family

I’ve Got BIG Plans for New Year’s Eve!

/ momshieb / 9 Comments

It’s almost here! Huzzah!!!

Woot!! Woot!! Woot!!!

It is almost time to mark ourselves “Safe from 2020”!!

Such a festive and exciting evening! I just love New Year, with all it’s hope and happiness and all that other upbeat crap.

Of course, this year we won’t be going out for the usual midnight revelry with friends and family. We won’t be crowding into the city streets to sing and clap and watch the fireworks.

Instead, we’ll have a Happy New Year’s Hunker.

I’m going to make egg rolls!

I’m also going to try out a few quainte olde traditions of the past to increase the fun. And to increase the chances that I’ll make it safely through 2021.

For example, I’ve been reading a lot about the fascinating ancient times when pagans across Europe celebrated the solstice to welcome in the new year with health and prosperity. I learned that they would bring evergreen boughs inside the house, light special candles and bang on drums at midnight to chase away the old luck and welcome in the new.

Fun!

Lot’s of cultures have special traditions about what to eat and drink on New Year’s Eve, what to wear, what to say, and even specifically how to act. All to insure good luck in the next twelve months. Really interesting stuff!

So, here is my plan for New Year’s Eve as we finally kick 2020 to the curb and welcome 2021 into our loving embrace. I share it with you because I love you.

Also because I hope if enough of us finally start cooperating on something, life will be way more fun next year.

I plan to get out of bed around 8 AM. I’ll take a shower, but this old body is literally that last thing I plan to clean that day. Did you know that some cultures believe that you shouldn’t wash or clean one single thing on New Year’s Eve? No cleaning allowed.

I just love this one.

In some other countries, including Italy, you’re supposed to organize everything ahead of time and throw out all of your old clutter. Been there, done that. Been organizing ever since the lockdown started last March. So I’ll jump right into the no cleaning part of the day.

First I’ll grab some onions from my kitchen and tie them together with red yarn. Next I will hang them on my front door. Because Greek tradition tells me that I should.

Next I will venture outside to the woods. There I will gather an armload of evergreen boughs. This will be easy. The winter of 2020 has already given us three wind storms, so all I have to do is pick up some of the branches lying around.

Back inside the house, I’ll ignore all the dropped pine needles (no cleaning, remember?!) and arrange everything in a basket. I’ll put out three white candles, but I won’t light them until the sun goes down.

When that is done, I’ll grab a bundle of sage, or sweetgrass (what the heck is that, anyway?), or pine needles. I’ll light them on fire, blow out the flame and let the whole thing smoke. This is so I can “smudge” the house and get rid of any bad luck.

(Um….maybe someone should have suggested this last May???)

At last, it will be time to think about food.

Yes, I know. Some of us are always thinking about food. Move on.

In addition to my eggrolls, Paul and I will be dining on lentils, because they are shaped like coins. Really, teeny weeny coins, but still. Prosperity. We will also eat black eyed peas and collard greens, because eating these traditional foods will also bring prosperity. I don’t actually see the connection between black eyes and prosperity, but I’m not taking any chances.

This is where things get really fun.

Did you know that in Italy it is customary to wear red underwear on New Year’s Eve? I have no idea how this brings good luck, but depending on the underwear and age of the wearer, I can see where it might lead.

At any rate, after enjoying our prosperity veggies, Paul and I will change into our red flannel long johns and settle down to enjoy some delicious herring while snuggling under a lovely fur. (Said fur is supposed to be a coat, but I don’t have a fur coat. I’m hoping that having our big dogs on our laps will count for this one.)

As midnight approaches, we will light the three white candles that are arranged around the basket of pine boughs. We will chant something along the lines of

“Begone olde year, you stinking crone! We’re sick of hunkering alone. Welcome, New Maid, to set us free of masks and shots! So mote it be.”

I took some liberties with the chant, but you get the general idea, right?

Next it will be time to open up the front door and all the windows to let out the bad luck and welcome in the new.

(This is probably where the fur comes in handy.)

When all the luck has changed, and the house is down to about 4 degrees, we’ll eat the last bite of herring and move right onto dessert. It’s a good thing Paul doesn’t like lentils, collard greens or herring because he’ll have plenty of room to indulge in luck enhancing fried dough in various shapes and sizes and stuffed with various fillings. M’hm.

I suspect that the post holiday dieting tradition may have started here.

