Category Archives: My Memoirs

These Things I Know To Be True

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THESE THINGS I KNOW TO BE TRUE

It is essential to have some space for yourself, even if it is only inside your head and heart.

I was a daughter. I am a wife. I am a mother. I am a sister, aunt, friend and neighbor and citizen.

My parents passed away within eight months of one another when I was thirty-four years old. I took care of my parents through the final moments of their lives. My father died of lung cancer and my mother had dementia. At the time that my father was diagnosed with cancer my older brother came to me and said, “It’s up to you Susan, to take care of them.” My brother was nineteen years older than I was. He was a psychologist whose practice centered on family therapy. He passed away a year ago.

I believe that he felt that as the youngest in my family of origin and a stay at home mom that I was in the best position to care for them. I would have done it without his words. But none the less, there is an expectation in our society that women are and should be the caretakers.

It was a difficult time, stressful, unbearably sad. It was an isolating experience. I learned during that time, that if I was going to take care of my parents, I had to first take care of myself. And so, I tried to get enough rest, eat properly and ask for help from family members when I felt overwhelmed. In fact, I sought counseling because I was suffered from depression.

After my parents passed, I began to think a great deal about life, and how swiftly time passed. My mother had told me before she developed dementia that her regrets in life had to do with all the things she didn’t do. Not any mistakes she may have made. I took my mother’s advice. Not to let fear stand in the way of doing anything I wanted to accomplish.

I considered the regrets of my life up to that point. What I wish that I had done and hadn’t been able to do up that point. My biggest regret was not going to college. When I was senior in high school in 1969, my father, who was an old school kind of guy said,” girls don’t need to go to college they are just going to get married and have children.” I went to work instead as a dental assistant after I graduated.

Consequently, after my parents passed, I kept my mother’s regrets in mind. I decided to go to college.

Two years after I lost my mother and father I applied to and was accepted into Temple University at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.  My kids were three and six at the time.

It was very difficult juggling two young children and going to school full-time. But I did it, I graduated with a degree in Graphic Design and Art Education. It was the best experience of my life. I realized I was intelligent, motivated and worth the investment of time and money. I gained confidence in myself. Both of my children grew up being exposed to art and creativity. They went on to Art School and became artists. Creativity is an essential part of my psyche and theirs as well.

In addition to painting, I write. Writing and painting are both forms of storytelling.  Until recently, it was something I did only for myself. Writing is an outlet for expressing my thoughts and feelings when it doesn’t always feel safe to express them to anyone else.

You are more than the roles you play in other people’s lives. You are more than someone’s mother, daughter, sister or wife. Try to remember you are unique, you have value. You have much to contribute to the world. Do not ever let anyone take that away from you. Make it your goal to find that little space inside your heart and your head just for you.

Daddy Liked To Clean House

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I rooted through my drawer, moving things aside, throwing stuff on the floor. It was no use it just wasn’t there. I kept hoping it was in there, but it just wasn’t. I searched the entire house after my parents went out for their weekly food shopping.

I went so far as to look in my fathers’ cabinets in the basement. He had strictly forbidden snooping. I had to be cautious when I looked in these drawers because he was very careful where he put things away. He remembered exactly how he left them and could tell if anyone had been in there.

Photo by Hugh Carberry 1958

Susan Carberry First Communion-

I was equally as careful. I memorized how each object was placed and in what order. I had years of experience, so I was very good at it. So far, my intrusion into his inner sanctum had never been detected. In desperation, I looked in his secret stash in his desk drawer under his Playboy magazines. It was nowhere. It was gone.

I would have to innocently question my mother to see if she knew the whereabouts of my most precious collection. It had taken me years to amass. And now, now it was gone. I prayed it hadn’t gone the way of all my other beloved treasures, removed, and never to be seen again.

It all began innocently enough. One year in the early Spring I decided to plant some Zinnia seeds in the front yard. In front of the white, wooden fence my father had built years ago. Well, he never finished it. He had completed the front section that faced Fellowship Road, it had no sides.

