… They always told me I had one!!!
Posts tagged family
The Meatball Experience
12 years
…or more aptly titled, “The Day of 1,000 Meatballs”!
Home cooked meatballs with family!
Those of you that follow this blog know that my Aunt Flo passed away in May 2013. We celebrated my Aunt’s life, remembering her with stories and jokes and reminiscing of all of our collective memories of and with her. A lit of wine and tears but it was a true celebration.
At that time, my cousin Colleen asked my mother if she would teach her how to make her mother’s meatballs – my Aunt Flo and my mom had a few recipes in their repertoires – their meatballs being a shared one. My mom agreed and we planned to schedule the “Meatball Fest”.
This past Saturday, we drove to my cousins’ home down the Jersey shore with all the Brooklyn fixings for a pasta and meatball (sauce included) feast; picked my mom up on the way.
It was one of the best days ever!
My mom was throwing her “weight” around, telling my cousins and me what to do. Jokes flying back and forth – “You haven’t cooked in fifteen years, how are you going to tell us how to make meatballs?” John made sure my mom had a “cold beer” at her fingertips, staying cold in a wine chiller as she gave us direction and sampled the fixings. “Not enough of this…”, “Too much garlic”, “Cook them longer” – she was full of them! We stood around mixing the ingredients, rolling the meatballs they way our mothers and grandmother had, the “men folk” hung around, waiting for something to eat. “I knew I needed something… oh yeah, more wine” was heard throughout the day.
The neat thing was this…
We spent time as we had when things were simpler, less busy and more fun. My family always knew how to do things with great “heart”. When we laughed, we laughed heartily. When we fought, we fought the good fight. But we could always come together and enjoy each other’s company. And we could have fun like no one else.
My mom said many times during the course of the day, “It’s not easy”. She is usually referring to putting up with me teasing her or telling her to “be nice”. All in good fun but she likes to tell people that it isn’t easy for the sake of conversation. It was easy this Saturday family get-together; albeit some of our missing family members, my dad and Colleen & Pat’s mom, but we knew they were there. My cousin spoke of a trip to Italy and waiting for a sign from her mom to let her know that it was all right for her to be where she was and to enjoy herself. – her husband pointed out a street sign that gave direction to another town they were near. “Guadagno”, which was our grandmother’s maiden name – sign enough for all of us.
I don’t know if anyone else saw the same sign I did but as I sat at the dinner table for a bowl of pasta with a few meatballs, I thought of how simple things would be if everyone just took a day, did something they never did before with people they haven’t spent enough time with in forever. You begin to see each other in a different light – with everything else stripped away, just a good old time, wine and meatballs for all!
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I Sound Like My Mother…
12 years
Actually, I think I sound more like any of my grandparents!
I was raised in a three-generation home – the kind that the Amish are known for, but the rest of the immigrant population that settled in the Northeast at the turn of the last century chose, not because it was the best thing to do, but because necessity is the mother of invention (or at least, giving everyone a home).
My mother’s parents lived in the first floor apartment of the home my grandfather bought. He immigrated from Bari, Italy and my grandmother from Naples. They were set-in-their-ways Italian: family, work and food. My father’s father died before I was born but I knew who he was from the stories everyone told. He and my father’s mother emigrated from Gibraltar (yes, the Rock; “Gib” as we descendents call it). They were set-in-their-ways Spanish/British/Gibraltarians: family, work and food.
Every one of them worked hard. Mostly laborer-type jobs, nothing glamorous, just hard work. Pop in a paper mill, Mom in household job like sewing and such; Poppa was a laborer at many different places and my Grams, she had one of the best jobs ever – she worked for Loft’s Candies, as a packager – I think of the “I Love Lucy” episode with the candy conveyor belt and the shouts of “Speed it up, Harry!” every time I think of her! They all worked hard, rested when they could, enjoyed family and good food and were happy. I don’t believe one of them ever set foot on a college campus, never mind take classes; some may have even gotten a high school diploma (or its equivalent). But they knew so many, many things! And it all seemed to just be knowledge they had – how to cook, how to take care of the house (inside for the women, outside for the men), how to build things, how to take them apart; painting, singing, joke telling and more. No one ever wondered how he or she was going to make it in this world.
They all raised children who “enjoyed a better life than they did” as the saying goes. Whether it was working for a big supermarket as a butcher (a job with great benefits and a steady paycheck), working as a “Bill of Lading” clerk in the garment district, a business manager for a township in New Jersey, a service manager for a refrigeration company or an employee of UNESCO – all of their children worked, knew what needed to be done and got the job done – providing for their families, acquiring homes and sending every one of their children to college – they knew what to do and got it done.