And…..as the moment finally arrives…..as the countdown at last counts down, we will ring bells, bang on pots and pans, kiss each other with love and joy and eat exactly twelve green grapes.

We will lean out the open windows, and yell into the cold night air.

“Good riddance, 2020!!! And don’t come back!!!”

We will close all the windows, turn up the heat, blow out the candles and have one last eggroll before bed.

And in the morning, as prescribed by Irish tradition, the first person to cross our threshold will be a tall, dark, handsome man. Good thing our daughter didn’t marry a redhead.

And it will be off to 2021, which we are absolutely sure will be a year of health, happiness, weddings, parties, hugs, kisses, singing, birthday parties and visible smiles.

Happy New Year, friends!

I Refuse to Cancel Christmas!

/ momshieb / 17 Comments

One tiny microscopic virus is not going to rob me of the joy of Christmas. No how, no way. I know my rights as an American.

I refuse to skip my Christmas festivities.

But you know what?

I am going to postpone them.

My husband and I aren’t putting up a tree this year. Without any family or friends around to see them, why drag the boxes of ornaments out of the attic? Why move the furniture and untangle the lights? Everything can just stay all snug in the attic for now.

Instead of hanging lights and baking cookies, this year I’m spending my time planning. I’m making lists of names, designing decorations, planning a menu.

Because next summer, I am going to throw the biggest freakin’ party in the history of parties. Not since Bilbo Baggins threw his big eleventy-first birthday party has there been such an outrageously festive event.

I plan to have this event somewhere outdoors, just so everyone can fit. But there will be an indoor venue there, too, because it’s been way too long since we’ve been able to gather indoors and be all squashed together.

My giant celebration will include the introduction of my newest grandchild, little Max, because so many of our family and friends have yet to meet him. It will also be a birthday party, because he’ll have turned one year old in April. And while we’re giving gifts and eating cake, we’ll also celebrate the birthdays of Max’s older siblings, his parents, his grandfathers and grandmothers and all of his aunts and uncles.

The day will include a fabulous wedding, too, since my son and his partner had to postpone their plans for last August. We’ll have tons of champagne, piles of appetizers and live music by every band we haven’t been able to see in the past year. There’ll be toasts, and dancing and reunions of old friends along with the exchanging of vows.

The main food of the day will be turkey with all the trimmings. I mean the whole shebang; stuffing, dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans and squash and fifteen kinds of pie. I can hardly wait to start cooking!

To set the mood for the day, there will be lots of sparkling decorations all over the venue. We’ll choose a place with some nice big pine trees, and we’ll wrap some of them in colored lights and hang red, green and gold balls on them. Maybe everyone will bring a gift to swap!!!

Every fifteen minutes, a bell will ring, and everyone will hug the person next to them. The hugs will be long and fervent and filled with affection and joy. People will kiss each other on the cheeks, or even on the lips, if you can imagine such a thing. There will be a lot of shouting and laughing while large groups of guests stand less than two feet from each other.

At least ten times during the party, everyone will throw an arm around someone’s shoulder while we all sing loudly. This will happen mostly in the indoor part of the event space, of course, so that we can achieve maximum mingling of breath.

And just to make the party a truly exciting and unique event, I’m going to ask everyone who attends to wear a costume and carry around a plastic pumpkin! Oooh, I have a great idea…..I’ll give out little candy bars as wedding favors!

At midnight, fireworks will be sent into the night sky and everyone will clap, cheer, wave various and sundry flags and shout “Happy New World!”

Naturally, before the party winds down near dawn, everyone will go out into the grassy field next to the giant dance floor/stage. As the sun rises, all of the kids will hunt for colored eggs and hidden candy. Then we’ll all have a big brunch on the lawn.

I can’t wait.

I’m thinking of calling it “Postpone-a-palooza.”

You want to come?

Wishing You the Happiest Possible Thanksgiving

/ momshieb / 4 Comments

Well, it won’t be our usual Thanksgiving this year, that’s for damn sure. We won’t gather in our house, surrounded by 30 or 35 of our favorite relatives and friends. There won’t be a 25 pound turkey with ten different side dishes. I am not anticipating 7 pies and a cake, plus boxes of chocolates, two delicious vegan appetizers and three kinds of bread.

It won’t be a full day of beloved faces moving in and out of our kitchen. We won’t be celebrating for two full days.

