Remembering my father on his birthday

Today, July 25th, is my father's birthday, as well as the birthday of my cousin and my good friend from childhood. Had my father still been alive, he would have been one hundred years old next year. But generally, I never think of people just in terms of their age. My father is not a centenarian in my memory, he is my ageless father--a kind man, a smart man, a civilized man, a WWII veteran, a good father and husband. He kept his faith alive throughout his entire life and nurtured it by reading spiritual literature. He was loyal to his birth family and loyal to his wife and children. He did what it took to keep us clothed and fed and safe. That was what men did in my father's generation. They took care of their wives and children. They took that responsibility seriously, and my father was no exception. He was about as far from a narcissist as you could get. I cannot for the life of me picture him running around with a smart phone in his hand, checking his email or Facebook every hour or so, or posting selfies. I can just picture his pithy comments about modern society's cell phone addiction. He would never have gone down that road. He would rather have picked up a good book and devoted his hard-earned free time to reading. His comments always made me think, and still do. I often wonder what my father (and mother) would have done in certain situations that I face. My mother always said 'pick your battles'. My father might have said 'why battle at all'. He preferred the peaceful approach if it could be had. I admire him for that. After all, he saw what war could do to people and I'm sure he saw things he would rather not have seen. His heart and soul remained intact, as did his gentle spirit. I miss him today and every day, as I miss my mother. They are forever a part of me.

Thirty years ago today

Today, July 25^th, would have been my father’s 97^th birthday had he lived. He passed away thirty years ago, in March 1985. There is not a day goes by that I don’t think about him or my mother, who passed away in March 2001. I always remember my father’s birthday now, because my cousin Karen is born on the same day; when we were children, it was the opposite way around—I remembered her birthday when my dad’s birthday rolled around.

Thirty years. The passage of time. I remember my father and my mother in ways I never knew existed when I was younger, because I could not imagine them gone at that time. My father was 67 years old when he died; that’s young. They are both a part of me; I need only scratch the surface of my heart, mind and soul and they are there, waiting to talk to me.

My parents married on July 9^th, 1955, sixty years ago. Their thirtieth wedding anniversary was within reach when my father passed away. It seems like a short amount of time for them to be married when I look back now (my husband and are nearing twenty-five years married), but they had married later in life and became parents in their late thirties. I was remembering one of the things we children used to do for my parents when their wedding anniversary came around each year. We would buy a box of M&M candies, vanilla ice cream and cantaloupe, cut the cantaloupe in half, scoop out the seeds, and fill each half with ice cream and M&Ms. Our anniversary gift to them, at least for three or four years. The last thing my father probably needed was to eat ice cream full of saturated fats given his health problems, but he ate it because we made it for them. That was the kind of dad he was. As I peruse his reading list and write about it for my blog, I feel my father’s presence in my life. I welcome those memories and feelings.

My mother and her generation of women

Today, September 22nd, is my mother’s birthday. Had she still been alive, she would have been 93 years old today. I wish she had made it to that age. Sadly, she passed away in March 2001. There is not a day goes by that I don’t think of her and miss her. She lived her life her way and did things her way (like Frank Sinatra whom she liked a lot) and while that could be amazingly frustrating at times, I think it’s what kept her going through the hard times in her life. And there were a number of them, as in the lives of most people. She was not an aggressive or self-seeking person, nor a particularly talkative one. You had to pull personal information out of her about her formative years, her childhood, and even young adulthood. What I did learn from her is that her mother (my grandmother) went blind, probably in her late sixties/early seventies. My best guess is that her mother had glaucoma that was either too far gone when it was discovered, or that there were not very good treatments for glaucoma at that time (1940s). I actually searched online for an answer to the latter and found it here: http://www.brightfocus.org/questions-answers/what-was-the-primary.html. I never had the chance to meet my grandmother since she died before I was born. My mother put her own life on hold for a number of years to take care of her mother, including postponing her ambition to go to college. She had to work and she did so, probably supporting the two of them on her salary as an assistant librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library. It was there that she met my father in the early 1950s, and they were married in 1955, a year after her mother died. Whenever my mother talked about her own mother, it was always in a kind way. I never heard my mother utter one unkind word about her mother or about having to take care of her. She did express regret at not being able to finish college; she started but then had to quit. Once married, she had three children and raising them became her life. And when my father became ill with cardiovascular disease, she took care of him too, without complaining about her lot in life. She just did it.

Her birthday today reminds me of all of the older women in my mother’s generation whom I’ve had the privilege and honor of knowing, and they are not few. Most of them are dead now (had they lived, most of them would be over 85 years old): the women in my childhood neighborhood; the mothers of my close friends; my aunts; some really wonderful teachers in grade school and high school; the women I got to know in the different jobs I’ve had through the years. They inspired me with their values, sense of responsibility, commitment, loyalty, and charitable behavior. They were women of faith, many of them. They credited their faith with getting them through the hard times. They also believed in the value of family. They had their imperfections and faults, but they tried to live up to their ideals. That’s all I could really ask of role models when I needed them. I only hope that I can be half as good as they were when it’s my turn to be a role model for young women starting out. I certainly don’t feel as though I’ve got it all together. But I do look to my faith to help me through the hard times. And I remember the supportive natures of most of the older women I’ve known. If I can hang onto my faith and be supportive of others when they need my support, I guess I’ll be alright. Plus I know I’ve got my mother in my corner, rooting for me.