My first cousins and I all had the benefit of graduating from colleges and universities on the East Coast. A CPA, three teachers, corporate middle management and two business owners in the lot. We were taught from our grandparents and parents to be responsible, to pay attention, to learn, to work hard and make them proud. We succeed, albeit with setbacks along the way, but our history taught us how to deal with those setbacks and push on.
Today, I spoke to one of the many “young-ens” that I have had the pleasure of employing over the last twenty years. When I heard him say, “Basically, my generation is screwed”, I felt compelled to write this little post but felt a stronger urge to ask the readers out there a question or two. I hope you will take the time to answer and give me some feedback – yes, I need to know your age but only for perspective and what you think.
So in a few words in the comments, let me know your “around-about” age, and answer these three questions:
1. How does a person get one’s “character”?
2. Do you think your generation has learned from the past?
3. Do you agree with twenty-somethings today being on the short end of the stick? And in what areas, exactly?
4. Any suggestions on a possible “fix”?
I appreciate the time you may decide to take – I’ll let you know in follow up posts where everyone stands!!
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Oy vey – Only Two Years Away!
12 years
It’s that time of the year!!
Today is my 48th birthday. So far, it’s a good day!
And being my usual pessimistic self, I’m sure it won’t stay that way.
You know those e-cards everyone posts on Facebook? There’s one I find particularly funny and way too true – “I try to like people, but then idiots happen!”.
Why is that??
I wake up everyday but especially on a day like my birthday and really am happy that God gave me another day. I know the big 5-0 is right around the corner. Another day to appreciate things, people, circumstances, whatever. I pat my puppy on the top of his head, I think about breakfast and what there is in the house and I stop to think about my schedule for the day. Nothing ever stays on schedule but it’s worth the ol’ college try.
Then the day happens.
The news always provides something you have to shake your head at. Sometimes it’s an unexpected phone call. Being a small business owner, a text from a staff member can do it. Being responsible for my mother at this point in her life is always a challenge.
But taking stock of things, today, on my birthday, I have to be grateful for many things. Although I make many a joke about being placed in a reed basket and floated down the Nile, I am grateful my birth mother saw it in her heart to give me a chance for a better life. I am grateful for my parents – the only one’s I have ever known. I am grateful for my cousins who have always made things interesting. I am thankful for my friends, old and new, not so new and those who are no longer part of my life. I am even thankful for the people who have made my life challenging. All these people along with the experiences I have had, have come together to make me the person I am today – slightly cracked, a wealth of useless information, a business owner, someone you can ask for anything, supporter of many (whether they realize it or not), critical of some but one who knows when they are out of their league.
Just for the record, I had one of the best birthday days I have ever had. I spent the day enjoying everything as opposed to waiting for the next shoe to drop. The day was capped off with a wonderful martini, a perfectly cooked steak and wonderful company at a great Manhattan restaurant. Enjoyed the day thoroughly, however, I am sure realty will return tomorrow as always.
But maybe, just maybe, I can take the lesson of my birthday day through to the rest of the year – this year, I’ll be thinking positively. Let’s see where it takes me!
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Chosen to Belong – Questioning Who’s Who in a Family
12 years
The title of this post took quite a number of revisions. “The Strangest Strangers: Becoming Part of a Family”, “Belonging and not…”, “You’re Not One of Us”.
Truth be told, I have been mind-boggled by things I have heard over the last thirty something years of my life. If only people could understand how their words could cut so deep that forgetting is not possible, forgiving may never occur.
Chosen to Belong
I was adopted through Catholic Charities from Angel Guardian Home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York in May of 1966. This was a time before Roe v. Wade, open adoptions and all the other options available to people who wanted children but could not have them on their own. For background, I was the only offspring of a union between my eighteen year-old birth mother and my thirty-six year old birth father. I like to make up a soap opera like story of how that union occurred, but that is fodder for another post sometime in the future. The nuns at the Angel Guardian Home put me into the arms of the only woman I know as my mother on April 26, 1966 – “the happiest day of my life” as she often tells me. Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and friends welcomed me home that day – the family that embraced me, loved me, shared in my triumphs and consoled me in my losses.
A piece of paper and a judge’s swoop of the pen and I belonged to my parents. The three of us made a cute little family; my extended family always a strong and active presence in my life. We lived in a two-family house – my parents and I upstairs and my mother’s parents downstairs. We saw each other everyday – always a kiss, a hug and a playful tap from “Pop”.