But.

Here we are.

It’s Thanksgiving 2020.

The election is (sort of) over. The weather is turning (sort of) colder. And the damned Coronavirus is raging across the globe.

We are all tired. We are sick to death of “social distancing”. We are angry. We are sad. We are lonely.

We want to gather our children, our siblings and parents and friends and uncles and aunts and cousins and everyone. We want to hold them all against our hearts and tell them that we are so very grateful to have them in our lives. We want to feed them. We want to argue over football and politics and favorite pies. We want to laugh at the whipped cream on our nephew’s nose.

But this is 2020.

Instead of cooking for 35 this year, I’ll be celebrating the holiday with my Mom, my younger sister and my mother’s home health aide.

My Mom is 90. She is physically more frail than I ever thought I’d see. She has dementia, and is hanging on desperately to her most beloved memories. Time with her is a sorrow and a joy all rolled into one. Her children feel every moment ticking away. And we feel the pull of her happy past, tugging at our hearts as we think of all of the holidays past.

My sister is my closest woman friend. She is my anchor. My rudder. She keeps me balanced and whole. She makes me laugh out loud. She takes me on vacation, shares her memories with me, pushes me to look outside of my own preconceptions.

And Mom’s health aide, Lynn, is a woman I am so blessed to have met. She is intelligent, kind, thoughtful, confident, fun. My Mother loves and respects her in a way that is a gift to me. This new friend brings a unique perspective to our family. She has only known Mom as the elderly, fragile, but still feisty woman that she is now. She is able to embrace and accept Mom for all of her strengths.

So.

This Thanksgiving will, for me, be more about gratitude than any that has come before it.

I will miss my children this holiday. I will miss my grandchildren. I will miss the crazy cooking frenzy that usually precedes the day and I will surely miss the crowd of well-loved faces around my table.

But I will be so grateful this year. I will be so grateful that my sons will share a meal with each other. That my daughter and her family will celebrate together and will all be healthy. I will be so happy that my husband will be at their table for the holiday.

Mostly, I will be grateful that my family is still safe and healthy. I will be eternally grateful to still have my Mom in my life, and to be able to make her famous stuffing in her kitchen. I’ll be grateful to have my sister at the table, and to be able to put on party hats and sing her “Happy Birthday”.

I’ll be so very grateful to know Lynn, to have her on our team, to know that Mom trusts her and loves her.

So.

Happy, sad, gentle and lonely Thanksgiving to everyone. This is one year in a century. It is one for the history books.

It can be our saddest.

Or it can be out most grateful.

I’m working hard to embrace the latter.

“Making Memories”

/ momshieb / 5 Comments

When I was a little girl, my Nana was often a part of our holiday celebrations. She sometimes came with us on vacations, or on the daytime adventures that my Dad arranged to keep us all entertained.

Nana had a way of laughing even when things went wrong. I have a vivid memory of her hiking with all six of us kids and my parents through “The Flume” in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I can hear her laughing as a sudden storm overtook us. We were suddenly drenched and cold, and none of us was happy.

“We’re making memories!” Nana called out in her laughing voice as we slogged our way through the dripping path. And some 50 years later, I still recall that memory with a smile.

I always hoped, when I was the mom of young children, that we were making happy memories together. I hoped that our holidays made memories, even when we discovered that mice had nested in our Christmas decorations. I wanted my kids to grow up with happy memories, funny memories, memorable memories. Even when it snowed on our camping trips or when we all had strep for Christmas.

Tonight is Halloween of 2020. In the face of the terrible Covid pandemic, few people are going door to door to Trick or Treat. Our neighborhood is silent and empty of kids. My grandchildren won’t be going out for candy.

It is a sad reminder that life is nothing like what we want it to be this year.

But we dressed up anyway, Paul and I, in costumes meant to make us look like our dogs. We pinned on our false ears and tails, rubbed make-up on our noses, and put on the dogs’ collars.

I made a guacamole witch and a “Ghosts in the Graveyard” dessert.

We went to our daughter’s house, where she and her three kids were in costume and the house was decorated with light up spiders and glow in the dark ghosts.

We had a supper of “Mummy dogs” and “Monster pizza” and then the kids searched the house for hidden candy.

There was no traditional “Trick or Treat”. There were no neighbors or friends or other kids wandering with glow sticks. It was nothing like Halloween is supposed to be.

