Category Archives: My Memoirs

Beddy-Bye

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At four-thirty sharp every morning, my eyes fly open, I‘m wide awake. This morning I look over at the digital clock that is large and glowing, and it is blinking 12:00. Oh, oh, it seems as if the power went out again. We must have had another electrical thunderstorm. Wonder, what time it is? I make a bet with myself that it is four-thirty in the morning.

I blindly make my way over to the bathroom and flip the light quickly on and off, long enough to see the alarm clock. It has a backup battery. I win or lose, depending on whether I’m feeling optimistic or pessimistic at any given moment. It is indeed 4:30 am. My inner clock has wakened me up at 4:30 am.

This had happened to me every night since August 23, 1986, when my mother passed away from a complete coronary and respiratory arrest. On that particular night, I had wakened up from a sound sleep at 4:30 am and knew my mother passed.

At five am the aide, Doris, who was staying with my mother during the week, called to let me know that my mother had died. The ambulance arrived at the house to take her to the hospital, but of course, I was too late.

Doris, the aide, thought my mother’s refusal to have the air conditioner on or any of the windows open had precipitated her death. It was the hottest August 23rd in the recorded weather history of NJ up to this time. I had a new air conditioner put in my mother’s room, early in the spring. She had mid-stage dementia. And she was sometimes argumentative and combative.

Her disease had caused a radical change in her personality. Formerly a shy and quiet woman that spent her time saying the rosary, reading from her prayer book, and for excitement, she read the Reader’s Digest.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention she was completely blind for the past ten years from glaucoma. She became a paranoid and terrified woman who called me ten times a day to tell me someone was breaking into the house to steal her money, or that someone was hiding behind the living room chair, and smoking pot.

Before I realized what was going on with her, I used to sneak over to her house and peak in the living window to see if someone was hiding behind the rocking chair in the living room. Of course, there never was. Sometimes she called the police. And then they would call me. And I would assure them that she was somewhat senile, and I would be over shortly to check on her. 

My mother suffered these delusions for three years before I was able to get her to agree to go to a psychiatrist who specialized in sedating senile patients into submission, or as in her case, sleeping away the rest of her life. Subdued.

But that day, she had refused to take the sedative and was acting delusional and stubborn. There wasn’t much left of her. But what was there was stubborn when she wanted to be.

I waited until seven in the morning to call the rest of my family, and they were all upset that I hadn’t called them earlier, as if it would have made any difference. She was buried four days later at Calvary Cemetery, next to my dad, who had passed away from lung cancer eight months earlier, after a short battle of eight months, the longest months of my life.

The day is quite long when you wake up at 4:30 every morning.  Sometimes the days seem to run one into the other. This day would be no different. I was exhausted when I fell into bed, into a deep sleep, at ten pm. A little tomato juice and Temazepam paved the way for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

It was Sunday night, I had a full week ahead of me, but thanks to Mama’s little helper, I fell asleep ten minutes after my head hit the pillow, and didn’t wake up until eight-thirty the following morning. I woke up slowly. The room seemed different somehow, oh I realized it was daylight and not the usual pitch dark I wake up to. I had slept the entire night. I thought this is going to be a good week.

Every Dog Has His Day

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I open my eyes and look at my clock. As usual, I wake up five minutes before the alarm goes off. It’s a weird and really useless superpower, but it seems to be the only one I possess. If I had a choice, I would choose to be able to become invisible at will.

There are quite a few reasons why I would like to claim this power. At school, it would be especially useful. I could disappear when I was called on in class when I didn’t know the answer.

I could listen in on conversations that I was not supposed to hear. For instance, I could listen in when Sister Joseph Catherine and Sister Saint George, the other fifth-grade teacher, are planning on giving us a pop quiz. I’d know exactly what to study and not get the second-lowest grade in the class in Math. Robin Schultz is always last.

Although I don’t know if invisibility would help, sometimes it seems no matter how hard I study, my mind goes completely blank when I take a test. As soon as sister says, get out a piece of paper for a pop quiz. It is as if my mind is a chalkboard that someone has hastily erased. I can almost see what is written there, but it’s blurry.

As long as I’ve mentioned Robin Schultz, I might as well tell you how he is my arch-enemy. I don’t know why he hates me so much, but it seems his sole purpose is to make my life a misery in school.

As if I don’t have enough reasons to hate it. What with Sister Joseph Catherine using me as her slave and telling me twenty times a day how she doesn’t understand why I am so stupid and not as smart as my sister, Karen?

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention, I have a twin sister, not the cool kind that looks just like me and is your best friend, but the fraternal kind, who has a million friends, never studies, and gets straight A’s. We are in the same classroom and have been since first grade. She pretends that she doesn’t know me. Since, for some reason, she thinks I am weird.

Anyway, getting back to Robin Schultz, he takes every opportunity to get me in trouble or make fun of me when there are a lot of other kids around. Do you think he would have some empathy for me since we are the shortest kids in the class?

Maybe you know what that’s like? When they take the class picture, I always have to stand in the front. People think I’m younger than I am and talk to me like I am a baby. Even my mother does that sometimes. One day I ask her if I can walk to the Cherry Hill Mall with my best friend, Joanie.

She said, “No, you aren’t old enough.” But she lets my sister Karen go there all the time. The last time I said,” Why can Karen walk there, but I can’t?” Well, Susie, Karen is older.” But she’s my twin. And Karen is only seven minutes older for crying out loud. It’s ridiculous!

Anyway,  Robin Schultz is the bane of my existence. Just yesterday, I was called up to the front of the class to do a math problem on the blackboard. We’re studying adding, subtracting, and dividing fractions. I can never remember the common denominator.

I’m terrified of having to stand in front of the other kids in class. I’m afraid everyone will laugh at me, or I won’t know the answer. And then my whole class will think I’m stupid, just like Sister Joseph Catherine is always telling me. Whenever we are doing math problems on the board, I keep my head down behind my book, hoping that I won’t get called on. But I always do. 

So, anyway yesterday, Sister calls on me, and as I’m walking up to the board, Robin Schulz sticks his foot out. And then I trip and almost fall on top of Thomas Beck, who I have a secret crush on. Everybody starts laughing, and my face gets all red, and that makes them all laugh even harder. Even my friend Irene is laughing.

