and celery had to be cut up by hand. The menu consisted of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and homemade gravy, candied sweet potatoes, souerkrout, cranberry sauce, peas and onions, and all the desserts. And Mom also did all the dishes--again by hand, she had no dishwasher. My maternal grandmother lived about three doors up the street from us, and we would usually go to Severna Park to get my grandmother's brother, Uncle George and we would have a wonderful dinner and together time. My mother was a fantastic cook--not fancy, but everything she made was delicious.

New Year's Eve was always an excitement for me and I have never known why. Half the time I was in bed before midnight when I was little, but I was awakened by the Volunteer Fire Department blowing it's whistle, the fire works and people yelling "HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!" Of course when I got older I went out for New Year's Eve and it was one year in the week between Christmas and New Year I became engaged. I didn't get my ring on Christmas because I had gone to Florida with a guy who lived next door who was like my brother. He was one of my very best friends ever in my life, 13 years older than I, but a wondeful man. Sadly, he has died several years ago of cancer.

Usually during the holidays we saw my mother's other brother, Uncle Jack, Aunt Vera and their children Joyce (who now goes by Chris, but will always be Joyce to me), Claire, Brian and Michelle. Joyce is the same age as Bobby and Claire and I are the same age and Brian and Michelle (we called her Shelly then) were the two youngest. Uncle Jack's job made them move around a lot--they lived in Catonsville, Maryland when I was small, then moved to Missouri, then to New Mexico and finally when they retired to Alabama just about a mile from my parents.

We also saw my father's sister, Aunt Regina and her husband Uncle Andy. I always thought she was so pretty and wished I could be like her.

Of course before Christmas when you wnet downtown there were "bellringers" on every corner, and every store had a Santa. We sat on all the Santa's laps, but I think we only have one picture with Santa and that is just my brothers, probably before I was born. We would tell Santa what we wanted and it was usually something simple--a doll, a truck, a bicycle, and lo and behold he always remembred who got what even down to the color. Commercialization was probably there then but no where near as bad as it is now.

Now Christmas is way too commercialized and I'm not four anymore. I have no small children and my grandchildren live in California and Alaska. If we're lucky after playing phone tag a couple days we talk to our children and to Mike's mother, but even they don't think it's a big deal, or they have too much to do or they just don't want to talk.

Someday I am going to have a Christmas I enjoy, even if I have to adopt someone's grandchildren. I want to see the wonderment in their eyes and their squeals and laughter, I want to watch them play with the boxes and wrapping instead of the toys and tell you they don't like anything on the dinner table. As my mother would say, "That's OK. You don't have to eat it. What would you like? A balogna sandwhich? I've got that and it will only take a minute to make. Do you want mayonnaise or mustard and what kind of bread do you want it on?"

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, especially to all those who are no longer with us. I know there will come a day when we will all be together again, but Mom, I'll help with the dishes!!