But as Paul and I were getting ready to say good night and head back home, my three-year-old grandson Johnny threw his arms around my neck and asked breathlessly, “Nonni, wasn’t this the best Halloween ever?”

And you know what? It really was.

It was the best because Johnny’s parents made memories for their kids. And those memories will last a lifetime.

Happy Halloween 2020.

It’s All About Perspective

/ momshieb / 7 Comments

One of my greatest joys as a mother has been the way that I am constantly learning from my children.

As adults, my children have helped me to broaden my views in so many ways. They’ve challenged me to look beyond my own “echo chamber” and to recognize the validity of other viewpoints.

One of my sons, in particular, has been consistent in his gentle reminders to take other people’s perspectives into account when I form my many opinions. Whether the topic is politics or family dynamics, he has reminded me more than once that my idea of the facts is only my own personal perspective. The other person’s views are based on the way that they experienced the same events; their perspective is valid, so their opinions are valid.

While these ideas have made me uncomfortable more than once, and annoyed quite a few times, I treasure their honesty. I treasure the fact that they have helped me to keep my mind at least a little bit open as I move through this complex life.

Tonight I am thinking of that son. He is on my mind, and in my heart, because thirty years ago tonight, I was working very hard to bring him into this world.

I’m thinking about his birthday from the perspective of a mother. At the same time, I know that he is experiencing the same day from the perspective of a young man.

I think about the night of his birth. I think of my fear that I wouldn’t be able to deliver him safely. I think about my pain, and my hopes and the overwhelming love that I felt for him before he had ever drawn a breath.

For me, this night is a time to reflect on the sweet, careful, thoughtful little boy who filled my heart with his tenderness. I think back on his first smiles, his first steps, his raspy little voice and his wide green eyes. I remember, as if it had been only yesterday, how his absolute beauty took my breath away.

I remember the rigid and righteous boy who saw the world in black and white. The stubborn child who was the only one of my three with enough dug in determination to wait out any mother’s ultimatum.

For me, this birthday is a reminder of all of his birthdays; every party, every game, every sleepover with the boys in the backyard.

Mostly, this birthday is my celebration of the kind, smart, articulate man that grew out of that night of labor. This is my sending up of gratitude to the heavens for having put our son in our lives.

But perspective is everything.

I am well aware of the fact that while I remember the feeling of my baby in my arms, my son is looking back on the first part of his life. I am aware that this birthday is mostly likely a look back, an assessment, and a kind of measuring of where he has come in life thus far.

I suspect that this birthday is, for him, equal parts happy memory and sadness at lost opportunities. I suspect that it is a time to regroup and plan the next steps on his journey.

Perspective is everything.

Tonight I sit on my deck, looking at the darkening sky. I think about how much my love for my children has grown with every passing year. I wish that somehow I could show my son just how much I still love him, and how grateful I am for him.

Happy Birthday, honey.

I love you more than my next breath.

The Passing Years, and How to Count Them

/ momshieb / 9 Comments

My family is enormously lucky because we live in a place that is green, and beautiful. Our house is surrounded by trees.

We’ve been in this house for 30 years. That seems so hard to believe. My husband Paul and I raised our three kids here. We’ve had two cats and five dogs at different times in this house.

Parts of the yard have been, at various times over the years, a baseball diamond, a hockey rink, a vegetable garden, a flower bed, a strawberry patch and a place to put the swings.

Now the kids are all grown up and on their own, and it’s time for us to start looking forward. In another ten or so years, we plan to sell this house and move someplace with less upkeep. It’s time.

With that thought in mind, we’re hiring someone to help clean up this huge yard and make things look neater and less overgrown. I have mixed feelings about it, isn’t that weird?

I walk around and I look at what is now a big rock buried in raspberry and blackberry vines. I remember thirty years ago, when that was the site of my first little garden. I planted “hens and chicks” and other succulents, thinking it would be a rock garden. I didn’t anticipate the encroachment of the woods. It didn’t occur to me that Mother Nature had her own plans.

The arborist is going to take down a tall, slender oak tree near our driveway. It is competing with other trees for sunlight and is now leaning toward our deck. It shades an entire section of lawn. Everything will look more open, more sunny, when it is gone.