Sister screeches at the class,” That’s enough. Quiet down. Susan, get busy doing that problem!”

At that moment, I made a vow to myself that I would seek vengeance on Robin Schultz. He has had his last laugh at my expense. That night I can hardly sleep because I decide that tomorrow, I am going to get him and get him good.

The next day, right before the lunch bell rings, I raise my hand and ask, “Sister, can I go to the ladies’ room?”

She says,” Well, Miss Carberry, can’t you wait until you get home?”

“No sister, it’s an emergency, I can’t wait.”

She took this statement seriously because the last time I told her the same thing, she had said, “Well, you are just going to have to wait until you get home, missy!” But I couldn’t wait, and I wet my pants while I was in line waiting to go home for lunch.

After my sister excused me, I ran out of the classroom, and instead of going to the bathroom, I ran out the emergency door and took the shortcut home through Lombardi’s backyard.

Before I had left for school that morning, I tied a jump rope to a stake in Lombardi’s front yard next to their sidewalk across from the big Maple tree. I hid behind the tree with the rope clasped tightly in my hands. Robin lives on my street, about a block and a half away from my house. I know he’ll be passing by soon.

And just at that moment, I see him walking quickly in my direction, then he starts running. I quickly pull the rope as hard as I can. Down he goes, and he hits hard, a big whoosh of air came out of him when he hits the ground. I see tears erupt from his eyes, and his face becomes as red as a beet.

At that moment, I feel a mixture of joy and pity for him. I run over to him, and say,” Well Robin, how does it feel to be on the receiving end of a mean prank, not so funny is it?”

He probably would have gotten up at that moment and punched me if it wasn’t for the fact that the wind was knocked out of him. He slowly and deliberately says, “I’m going to annihilate you.”

“No, no, you’re not Robin, not today, and not ever again. Because if you do, I’m going to tell everybody in the whole class, maybe everybody in the whole school, how you cried like a baby. And the only person you can ever beat in a fight is the smallest girl in class!” And that is how I used my intelligence to beat Robin Schultz—the bully who terrorized and made me feel miserable for five years of school.

I know now that bullies are cowards since the only people they pick on are younger or smaller or afraid to stick up for themselves. If I ever see anyone bully, I tell them to stop. If that doesn’t work, I’ll tell a teacher or my Mom what is happening. No one has the right to bully or make fun of another person for any reason. Everyone has the right to be treated with respect and dignity.

For The Love Of All Things Feathered and Furred

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One of the enduring facts of my lifetime has been that I have loved animals. And my life has been enriched by their presence and their companionship, their unquestioning love, and acceptance.

As a young child, I made it my business to get to know all the cats and dogs in my neighborhood. I knew their names and would visit them whenever possible. My favorite cat was a stray I called Strottles, he was a large orange and white cat who came when I called. He seemed to sense that I needed him and would stay by my side for as long as I needed him too.

My father loved dogs. In particular, he liked Cocker Spaniels. And we owned several during the years that I was growing up. The first dog I recall name was Nomie. My father believed that a dog should be free to roam wherever he or she wanted to go. I loved Nomie very much and spent a great deal of time petting her and playing outside with her. I was never alone while Nomie was in my presence.

Unfortunately, because of my father’s belief that dogs should be able to run free and not be fixed. As a result, Nomie became pregnant. After her puppies were born, she became ill. My father took her to the vet, and he said she had developed “milk fever.” I don’t know if she had died, or she had to be put down. I was devastated when she died. And then my father found a home for the puppies she had birthed. I had become attached to them. But of course, even if Nomie had survived, we would not have kept the puppies. But, no one had told me that. So, when Nomie died, the puppies were given away, and I felt a loss.

We didn’t get another dog until I was about ten or eleven years old. His name was Andy he was a mutt with some Cocker Spaniel in him. But it was clear from day one that he was my father’s dog. Andy’s day didn’t begin until my father was in sight. He followed him around the house and mourned his loss if my father went out for any length of time. My father was the head dispatcher for what was then called PTC, the Pennsylvania Transportation Company in Philadelphia for forty years until he retired. He worked the third shift and slept most of the day. On my father’s day off, Andy sat next to my father’s chair. And my father would scratch his head the whole time he sat in the chair.

Andy was allowed to roam all over the small town of Maple Shade where we lived. And it was not unknown for people to report seeing in Lenola which was another nearby town.  And his look-alike progeny. Since once again, my father refused to have Andy fixed.

My father spoiled Andy in every way possible. He asked my mother to cook him corn on the cob and chicken liver and hearts as a treat. You can imagine the result of a dog eating corn on the cob every day of the week. One of our neighbor’s houses was a location that Andy liked to visit. He would often leave a token of his visit and his last meal in her backyard. Our neighbor, Mrs. Gioiella, would come down to our house every time this happened to complain about Andy’s deposit in her grass. This didn’t change my father’s behavior. He continued letting Andy out to roam where he wished. One day a neighbor set a trap for Andy to stop him from doing his business in their yard.

One day Andy returned home with a trap on his foot, my father went through the roof. He interrogated every neighbor to find out who had done it. No one fessed up. Andy had to go to the vet to have his injured foot treated. My father was angry about it for a long time, yet he didn’t keep Andy in our yard. My father was a stubborn man and somewhat inflexible.

In the Summer, my father would go down to the Ice Cream store on the corner and buy Andy an ice cream cone. My sister and I would look on with envy as Andy would eat the ice cream on a hot summer night.

Andy was an intelligent dog, and he knew how to get his feelings noticed. When my parents and my sister and I went out, which didn’t happen that often Andy would get revenge. This was back in the day when people didn’t lock their doors. Andy would go into the house and bring out the bathroom towels and all the pillows and throw them all over the front yard. His feelings would not be trifled with for any reason.

Andy lived to be an old dog. He lived until my father was retired.  Andy quietly passed away while my father was in the hospital being treated for an illness. My father was broken-hearted when he heard the bad news. It was a sad day for us all. Andy was part of our daily lives for many years. He was an integral part of our family life.