My grandmother passed away one night in 1973, in the house. My other grandmother was babysitting me upstairs as my mother was visiting my father who was in the hospital. “My wife, she no move” was the cry from Pop and with that, one member of our household was gone. Her suffering from Alzheimer’s was over. Pop would live many more years alone but filled his time sitting outside, talking to anyone who would pass, reading his Italian newspaper and listening to the Italian radio station. There had been arguing between my mom and her brother and sister over their parents and the long-term care they both needed. But what needed to be done was done as far as my grandparents were concerned and who was right and who was wrong is now irrelevant.
Pulling the Rug Out
But one question posed to my grandfather by his son threw my very existence in my family into a tailspin. My mother, middle child stayed home to care for her aging parents. Her sister and brother left most of the decisions and day-to-day care to my mom because of her proximity. As my grandfather reasoned, each of his children had their homes; my mother did not so he would leave his house to my mother. My uncle was told this by his father and reacted strongly; one question – “So Jane gets the house?”
His own daughters were outraged and told him so right as the words came out of his mouth. My mothers was stunned and as we, the kids, were told to get out of the room, someone said, “Because she’s not blood?”. I know who said it and would rather leave it as ambiguous as stated. Regardless, that question/statement had devastating consequences to an already fragile psyche.
I have had friends who ask me about being adopted. I tell them being adopted at such a young age, I know only my parents and my family – there is no feeling associated with “being adopted” for me. But there is an increasing sensitivity I feel towards comments being made toward individuals and their “belonging” in their families. To say that a person who has spent years, decades even a lifetime being “part” of a family is “not really part of the family” or even calling them “a stranger” is completely not in the realm of understanding.
There comes a point in time when you really have to wonder about the people you surround yourself with. Although they may seem quite cordial and sincere on the outside, sometimes there are underlying issues that confuse event the most seasoned adult. I have heard that young children entering into a new family with their divorced and remarrying parent are “not really so-and-so’s kid”. Children adopted at younger ages than I was are “not really their kid”. Family friends who have been part of people’s lives for years, even decades are told “they are not family”. I have even heard some call their “married-in” relatives “nothing more than strangers”.
Are we not all strangers to each other in the beginning of any relationship?
Are you Serious? Then Get This Straight
A newborn is a stranger to their mother – the woman who carried that baby for nine months. You are not in their minds, however impressionable they may be – you cannot know what is going on in there. A woman meeting a new friend. A man meeting a girl he would one day would like to make his wife. Someone you pass on the street. The person on line in the grocery store. Yet these encounters with strangers lead to some of the most intense and lasting relationships we will ever have in our lives. A child and parent, best friends, a married couple, a neighbor, an acquaintance. At whatever level, these people enter our lives and it is a choice we must make as to the depth that relationship takes.
I know many children whose parents remarried after many years and created blended families. Father is father to each one of the children in that family, mother is mother. Some of those semi-adopted children (some are indeed adopted by their step-parent, others are not) actually become more of the family oriented member of the family, treasuring the relationships he or she was given a second chance at. Adoption makes families where there were none. There are plenty of people we all know that are part of a family by birth-rite not by anything greater than that. That “natural born” status should never give anyone the power to diminish another’s standing in their’s or anyone else’s family. I dare someone to state that an infant would know any difference in belonging, be he or she adopted or birthed into the family they wind up in. Whether your husband-wife, wife-wife, or husband-husband relationship has children as part of it or not is unimportant – that “significant other” is just that “SIGNIFICANT” to that person; relevant, significant, meaningful, thought of, their one and only.
And everyone should really be on that same page – whether it is a step-child, a half-sister or brother, a friend, an integral part of a family for decades, your life partner – those that surround you should be respectful of you and that person and the relationship you feel is important.
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Marriage Equality, The Catholic Church and Scandal
12 years
Here we go again….
Let me get a few things straight before we get started. I am now a lapsed Catholic – I believe everything I was taught during eight years of Catholic school – my parents both volunteered most of their time to our parish church and school, a trait they not only passed on to me but enjoyed my involvement with the church in the various roles I took. I was an altar server as a teenager (the first girl in my parish to do so), a lector, CCD teacher, Teen Club member, then leader, a Eucharistic Minister, Folk Group leader, softball and swimming coach, volunteer school aide and later, was a teacher in two different Diocesean elementary schools.
I have been “on the inside” since I was a child; my parents volunteered and brought many stories home of their dealings with the clergy and other volunteers – as a curious child, I always loved to “accidentally overhear”. I have been included with adults and their conversations when I was younger as the only kid in the room most times – “You’re smart – you understand” is what I often heard. Dinners over the years with clergy members, from nuns and priests, to pastors and Diocesean big wigs – I have had the honor to know many Bishops in later years as well as a great number of priests, sharing many conversations and a few glasses of wine with some.