But I remember one warm summer morning when that oak was about my height. I laid on the grass with our new puppy in my arms and looked at the sky through its leaves. That puppy is long gone now, crossed over the rainbow bridge in his old age. I look at that oak tree, and I remember his soft ears and his puppy smell. I don’t really want the tree to go. But it’s time.

There is a little grove of baby white pines that need to be taken out, too. They stand together, like a little family that has silently stepped out of the forest and into our yard. They silently watch the grass where my kids used to play “desert land.” They need to come down, but I will miss them.

I can count the passage of our family’s years by looking at the tree stumps that now stand in the yard. There’s the stump of a tree that once held a toddler’s swing. There is the stump of a pine that used to guard a squirrel nest.

Time passes, and we know we are aging. My mirror and my bones tell me that!

But I forget sometimes that this house and this yard are aging, too. It will be good to have it cleaned up, and to have the woods retreat back to where they belong.

Still, there is a little piece of me that wishes for something else. Perhaps it would be magic, I think, if we simply moved away and let the forest gently and slowly enfold the house where our children grew up. Let her cover it up and keep it safe, like a tender memory that can only be revisited in dreams.

Image: “Pine Tree and others” by scottc320 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Dad Made Things

/ momshieb / 11 Comments

My Dad was a pretty typical father of the 50s, 60s and beyond. He went to work while Mom stayed at home with the six kids. He earned the money. He was the provider.

Dad came home every evening right around 6pm. Dinner was just about ready, and we were around the table. A drink was made, Dad took a sip, then settled down for dinner with the brood.

He was a good provider. He was a breadwinner.

But that isn’t what I remember tonight, as I think about Father’s Day and what my Dad meant to me.

What I remember about my Dad was that he made things.

Just for fun, just for a sense of creativity, my Dad made things.

When I was a very little girl, he made pancakes. He did it every Saturday morning while encouraging my Mom to sleep in a bit. Dad would get up with all of us, and he’d make batch after batch of pancakes. We’d eat them up while watching “The Little Rascals” on tv.

As I got older, Dad made things like shelves, and picture frames and other small wooden items. On the weekend, Dad would go down to his workshop in the garage, where he’d make step-stools and Confirmation Crosses and bookshelves.

After his retirement, Dad made more decorative items, just for fun. My parents had a beautiful in-ground pool, and Dad made planters for the flowers that Mom placed around the patio.

When my family was young, and settling into our first and only home, Dad helped my husband to build a shed to store the garden tools.

Dad isn’t here with us anymore. He went on to the next step back in 2008.

But tonight, as we prepare to celebrate Father’s Day without being able to hug our kids, I am thinking of my Dad and of his legacy of creation.

I’m thinking a lot about the fact that although I am his daughter, I don’t really take after my Dad. I don’t know how to hammer a nail or saw a board or make a shed. I’m not good at math, the way that he was. I don’t have Dad’s sense of detail and his ability to create logical, sequential plans. That skill is shared by my sister, but not by me.

That thought made me a little bit sad today.

Then I took a walk around my garden. And I thought a bit.

Maybe I’m stretching it, maybe I’m making it up, but it seems to me that in a different sense, I do share Dad’s ability to “make things.”

I have made a garden out of a yard that was once completely wild. Slowly, step by step, blossom by blossom, I have turned my wild property into a pretty, fragrant, welcoming space.

Making something out of nothing is perhaps a skill, or a desire, that I do share with my Dad.

Maybe the bread that I make from my own sourdough starter is a way for me to create something, too.

What I know is that I miss my Dad. I miss his smile, his humor, his hugs. I even miss his rigid sense of right and wrong. I miss his love. I miss the things that he made out of nothing.

So tomorrow morning I will walk in my garden. I’ll salute my Dad as I admire the coreopsis growing in the goose planter that he built. I’ll take a lawn chair out of the shed that he built in our yard.

And I’ll water the wild roses and irises and herbs that I have planted here in what was once a piece of woodland.

I’ll think of my Dad and I’ll treasure the small ways in which I am like him.

Lily of the Valley

/ momshieb / 17 Comments

When I was about 8 years old, I discovered the huge swath of lily-of-the-valley. They were growing all along the driveway at my grandparent’s house.

The house was in a relatively urban town just outside of Boston. As I look back at it now, from the vantage point of my current rural life, it seems like a house in a big city.

But it was the home that my grandparents bought after leaving the inner city life of Boston during the Great Depression and the Second World War. For them, as immigrants from Sicily in the days of the Industrial Revolution, this house was like paradise. It had a porch, a yard, and even a garage.