During my childhood, I had many small pets, hamsters and parakeets and finches and a chicken. I loved every kind of animal, both feathered and furred. I can not picture my life without animals.

After I grew up and married my husband Bob and I had two dogs Ulysses, a terrier and Bogie a cockapoo. They traveled with us from Florida to California and New Jersey. They were my children before I had children. Two Cockatiels Peppy and Soda Pop owned a part of my heart for many years. They were entertaining and sweet-natured.

And then there was the enduring love I had since my early childhood for cats.  Over the years, we owned eight cats. One cat remains, Sloopy, who is twenty-five years old. And our tuxedo cat, Evie who just passed away a week ago, who lived to be nineteen years old. 

Also, I took care of a feral cat colony for years. I captured the female cats and had them fixed. I would get up and feed them every morning at five AM.

Our newest pets are Douglas, a long-haired Dachshund who has stolen our hearts. And we have two parrot’s BB and Travis that I adopted from the animal sanctuary where I volunteer three days a week. I care for over twenty Parrots and two Macaws. Not to mention the two hundred animals that reside there that I consider friends. 

I have no doubt that my life would have been narrower and missing an element without the love and companionship of all these wondrous animals. And if that is not reason enough to have pets as part of your life, here are a few more. Pet owners know how much furry friends improves quality of life. They benefit us on an emotional level. Owning pets decrease depression, stress, and anxiety. Health-wise they can lower your blood pressure, improve your immunity, and even decrease your health risk, including heart attack and stroke.

So, my final word is that pets have had a tremendously positive effect on the quality of my life. My life would seem so much smaller without them in it.

Courage Isn’t The Absence Of Fear. It’s The Ability to Act Despite Fear

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Life is challenging. Every day we face problems that must be solved, questions that must be answered, tasks that must be completed. If you think about it, these are the same problems we had to face since our childhood. It’s only the complexity of problems that have changed as we grow up and grew older.

As a young child before I started school. I was quiet, shy, reticent about straying too far from the familiar. Reluctant to be separated from my mother for any length of time. But still I was filled with curiosity about the world. The world outside my house, outside my yard, outside my neighborhood. I had a fraternal twin sister. It is hard to imagine anyone being more different from me than my twin sister.

We didn’t look alike. I had blond hair, she had dark hair. She was friendly and outgoing and talkative. I was shy and quiet. I kept my thoughts and feelings to myself. I avoided calling attention to myself. I like the familiar, she was more mature and tried different things. 

These differences became more obvious when we entered school. My sister made friends more readily. I made friends slowly and with more care. I did every thing I could to avoid calling attention to myself in the classroom. If I could have become invisible, I would have disappeared. I always tried to sit in the back of the classroom. If I was a turtle, I would have pulled my head inside my shell.

Because of my personality and my shyness, I often woke up on schooldays with a stomach ache. I would have trouble sleeping, afraid of failing in school, afraid I wasn’t smart enough. My concern about my intellectual ability was exacerbated by my father. When I was reluctant to go out with my parents to visit friends or relatives or I wouldn’t speak up when he asked me a question, he would say, “I don’t know what your problem is, are you stupid, or lazy?”

I sought comfort in my imagination, in making up stories. And by making friends with all the animals in my neighborhood, the cats, the dogs. I would imagine I was a bird and could fly.

But still I had this inner strength that kept telling me you can do it. And when I was afraid to answer that question in class, I decided I would just stand up and answer even if it made me feel uncomfortable, even if I was wrong. If I had difficulty one day, I would try harder the next. I became stubborn. If someone told me I was wrong, I would be even more determined to prove I was right. My father started saying, “Susan would argue with the Pope.”

If another classmate was being picked on by someone, I would stick up for them. I became braver to help them. Because I knew what it felt like to be picked on. I remembered those butterflies in my stomach when I was afraid. Even if I was shaking in my boots speaking up for myself or a classmate, I did it. I cared about other people and their feelings. I knew what if felt like to be afraid. Their fear, their pain became mine. And I wanted to help them, I wanted to help myself.

These changes did not happen overnight. They happened over years. Years when I learn to accept who I was, and what I was capable of doing. And when I learned to listen to my inner voice and not to the people who told me I was stupid, or lazy. I realized that I knew myself better than anyone else possible could. And so, I did not allow myself to be limited by their definition of who I was and what I could or could not do.

When I was old enough, I asked my father to teach me to drive although I knew he didn’t believe women should drive. He didn’t allow my mother to learn how to drive. I was afraid of driving. But I was more fearful of how my life would be limited by not knowing how to drive.

 

I started working part-time in my senior year of high school  as an dental assistant when I was seventeen. The only other job I had was baby-sitting for my nieces and nephews.

I wanted to go to college, but my father said, “girls don’t need to go to college they’re just going to get married and have children.” So, I didn’t go to college at eighteen even though I attended an all-girl college Prep High School, called St. Mary of The Angel’s Academy in Haddonfield, NJ.

I eventually attended college at the age of thirty-six at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa. at The Tyler School of Art. I had been married for fourteen years and had two children who were six and three years old in my freshman year. I graduated Summa Cum Laud at the age of forty with two degrees. It was a dream I always had, and I made it happen. It wasn’t easy. I was the only adult student in the Freshman class in 1987. I enjoyed every moment of it.

The day I walked onto that campus as a first day freshman was the opportunity of a lifetime for me. But I have never been as frightened or nervous as I was that day. But I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. All the way up to the day I graduated at the top ten percent of Temple University. I was proud of myself, proud that I accomplished a very difficult goal, proud that I didn’t give up every time I was tired, overworked with school, taking care of my two children, taking care of our home, shopping, cooking and cleaning and staying up half the night or all night studying and doing homework.

Many years have passed since I was a little girl going to my first day of grade school. I have lived a long time. I have moved to another state when I was twenty-two by myself. I have lived in New Jersey, Florida, California and now have retired to North Carolina with my husband of forty-five years.

I have worked as a dental assistant, sold high risk auto insurance, went to hairdressing school in the mid-seventies, sold hats and wigs, worked as a houseparent at St. Vincent’s School in Santa Barbara, gotten married and had two children, went to college as an adult, taught art in my own art studios, had an online business selling one-of-a kind jewelry with my daughter. Worked in Social Services for a decade in Camden and Ranch Hope in Alloway, NJ helping at-risk inner-city kids.