All that being said, I can say to you, I am a Catholic. I believe in my faith, my love for the “Hippie Jesus”, as I like to call him, that I was introduced to as a kid – the 70’s showed us a handsome man with long hair, in a robe and sandals, loving everyone, forgiving everyone – shunning no one but the hypocrites at the Temple. I believe we are here for a reason, to do all the good we can, love one another, celebrate in the joys of a heavenly paradise when we leave this earth, surrounded by the ones we love. Based on that, I want to believe in the best in people, love conquering all, and in the end, goodness in what people do, think and say.
And as I said, here we go again….
I read an article in the Diocesean newspaper recently that began with the sentence “the June 26th decision by the Supreme Court was a tragic day for the Church and the world”. On that day, the United States Supreme Court handed down two decisions regarding marriage equality. The Defense of Marriage Act was dead, California’s Prop 8 was declared null as the people who brought suit did not have the right to do so. Finally, the United States government, the Federal level would be acknowledging same-sex marriages and all the Federal laws and statutes afforded heterosexual couples since this country was founded would be equally afforded to homosexual couples.
This decision was a landmark in the history of America – and one that the Catholic church calls “tragic”. The article seemed to be a repetitive rant stating the Church’s belief that the “truth about marriage” was that it is “one man, one woman, for life”. That is their view, steadfast and pure. But it causes me to ask one question, speaking of steadfast and pure (emphasis on pure) – why has the Catholic Church not been as vocal, passionate and condemning of their own scandal involving sex?
Today, on a New York City radio station, I heard a story of a Catholic priest,”defrocked” because of allegations, later proof of child molestation, who had lost his home because of Superstorm Sandy. As a result of him having “nowhere else to go”, a parish in a neighboring city had taken him in and allowed him to live in the parish rectory. Um, anyone see a problem here?
One of the last years I taught, the faculty was informed of a new Music Director the parish had hired – he would also be running the children’s choir. I distinctly remember another teacher and I both raised our heads up when we heard the man’s name – he had been a parish priest in my home parish where this other faculty member had also taught. We raised our heads because this priest had been in the parish leading the altar boy, sports, teen and music programs. He was there for many years and then suddenly, gone. No explanation – just gone. Now he was the new music director in the school where I was teaching. The other faculty member and I were called into the principal’s office right after the meeting – we were sat down and told that under no circumstances were we to say we knew this new music director. Much younger, more naive, we questioned once and were told we would be “let go” if anything came out about where he was from. Very strange, we both thought, but as the Church’s scandal issues had not been brought forth at that time and because we couldn’t imagine what would have elicited this preemptive reprimand, and valuing our jobs, we left well enough alone. Years later, that priest/music director’s name was in the Daily News as a priest who had been transferred from parish to parish because of child molestation accusation and charges. We were in disbelief.
But this is a M.O. the Catholic Church has used for years, time and time again, in many different parishes all over the world. It is inexcusable, deviant behavior on the part of people entrusted to lead believers, shaping their spiritual beings over lifetimes. It is an abuse of position, power and a deception, the scale of which can only be rivaled in suspense thrillers. Yet the Church not only continues to deny their actions, they vehemently chastise others. “Do as I say, not as I do”. How can even one parish priest, a pastor in charge of their parish make such a grievous decision to take in an accused/convicted child molester? Or should we look at this as “Hippie Jesus” would have – forgiveness, compassion, understanding, rehabilitation of a fallen man? Taking it one step further, if we choose to look at the actions of this pastor as compassionate, should we not, as the whole Church look at “marriage equality” with the same compassion? After all, how is it that a Church, with “Hippie Jesus” as its “front man”, if you will, can’t be all about love? That damn four letter word that has been getting men and women in trouble since Adam and Eve – LOVE!
Compassion for those who hide who they are for fear of familial shunning, societal scorn and religious ridicule – when will the Church recognize the fact that many men have grown up, victims of the Church’s scandalous behavior and have floundered as adults, some even choosing suicide as an option to relieve their pain? When will the Church who professes compassion, concern and love realize that many people in the LGBT community want to be good Catholics but have nowhere to turn within the Church only to leave an institution they grew up in and for some, choosing to end their own lives because the pain and shunning is too great? More and more lapsed Catholics lead to dwindling church attendance, less proselytizing on behalf of an ancient order and the contradiction just seems to create a wider and deeper chasm between the believers that are left.
Perhaps it is the word LOVE we should really invest our attention to – “walk a mile in another man’s shoes” – empathy for others brings about the highest level of love regardless of religious, political, economic, or lifestyle standing.
When push comes to shove, where do you stand on the “Empathy Scale”? Think about your faults and what criticism and shunning you may face as a result of your beliefs – think about being the minority when it comes to that position. Perhaps then, you can truly understand what being human is all about.