I remember that the right side of the house, the side away from the driveway, had a fence to separate it from the neighbor’s. I remember that fence because it was lined with a row of lovely roses, each one carefully pruned and shaped, each a different shade of red or pink. They were gorgeous, all of them, and my grandfather was so proud of them. His bride, my Nana, was named Rose, and he grew them to show her his love.

But even more than the roses, I remember the blossoms that grew along the neglected driveway on the other side of the house. It was a long, narrow path, marking the border between the houses on that suburban street. My grandparents’ side of the drive was line with huge, towering, pines. They were spaced about 20 feet apart, and each had a strong, straight trunk. I thought of them as guardians when I was a child. I felt that each one watched over our Nana and Grampa and the home that held our family’s heart.

I loved those big trees.

And then one day, when I was about 9 or 10 years old, I wandered out to where the trees grew. It must have been early May. I found thousands and thousands of tiny, perfect, beautiful white blossoms, each one dangling along a thin green thread.

The smell of them was intoxicating. I had never in my life seen or smelled or even imagined anything so perfect. I remember that I picked one delicate stem, so carefully, and ran inside to my Nana.

“Nana! What is this? Where did it come from??”

She told me that it was called “Lily-of-the-valley” and that someone had planted a few of them at the edge of the driveway before she and Grampa had bought the house. She explained that they were a kind of “wild flower” and that they’d spread along the entire length of the drive, making a sweet carpet under those huge pines.

I was amazed, enchanted, captivated. “Lily-of-the-valley” was such a magical name! But where was the valley? I could only see the thin strip of land along the driveway. I saw no valley.

But I imagined one.

I created an imaginary valley full of grass and wildflowers and those gloriously fragrant bells of lilly.

For the next decade, at least, I went back to revel in the glorious magic of those little blossoms. I played along the drive when I was a girl. I imagined tiny fairies, dressed in silver gossamer, dancing under the lilies. As I got older, I’d pick a bouquet of those fragrant blooms, knowing that their magic was fleeting.

I remember holding my baby girl, my first born child, and showing her the rows and rows of beautiful lily-of-the-valley.

And when my Nana died, at the accomplished age of 99, I went to her house and I dug up some of those tender flowers. I brought them to my house, in a more rural part of Massachusetts, and I put those ten little shoots into the ground.

Flowers can be a legacy. These are surely a reminder and a marker of my Nana and her life.

My garden is now full of lily-of-the-valley. They burst into bloom at the same time as our lilacs, filling the air around our house with pure heaven.

And every time I walk along my walkway, I think of Nana. I think of those big pines, and of the fairies that I imagined making tiny houses under the arching stems of those lily-of-the-valley.

Yesterday I brought some shoots of those glorious flowers to my daughter, in the new home that she has made for her young family.

I love knowing that my Nana’s love, and her grace, and her natural strength and beauty, will pass through me to my daughter, and hopefully then to hers.

I lie in my bed tonight, breathing deeply, taking in the perfume of those magical blooms.

Life goes on, and on and never stops.

The lily-of-the-valley is my proof.

I Still Love You, My Grown Children

/ momshieb / 9 Comments


It’s the night before Easter. I know, we aren’t exactly practicing Christians. We haven’t followed the whole Catholic thing for decades.

But this is the night before a holiday. It’s the night when I used to put out the pretty eggs that you all had colored the day before. I’d get the baskets ready, adding the eggs, and the jelly beans and the chocolate bunnies. Dad would make a huge arrow out of candy on the floor of the hallway, as if you didn’t know that you should come into the living room to find your treats.

He and I would spend an hour hiding chocolate eggs and jelly beans all around the house. In the morning, you three would get up, all excited. You’d find your baskets and hunt for candy. There would be laughs as one of you located a chocolate egg in a shoe or inside of a Kleenex box.

Breakfast would consist of candy, hard boiled colored eggs and a slice of cassatta, in keeping with our Sicilian tradition.

When you were little ones, we’d go to Grandma and Grampa’s house for a dinner of ham, and pasta and more candy. The cousins would all run around, the aunts and uncles would talk, laugh, argue about politics and drink wine.

I miss all of that.

I miss the morning hugs. The sweet pajama clad three of you with your baskets in your hands. I miss the big dinner.