So yes, I’m not that shy little girl who was afraid of speaking up and out. I have challenged myself hundreds of times. I have known people who from all of the world and from around the block. I’ve met and gotten to know millionaires and homeless people. And they are all just people struggling in their own way as am I. We all come into this world innocent and none of us gets out of this world alive.

Try and meet all the challenges that life brings to you and always do your best. Life is short and passes by so quickly, do good along the way. Fear may often be your companion but you don’t have to let it lead your way. You are the navigator of your life and don’t let anyone or anything keep you from living the life you want to lead.

And one final thought in case you think I spend everyday typing out stories and sharing my life in this blog. No, I’m still living my life as fully as possible. I work as a volunteer at an exotic animal rescue three days a week. I take care of endangered Parrots and Macaws. And some of my best friends now are lemurs, and a Coatimundi called Neffin,  a monkey called Teddy, a lemur named, Monroe, and a rabbit called Marilyn, eight dogs and too many cats to mention. Foxes as sweet and gentle as any dog. And a host of other animals too long a list to mention. 

It’s your life, lead it, my friends. It’s normal to be afraid at times, but don’t let fear especially fear of failure stop you in your tracks.

 

 

 

The Day The Earth Stood Still Or So I Thought

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I shoveled in my oatmeal as quickly as possible without choking. I was watching my mother’s parakeet Prettyboy eat his morning treat of lettuce. Afterward, he hopped out of his cage through the open door and flew onto the kitchen table. He walks across the table, knocking the forks and the knives onto the floor.

My mother pretends she’s mad. “Prettyboy stop that. Get back into your cage.”

I think she secretly enjoys his mealtime antics. 

“Susie and Karen, please eat your oatmeal.”

The oatmeal feels like a ton of bricks in my stomach. My mother believes that every child should start the day with something warm in their stomach that sticks to their ribs.

Still, it’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning, my favorite day of the week. I can get up as late as I want. Well not really, if I wasn’t up by nine AM, my mother would come into my bedroom to see if I was still breathing. It’s late spring, which means I only have about eight more weeks of school. Then summer will arrive. I hate school more then I hate vegetables, and that was considerable.

As soon as I finish my last spoonful, I jump up so violently from my chair that it falls over. My father starts yelling,” Susan, you are being a pain in the ass.”

“Susan, please remember your manners and asked to be excused.” My mother chimes in.

I start explaining to my father. Sorry, sorry it was an accident.” He keeps going on about how I did the same thing every day and never seemed to learn. I was pigheaded and stubborn that I would argue with the pope. “Sorry, Dad, I won’ do it again.”

I run out the kitchen door, slamming the screen door behind me. I can hear my father yelling after me, “I’ve told you a thousand times, don’t slam the door.”

I was free now, free to go where I please and do what I want. I chose to wander over to Mrs. Collins’ yard and visit my friends who live in her cellar. But they’re allowed within the confines of the outside kennel to enjoy the good life out in their backyard.

There are about twenty to thirty cats, give or take a few. I know all their names and stop to pet them and exchange a few words with each one. They come rushing over to greet me. Each beautiful in their way. Some were black and white, some calico. Some had long tails that sway. Some had no tails at all. They’re my friends.

My best friend’s name is Strottles. He doesn’t live in the Collins’ cellar. He’s a wild cat. He had belonged to one of our neighbors, the Lombardi family, but he scratched up all their furniture and sprayed on the doors. So, they put him out of their house.

He survives on his wits and on food that people in the neighborhood put out for him. It wasn’t unheard of for him to kill and eat the occasional bird or mouse. Strottles is the biggest cat I have ever seen. His fur is orange, and mangy looking. He has scars and part of one ear missing. But to me, he was the most charming and handsome of them all. I love him.

As I crouch down in the grass petting the cats through the chicken wire, I see Strottles cruising through Mrs. Lombardi’s yard and heading in my direction. I call out to him, “Strottles, hi Strottles. How are you?”

He comes over to me slowly and bumps his head on my shoulder. I can hear and feel him purring. I start telling Strottles about my morning and how my father told me I was pigheaded. I told him how I was yelled at for knocking over my chair. He gazes at me with his enormous golden eyes and somehow conveys to me with his look that everything will be ok.

Strottles and I spend the morning investigating and saying hello to all the neighbors’ pets. Strottles is very tolerant of dogs and female cats, but he can’t abide other male cats.

In my room early in the morning, I have often been awakened by the sound of cats waling and screaming. When I look out my bedroom window, I see a whirling dervish as Strottles fights any male cat that dares to interlope in his territory. As far as I know, he remains the victor in all his battles. He wears his many scars and healing wounds as any great warrior would. I hear my mother calling me to come in for lunch from the kitchen door.

“Susie time for lunch, come home Susie, lunch time.”

“Strottles, I’ll see you later.”

He stares at me intently with his great orange eyes, and I stroke him from the top of his head to the end of his straggly, broken tail. As I run towards the side of my house, I take a last look at Strottles as he strolls away in the other direction. He seems in no great hurry to reach whatever his next destination might be.

As I open the kitchen door, I smell chicken noodle soup that’s steaming in a pot on the stove. My mother stands there in her housedress, covered by her everyday apron. She has a long line of safety pins hanging down the front of it. She claims that you never knew when you might need a safety pin, to pin up an errant hem, or replace a lost button.

“Hi, Susie.” She says with her beautiful smile. I’m making grilled cheese sandwiches, please go and wash your hands before you sit down.”

As I run into the bathroom, I hear my sister Karen, coming in through the front door.

“Hi, Mom, what’s for lunch?”

Then I close the bathroom door. As I finish my business in the bathroom, I hear a great commotion coming from the kitchen. My father is yelling, and my mother ‘s crying. I run into the kitchen to see what’s going on. I see my father at the kitchen door with a broom. He’s chasing what looks like the tail end of an orange cat. I have never seen my mother cry before. I feel my lower lip start trembling, and tears sprang to my eyes. My mother gives me a look that I had never seen in her eyes before. I know that something terrible has happened and somehow I‘m to blame.

