Aren’t we the cutest? An older cousin sent me a flash drive with old super 8 videos his father had taken over the years. Most of them, appropriately, are of his family. However, in watching them I found a few pics of us that I could glean. This one is of me and my baby sister. We were likely 4 and 3. Just guessing, of course, as the videos did not have dates on them like old pics.
This was taken in front of my dad’s mother’s house. Mom-Mom was a formidable woman. She would sit out on that swing (more appropriately, glider) every night after the day’s chores were done. She’d swing and we would play. Some (most) nights we were entertained by a neighbor catty corner across the street who would come out and fight his son. Outside of my own home that was my first experience with domestic violence.
Mom-Mom had her own story – not one to which I was privy until I was much older. By much older I mean just a few years ago when a cousin and I were talking and she filled me in on some things my mother would have never told me. Some of the things I knew: she had a large family – dad was one of 12 kids. She and her husband did not speak for years. He would come in and place his pay packet on the table and go to his room. When I was 3 he committed suicide. Mom-Mom survived and nurtured her flock in her own way.
That’s Mom-Mom on the right. (Aunt Mary on the left) Mom-Mom’s home was the one the clan came to when they were put on the street for whatever reason. Our family lived with her for a period of time. I was frightened often by the robe hanging on the back of the bedroom door. It swayed as people walked through the hall and I felt it was some sort of ghostly visage staring at me – coming for me. I was young.
I remember being about 3 or 4 and having terrible growing pains. My legs ached interminably. I cried inconsolably. Finally my dad and Mom wrapped me up in blankets and we drove to Mom-Mom. There she and the aunts and my Mom broke dozens of eggs (she had chickens in her yard), separated them and coated my legs with the whites. Mom-Mom told everyone that as the whites dried they would draw up the skin on my legs tightly and would take away the pain. Did it work? I’m not sure if that did, but I felt loved and cherished as many hands ministered to me and wrapped me up warmly for the trip home. I fell asleep knowing that – at least at that moment – I was loved.
Family, It comes with the good and the bad. It comes with love and hate. It comes with joys and sorrows. But it is family all the same.
Thanks to my cousin Don for sending the videos. Thanks to my cousin Linda who helps unlock some of the mysteries of family.