Mostly I miss the feeling of joy and celebration.

Spring is the idea of renewal, rebirth, returned hope. Spring is the time of flowers and trees bursting into life. It’s when our gardens are still dreams and our thoughts are all about warm beach days and barbecues with friends.

Spring lets us ignore the truth of our lives for a bit. Easter is the definition of that forward looking hope.

This spring is so different, though. This Easter feels like something unknown.

We don’t know when or if there will be a rebirth. We are beginning to wonder if the true rebirth will come without humans. Will there be lambs, and chicks and baby birds and buds on trees, but no humans anywhere to be found?

We don’t know. We are living our lives in isolation now. Living in fear of an enemy we cannot see.

But it’s the night before Easter. My dear children, my adult children, I am sitting here tonight thinking about those Easter Baskets, and that candy and those hopeful springs.

I miss you.

I wish that you were here for some eggs and some cassatta. I wish that you were here for some ham, and some potatoes. And for some hugs and some laughs.

I love you all just as much as I did on your very first Easters.

Easter is about hope and renewal. It’s about a better future.

I miss you.

Happy spring. Happy renewal. Happy hope, my dears.

I still love you so.

Post-Apocalypse Thoughts

/ momshieb / 13 Comments

From a time before COVID-19

The economic crash of 2008 hit my small rural community pretty hard. By the Spring of 2009, our neighborhood held as many empty homes as full ones. As the summer came on, even more homes were foreclosed on or simply abandoned.

The woods behind our house began to seem wilder as the humans moved away, and there were entire days when I never heard a sound other than the calling of jays and the hammering of woodpeckers.

During those bleak months, I used to walk my dogs around the block, passing one empty house after another. Sometimes I’d look at the plants growing along the roadside, or at the ducks in the pond across the street, and I’d let my mind wander.

“What if something really terrible happened to the world, and hardly anyone was left?” I’d think. “Could I manage to feed my family with dandelion greens and fiddleheads? Could we learn how to trap birds, or kill ducks or turkeys for food?”

I always had a slightly romantic view of how things would be, of course, because this was just a daydream. All of my grown kids would somehow manage to make their way home, and we’d combine our skills and strengths to build a big garden in our yard. Maybe we’d raise chickens.

I was sure that I’d come through the trauma as a stoic, cheerful, no-nonsense kind of Mamma. I’d clean the fish and make the dinners and be happy to use the bit of power we could get from our solar generator to keep everything clean.

There was a gauzy haze over this dream, as I walked around the quiet streets.

I never thought anything would actually happen.

Now, in the midst of the pandemic of 2020, as we sit in isolation from each other and wonder what in the world will happen next, the reality of a global disaster seems far less romantic.

After about a month of worsening news and scarier headlines, I have come to an interesting conclusion.

I don’t want to forage for edible weeds in the woods. I don’t want to fight my neighbors for toilet paper or soap or cans of tomatoes.

The reality is that not only can my adult sons not move here with their partners, we can’t even get together to share a meal right now.

My daughter and her family live a mere half a mile away across those fertile woods. I’ve been caring for her children every work day for five years. But now, in the age of Covid19, we can’t be together at all. I haven’t seen them since the day that schools were closed, almost three weeks ago.

And I don’t know when I’ll see them again.

We are staying apart, staying away from all other humans, because my daughter is due any day to give birth to her third child. If I leave my house to go to the grocery store, there is a risk that I might bring the virus back and could contaminate Kate and her children.

Because she sees her doctor at our local hospital once a week now, she is afraid that she might contaminate her father and I. So we simply stay apart. In our own little self-isolation pockets.

We’re all living in fear. And we’re all dealing with a total lack of control. Nobody on this entire earth knows what is coming next. Will the virus sputter out in the summer? Will it roar back in the fall? Will a vaccine be found, or a treatment?

Or will millions die? Will the economy of the world totally collapse, based as it is on a continuing flow of commerce?

Will schools ever reopen? Will governments implode into chaos? The truth is, we just don’t know.

Once, a few short years ago, those thoughts were just a way to pass the time as the dogs sniffed the fallen leaves.

Now they are right in front of me. And I am discovering that I am not the hearty pioneer woman I always imagined I’d be. Instead, I’m just another scared and overwhelmed old woman who desperately misses the touch of her children and grandchildren, and who has no desire to harvest cattails for dinner.