My father comes back into the house, and his face carries an angry expression. I know that I was about to be on the receiving end of something terrible. “You and that stupid cat,” he spits at me, “look what you have done.” My sister looks at me, her mouth in a circle. Then everyone stares sadly up at Prettyboy’s now empty cage.

“Where is Prettyboy?” I beg as tears roll down my cheeks.

“That dammed cat of yours, he ran into the kitchen while your mother took out the garbage. He jumped up onto the kitchen table and he killed your mother’s bird.”

“Oh no, I sobbed, oh no, Strottles wouldn’t do that.” But I know in my heart he would. He’s always hungry and on the lookout for food.

My mother looks away from me. My father roughly grabs me by the arm and smacks me on my behind.

“Go down the cellar and stay down there and think about what you have done.” He pushes me through the door and closes it behind me. It seems I was down there a very long time. I cry and cry until my eyes are swollen shut. I hear my mother’s soft voice and feel her arms around me.

Parenting- These Things I Know To Be True

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Parenting is, by far, one of the most challenging tasks that a mother and father must face. It’s not something that happens in a day. It’s a continuous progression of changes that occur over a long period. And if you have been successful as a parent, your child will be capable of making measured, responsible decisions although there will be many mistakes along that path. 

And yet, there is no line saying yes, this person is ready to be completely independent. He or she doesn’t need my input anymore. When my oldest daughter moved out into an apartment in Philadelphia in her last year of college, she made some financial mistakes. In her first couple of months, she ran her cell phone bill up to over five hundred dollars. She invited her friends over for dinners. She didn’t have the money to cover the $500.00 phone bill or to buy additional food.

I had to have a serious conversation with her regarding her financial status. And how much money or how little money we had to contribute to her living expenses. We were paying for her school expenses and her art supplies while she attended the Hussian School of Art. Also, we put the first, last a deposit on her apartment and furnished it for her. We had purchased her cell phone.

The good news is that my daughter graduated at the top of her class and excelled in every area.

It’s difficult to stand by and let a child make decisions that you consider inappropriate or immature without considering the consequences of that decision.

It was the same when that child took his or her first stumbling steps when they started to walk. You stood several feet away with your arms outstretched. And let them come toward you, knowing full well that they will fall at first, possibly get hurt. But allowing them because this is the necessary process, we all go through in learning to walk — their first steps to becoming an independent person.

Your child matures from an infant to a toddler to a young child to adolescent to young adult. Many changes take place. There were decisions to be made. When can the child play outside without the mother or father’s watchful presence? When can I allow him or her to walk to a friend’s house unaccompanied? How far can she or he ride their bike? When are they old enough to be left home without supervision? And later when are they ready to date, hold a job, learn to drive a car.

Each child is an individual and must be treated as such. There is no rule book for parenting. Many times, it’s a trial or error process. There is always a learning curve in parenting. Especially the first time around. And even the second or third time can be completely different than the others.

But the most significant and relevant factor in parenting is consistent. Consistent in rules of behavior, consistent in discipline. Consistent in love and acceptance for the child as an individual.

Children need to have structure in their environment and stability in their parent’s behavior towards them. And also, in the type of behavior parents expect in return from them.

Although a mother or father’s role as parents never ceases throughout their child’s life, it does change. Change can be difficult at times for both parents and child. But ultimately, it is absolutely a necessity for growth.

When anyone’s child is living on their own and completely independent of their parents, it may seem that the parent has become irrelevant. But still one finds that even the adult child will need approval, acceptance, and love. No matter how old the child is, including when they have children of their own.

So, in a real way, a parent’s job is never finished but is an ongoing process.

To Be Or Not To Be A Parent-These Things I Know To Be True

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The decision to have children can be an easy decision to make, or it can be the most difficult decision you make in your lifetime.

My experience with this choice was no choice at all. I recall with absolute clarity that as a very young girl, I wanted children.

I came from a large family of six siblings. But my family was dissimilar than most of the children that I grew up within the 1950s and 1960s. The difference was that my fraternal twin and I were the youngest, and there was a wide age gap between the two of us and our older siblings. My older brother was almost twenty years older than we were. And my oldest sister was fifteen years older. And the next oldest was eight and seven years older.

As a result, my older siblings began marrying and having children when I was about ten years old. My sisters visited often and brought their babies and toddlers and little kids over to their grandparent’s house (my house) to visit. I fell in love with every one of these kids as they came along, beginning with my oldest niece, Maryellen. She was so smart, adorable, and affectionate. She was a happy baby. And her smiling baby face is one that I can still picture to this day.

Some kids at the age of ten or eleven might be jealous of the attention these little ones received, but I wasn’t, not for one moment. I looked forward to their visits with anticipation. When they arrived at our house, I would immediately want to take them to show them off to my friends and their families.

I started babysitting my nieces and nephews before I went to high school. I loved spending time with them. There has never been a more dotting aunt than I was. I resolved that I too would become a mother someday.

I met the future father of my children when I was quite young. I didn’t have to look that far. As it turned out my best childhood girlfriend, Joanie had a boy cousin that I had known. I decided that this was the person I would marry. In fact, as an adult, after we were married, my mother told me that when I was about ten, I told her that Bobby Culver and I were going to get married someday.

And we did marry in 1974 when I just turned twenty-three and Bob turned twenty-five. Bob recently returned from serving in the Navy during the Viet Nam war. Bob decided to go to school to study photography. He attended Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, Ca.

As we all know, life doesn’t always follow the script we write. It takes its course and then there are the occasional bumps in the road or roadblocks.

I hit a roadblock. My doctor informed me that I was infertile for unknown reasons. After years of Doctor’s visits and tests, I was able to conceive and give birth when I was thirty in 1981. There was never a happier pregnant young woman than I. Even though I had morning sickness for almost the entire pregnancy.

Jeanette was a beautiful baby. I can remember the day we brought her home from the hospital as if it was yesterday. We put her in the borrowed bassinet. Bob and I stared at her all day. We are waiting for her to wake up. We could hardly believe that we had created this beautiful child. She seemed a miracle to us. 

When you bring your baby home, it is like falling in love. It is an all-encompassing feeling. If you remember the first time, you fell in love. It is a similar feeling except you are responsible for the health, the safety of this fragile dependent creature. And it’s your responsibility to teach your child how to talk, walk, eat, dress. You will always be their parent, even after you pass from this life. It is an awesome responsibility.

Jeanette said her first word, light when she was four months old. And she spoke in full sentences before she was two and a half.  Jeanette is highly intelligent. And challenging first child. She didn’t sleep through the night until she was almost three. She could climb like a monkey. I had to put gates everywhere. Between the dining room and the kitchen because Jeanette would climb on top of the stove, and climb up the stairs.

She scaled the dining room chairs and climbed on top of the dining room table and dance on it. I would find her balancing on top of the rocking chair and rocking it. She accomplished these acrobatic feats in the blink of an eye. You might think I wasn’t watching her, but Jeanette would be there one second and gone the next. And there she was on top of the dining room table.

When Jeanette was about two and a half, we decided she would benefit from having a sibling. And so, in time, her sister, Bridget was born in January of 1984.

To say that Jeanette was happy by this turn of events would be an outright lie. She had a raging case of sibling rivalry. We had to put a gate in the doorway of the baby’s room. If Jeanette made her way into Bridget’s bedroom, she would climb into the crib and jump up and down. Yelling, “I’m giving the baby a ride.”

Over time as Bridget grew and Jeanette was able to play with her and Jeanette’s tolerance for her new sister grew to acceptance.

Bridget was a happy baby, smiling and easily pacified if she cried. Once she learned to crawl, she followed Jeanette everywhere with her stuffed bear between her arms and legs. Bridget sucked her thumb until she was four. But somehow, she could speak clearly with that thumb planted firmly in her mouth. Bridget learned many new words by listening to Jeanette talk.

So, although their personalities were very different, they did have similar talents and interests. They loved games and puzzles and drawing and creating things. They both came to love reading as I took them to the library every week throughout their childhood.

There were never children born that were loved more than Jeanette and Bridget. I spent every moment of my life playing and talking to them and teaching them. I was a stay at home mother for seven years.

The good news is that by the time Jeanette graduated from highschool with Bridget three years behind her, they developed a better relationship.

And here they are now grown women who are as close as sisters can be. And they’re each other’s best friends even though they live eight hundred miles apart.

In conclusion, I would like to say becoming a parent is both a blessing and a challenge. Everyone who has children brings more love into their lives. But having children also brings fear. Fear that something unforeseen may happen to your precious child. If you are strong enough to bear that fear, then being a parent is a choice for you.  My life without my children would have been narrower, less challenging. I would have missed out on one of my life’s most fulfilling experiences.

YOU’LL NEED ALL THE PRAYERS YOU CAN GET

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I wake up covered in sweat. I hear my name called over and over again.

“Susie, Karen get up and get dressed. It’s time to get ready for Mass.”

Oh, god, I think. I hate Sundays. Why is it so hot? It is only the end of

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Maple Shade, NJ 1957.

May? I roll over and my sister, who is sleeping in the bed with me, said, “Get off me. You big oaf.”

So, I roll off the bed in the other direction. My older sisters were already out and, on their way, wherever that was. I throw on my Sunday clothes and walk slowly down the steps to the kitchen. My stomach is growling, but since I wasn’t allowed to eat anything until after Mass, I know I would have to suffer.

As I step into the kitchen, I see my mother standing at the counter washing last nights’ glasses and cups. My Dad has his head bowed as if in prayer but is petting his dog Andy on the head. “Hi, Mom, hi Daddy.”

My mom looks up with a big smile on her face.” Good morning Susie, how did you sleep?”

“I slept fine Mom,” I didn’t, but my mom is an awful worrier, and I don’t like to give her any more cause for worry. My father is sitting there listening to this exchange, and finally says, “Hey Susie, what’s up?”

“Nothing Daddy, just waiting to go to church. I hope Sister John Michael isn’t there this morning. She’s such an awful grouch on Sundays. And I hope Father Nolan is saying the mass; he always gives a short sermon. And we are usually in and out in less than a half-hour.”

“Susie, go call your sister Karen, and tell her it is time to get up.”

“Oh Mom, you know it’s so hard to wake her up.”

“Susie, just go upstairs, and get her up, don’t yell from the bottom of the steps.”

I stomp up the steps to the doorway of our bedroom, and Karen is still in bed with her head covered by the blanket, deeply asleep, or pretending to be. So, I step closer to her and stick my hand under the covers and start tickling her on her side. She is very ticklish, and she jumps up out of bed, mad as a hornet. Her face was red as a beet, yelling. “Get out, get out of here, I’m going to kill you.” I laugh and run down the steps.

My Mom says, “What is all the yelling about Susie?”

“Nothing Mom, Karen should be right down.”

“You two better not be fighting, or you’ll both be in trouble.”

I walk over to the sink to get a glass of water, hoping that it will be enough to quiet down my growling stomach until after Mass. Karen and I head out to church when we hear the church bells ringing. We don’t have to walk far since we only live two houses away from the church.

Karen is ignoring me, even though she’s walking right next to me. She’s probably still mad about me tickling her awake. As we’re walking towards the church steps, I see that Sister John Michael is standing there twirling her giant rosary beads and frowning. And beside her is Father Siflarski who is rather plump and has a baldhead. On top of his bald head is perched a very unnatural-looking, black toupee.

Karen and I look at them and groan.  Thinking oh no, the double whammy, Evil Sister John Michael, and long-winded Father Syflarski. We agree about how much we hate going to the children’s Mass on Sunday morning.

All the kids gather in pairs in the vestibule of the church, waiting for the word from Sister to start slowly walking towards the pews. This is where the kids sit every Sunday. Karen sits as far away from me as possible. My friend, Helen, runs up to stand next to me so she can be my partner. Helen and I resemble each other, and most of the time, people think she’s my twin sister, not Karen.

Helen’s father is a Maple Shade cop, and everyone calls him Skip. His hobby is making bullets. One day when I was over her house, he said we could come in the garage, and he would demonstrate how he made them. He had a small furnace that melted the metal, and then he poured the liquid metal into molds. He had all different size molds. He used a tool like big tweezers to move the hot molds into slots until they cooled. And He showed us some of the finished bullets.

One time he was driving Helen and me to the Cherry Hill Mall, and he suddenly grabbed a light from under his seat and stuck his arm out the window, and put the flashing light on the top of the car. Then he started racing down the street chasing some other car and forced them to pull over. He wasn’t even wearing his police uniform.

It was exciting. I thought maybe they would start shooting at one another. But they didn’t. Skip just gave the guy a warning for driving too fast in a residential neighborhood. I didn’t tell my mother about this. Because I knew that would be the end of me going anywhere with Helen and her dad, as I said, my mother was a worrier!

The church starts to fill up. The pews that weren’t filled with children are filled with the parents of the students and their siblings who are too young to attend school. It’s a noisy Mass, what with the nuns walking up and down the isles terrorizing the kids with their little clickers that they hold in the palm of their hands.

If anyone got out of hand, a nun would stand next to the pew and click at you. If you were warned more than once, you know you were going to be in trouble in school the next day.

Father Syflarski and two altar boys are walking up the aisle at a snail’s pace. Father Syflarski swings an incense burner, and one of the altar boys rings a bell over and over as they move towards the altar. And so, the Mass begins.

Helen and I had created a kind of hand signals system where we could communicate with each other about what was going on in the church. Very often, the other kids would try to get each other in trouble with the nuns by making faces or farting so others would laugh.

Next thing you know one of the nuns would be next to them clicking away like a mad cricket. I love to get Helen laughing because she has the kind of laugh that is contagious and sometimes, I got her laughing. Before you know it all the girls in the whole aisle were laughing. And then I would kneel down as if I was silently praying and minding my own business, and then the nuns come!

On this particular Sunday, I happen to notice that the woman who is standing or at times sitting or kneeling in front of me has a hanger inside the collar of her coat. And the hook is jabbing her in the back of her neck every time she puts her head up. She doesn’t seem to realize what’s the source of her neck pain. Because every time she puts her hand to her neck, she puts her head down and doesn’t feel the hanger.

Well, I was having a good time watching her dilemma, and I start laughing, and the more I tried to hold it in, the more it wanted to come out. I poke Helen in her side to get her attention, and she looks at me, then the lady, and she starts laughing, and the chain effect begins.

Next thing you know Sister John Michael, and Sister Joseph Catherine are both standing next to our isle. And we are all escorted out of the church to the front steps, where they try to wring the truth out of us about who started the riot. Going so far as to threaten eternal damnation.

But there is one thing that can be said for Catholic school kids is that we stick together. And we do not rat each other out.  So, no one had much of anything to say. And we all had our heads bowed, and our lips sealed. Sister Joseph Catherine did her best to try and make us talk, but nobody did.

The final result is we would all be spending the next week after school clapping erasers. This was my after-school chore, so it didn’t make any difference to me. Then they march us back into the church, everyone in the congregation stares at us like we were convicted criminals on the way to the death chamber.

We file back into our aisle. Personally, I am glad because we had missed a good portion of the Mass as Father Syflarski was already past the Our Father, and up to Communion. Which meant we had missed the gospel and his sermon. I thanked God for that, I can tell you. After we had all marched up to communion, the kneeling, standing, began again in earnest. The Catholic Church is always making people stand up, sit down, and kneel. It was a real workout just going to Mass on Sunday.

At the end of the Mass, Father Syflarski begins the slow procession out of the church with the incense, clanging bells, and all. Then we file out one aisle at a time as always. Oh, did I mention the Catholic Church is big on drama only they call it a ceremony.

As I walk out of the church, I think I’m home free, Sister Joseph Catherine grabs me by the collar and pulls me to the side, and says, “Well Miss Carberry, don’t think you got away with anything. I know you were the one that started all the malarkey and believe me, you will pay for it either in this life or the next. God knows all and sees all.”

When she let go of my collar, I ran down the street towards my house like the devil is after me. I burst through our front door. My mom says, what’s the rush Susie you act like the devil has you by the coattails. “I look at her and said,” well he did Mom, but I got away. What’s for breakfast?”

Life Brings Joy and Happiness and Loss- These Things I Know To Be True

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During my life, I’ve been fortunate enough to experience many joyful events. I witnessed my older siblings get married and have fourteen beautiful children and watch them grow up. I loved each one of them.

I met and fell in love with the man with whom I have shared my entire adult life. I’ve given birth to my two daughters, Jeanette and Bridget. I was able to nurture and love them and teach them what I had learned during my life. I had the opportunity at thirty-six to attend college. My daughter’s learned it’s never too late to learn and grow in life. 

I lived in diverse and beautiful places. I grew up in the North East in New Jersey. I lived in Florida and California in the 1970s. I have retired to North Carolina.

In my work life, I had the opportunity to give back to my fellow man. I worked in social services with at-risk children who had an incarcerated parent. I worked with the Amache Program with Wilson Goode and Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

I worked as an Assistant Supervisor and houseparent at Ranch Hope in Alloway, NJ. to adolescent boys from inner cities including Camden, NJ.

I owned and operated two small businesses. Teaching art to children and adults in my art studios and making jewelry and selling it online.

Life offers us many opportunities, blessings, and challenges. We can grow from these experiences, or they can break us.

Life can be a smooth or unexpectantly bumpy and tumultuous path. We have to learn to navigate both.

There is an old but true expression. That into every life rain must fall.

When I was twenty- eight years old, my oldest sister Jeanie passed away. She was forty-two years old. She developed breathing difficulties when she was about twenty-seven years old. She was tested and diagnosed with a genetic disorder called alpha 1 antitrypsin disorder. It causes symptoms similar to emphysema. In that, it affects the lungs. She also had hemochromatosis, which is a blood disorder that causes a build-up on iron in the liver. That causes affects all your organs. It’s a disease that seems to affect people whose family’s origins are Celtic countries, such as Ireland, England, Scotland, and the Welsh.

Jeanie was sick for a long time. She was the bravest person I have ever known. Almost to the very end of her life, she maintained her sense of humor and her undaunting courage.

My sister’s death had a profound and lasting effect on myself and my entire family and her husband and two children, who were teenagers at the time. My mother and father were devastated by her death. My father seemed angry after she passed. He told me he was mad because no parent should outlive their child. 

I came back to New Jersey for the funeral. I knew she was very sick and had been for years. But I had never reconciled myself to the fact that she wouldn’t recover. Or the fact that she was going to die from this disease.

When my older brother Hugh called me and told me she had passed away, it was a harsh blow. One I had not prepared myself for in any way. I had lived away from home for over six years and hadn’t seen her.

Every day for a year after her death when I woke up, I thought about my sister, Jeanie.  I would never see her again. Every day this broke my heart anew. I would feel a wave of pain roll over me. And I would feel like I was drowning in that pain. Grief and regret were my companions. I regretted all the years that I had missed seeing her when I lived far away from her and my family. Years I could never recover. Opportunities lost. Every day for almost a year whenever I was alone, I would cry. When I was driving to work, I would have to pull over until I was able to get my emotions under control. I began having insomnia. I would awake in the middle of the night. And grief would wash over me like the tide.

About a year after my sister’s death, my husband graduated from college, and we moved back to New Jersey. I could see that my mother and father and siblings still felt my sister’s absence in some profound way.

But we each in our way started to carry on with our lives and move forward. My husband found a job. And we purchased our first home. We started a family. Somehow, we and anyone who loses a loved one must begin living their lives again.

Two years after my sister passed, I gave birth to my first child, and I named her Jeanette after my sister Jeanie. I could think of no finer gift to give my first child than to name her after my sister that I loved and admired so profoundly.

It has been forty years since my sister passed. And I and the rest of my siblings have endured the loss of my parents within eight months of one another.

My father died of lung cancer in 1986. And my mother had dementia, and congestive heart failure died eight months later. One of my nephews passed in 2001. My husband lost his father. He died from emphysema when he was only sixty-two. My mother-in-law died at ninety-two, but she suffered from Alzheimer’s for many years before she passed. It is a slow and painful death to watch.

My sister-in-law Mary Ann passed away two years ago. My oldest brother Hugh passed away a year ago last April. As did my dear brother-in-law Jake passed away last April, three days after my brother. I had known him since I was ten years old. He was the kindest, most generous person I ever met. Always willing to lend a helping hand.

So yes, we all know that life is fleeting. That none of us will live forever. But it’s a devastating loss when our loved one’s pass, our dear friends or god forbid one of our children, but it happens.

We must all carry on with our lives, taking each day one at a time. We must move forward and adjust to the loss. Our loved ones who passed would want nothing less than for us to go on living our lives to the fullest. And find our happiness once again.

One Is The Loneliest Number- These Things I Know To Be True

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If there is one challenge in life that I have struggled with the most, it’s loneliness. There have been periods in my life that I felt bereft of friends.

I suppose to the people I have known throughout my life, my loneliness may be impossible to understand. It may seem as if I made a deliberate decision to spend the majority of my time in my own company.

As an artist, as a writer, it’s essential to spend time creating, contemplating the world around me. I’m often deep in thought. All of these activities require time spent alone.

When I was a young child, I spent an enormous amount of my time alone. I lived in my imagination. I used to pretend that I was a bird and could fly. I made up stories and drew pictures. I read every book in the library. I walked around my neighborhood and visited all the neighbor’s pets. I would talk to my neighbor Thelma Collins’ cats for hours at a time. She had an outside fenced in cat run area, and her twenty plus cats were free to go in and out of her house.

It wasn’t until I was an adult my siblings told me that they always thought I was an odd child. Different than other children they knew. I was sensitive. And my feelings were easily hurt. I told stories about my adventures in the neighborhood. They believed I fabricated these tales. Which I suppose I did. But the stories were real to me. I talked to animals as if they were my dear friends, and they were. So yes, I suppose I was not an ordinary child.

I had a best friend, Joanie and a whole neighborhood of other kids that played with me. We rode our bikes all over town, roller skated, played hide and seek, chased lightning bugs. All the activities children had in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties.

When I was old enough to go to elementary school, I made a group of friends. Kids who were smart and funny.

Somehow as an adult, I lost the gift or the know-how to make friends. As a child, if you saw someone you thought could be your friend, you would walk up to them, and say, “Hey do you want to be my friend?” And then you had a new friend. It’s not that easy as an adult. You get married, have children, a job. You have responsibilities, not as much free time.

When my husband and I bought our first house, we started a family. We had two daughters, three years apart. I loved being a mother. I enjoyed spending my time taking care of them and teaching them. But I will be the first to admit being home with small children can be isolating. You don’t have a great deal of free time. The only adult I spent any real time was my husband when he came home from work.

If you return to work when the children are young, you interact with other adults. If you are a stay at home mom as I was for seven years, it can be isolating. Or at least that was my experience.

When I was thirty-six years old, I decided to go to college. I attended Temple University at the Tyler Campus in Philadelphia. I earned a degree in Fine Arts and Art Education. I was the only student who wasn’t the traditional age of eighteen in the Undergraduate Program.

I can’t say enough good things about going to college as an adult. I was a dedicated, motivated student with a tremendous desire to succeed and learn. I loved going to class with young students. Their energy, their confidence was inspiring.

It was difficult going to school and raising two young children. I didn’t sleep a great deal during those four years, about three hours a night. But I loved every minute of it. I graduated when I was forty years old.

Fast forward to retirement age. My husband and I retired to North Carolina three years ago. The cost of living and real estate taxes are so much lower here than New Jersey.

So here we are in an area where we didn’t know a living soul. We found that our neighbors preferred keeping to themselves. We rarely see them outside, except when they cut their grass. We take a walk every night with our dog Douglas and wave at anyone we see and attempt to make conversation.

I volunteered with the Guardian Ad Litem. I met people who dedicate their lives and their free time to helping children whose families are involved with the family court. 

I volunteer three mornings a week at a wild animal sanctuary called Animal Edventure, where I met many caring people who dedicate their lives caring for rescued exotic animals. The majority of these people are under the age of twenty-five. 

In conclusion, I would like to say that I have found being lonely can happen at any stage of life. It can happen to anyone at any time. Loneliness is part of the human condition. I have come to accept solitude as part of my life.