Kids in the neighborhood often made obnoxious remarks about how come you only got half a fence, your father is too lazy to finish it, or too poor to buy more wood. Maybe all or part of that was true, but it didn’t have anything to do with me.

Anyway, I digress. I bought the seeds at the Ben Franklin 5 & 10 Store down the pike on Main Street in Maple Shade where I live. It was marked down to five cents. I used my own money. I rarely had any money so I was careful about what I invested it in. I usually spent any money I acquired on candy.

The illustration on the packet was beautiful, colorful Zinnias of red, yellow, and orange. I loved the flowers. We only had two plants in our front yard, one was a bush we called the Communion Bush, but now I know it’s called a Spirea. When someone in the family made their First Holy Communion, which was a big deal in an Irish Catholic family, we had our picture taken in front of this white-flowering bush.

The only other bush was my mother’s lilac bush that grew next to the front sidewalk.  It was my mother’s pride and joy. It was wonderfully aromatic. The harbinger of Spring in our house was the lilac blooming in early May. She would cut branches from it and put them in her crystal vase in the center of the kitchen table.

When my older brother, Harry came over on Sunday morning to visit my mother, he would cut a bunch. He would give it to his wife, Maryann for her Sunday dinner table.

Every day when I came home from school, I checked on my zinnias to see how much they had grown if they looked thirsty. I would drag out the hose and give them a drink. Oh, and how they grew tall, reaching almost to the sky, wonderfully bright and cheerful. I was so proud that I had created this wonderful oasis of color in our otherwise boring yard of dandelions, and buttercups, and the occasional clump of grass.

As the summer was in full bloom, so were my zinnias. I smiled every time I spied them from the kitchen window. Then one day I came home from playing with the kids in the neighborhood. And as I rode my bike towards my house, I noticed something looked different. Then it hit me. My lovely zinnias were no longer there. And in their place was a long strip of dirt, decorated by small pieces of mowed down flower petals and leaves. I stared in utter disbelief.

I ran into the house and howled at my mother, “where, are my flowers mom? My zinnias are all gone.

She looked up at me and said, “I’m sorry Susan. Your father cut them down when he cut the grass today.” There was no point in confronting my dad about things like this. He never offered any explanation. He might simply answer, it’s my yard to do as I wish, or girls shouldn’t be doing work in the yard. That’s a man’s job.

I stopped playing with my dolls when I was about twelve years old. My mother put them away for safekeeping in her room, in the storage space above her clothes closet. I had two dolls. One was a collector’s edition of Shirley Temple. She was dressed in an authentic Scottish kilt, and military-style jacket and tan beret with a red feather. She wore woolen knee-high socks and patent leather shoes. Her hair was dark blond and had perfect ringlets. I had her for many years, but she was in perfect condition. I kept her and her clothes in a miniature white trunk. That had a special space for her on one side, and on the other side was a place to hang her change of clothes.

My other doll was older, she was a baby doll called Betsy Wetsy. You fed her with a little bottle that you could fill with tap water. And then she would pee in her baby doll diaper, just like a real baby, except she did it as you were feeding her.

My mother kept these dolls for me for a long time in her closet. Perhaps hoping that someday I would have my own little girls who would like to see, and play with their mom’s childhood dolls.

One day when I was sitting on my mother’s bed, she was looking in her storage area for her hat, which she kept in a hatbox. I noticed that my doll trunk and Betsy Westsy were no longer there. ‘Mom where are my dolls?” I felt a sense of dread.

“I don’t know Susie.” She answered. But she wouldn’t look at me, she had her head down. But I knew, I knew my father had taken them away.

After that, I tried not to let myself get too attached to things.  But then I discovered my special collection of autographs of TV actors, was gone as well. I had kept them hidden under my twin bed. This really made a great big empty spot in my heart.

My best friend, Joanie, and I had shared this hobby for most of our childhood years. We spent many a summer’s afternoons sitting in her screened-in back porch. We wrote long letters of our undying love for the stars of our favorite TV shows, requesting autographed pictures.

Our favorites were Western’s like Gunsmoke. I was secretly in love with James Arness.  And then there was Wagon Train, and Have Gun Will Travel, and of course Bonanza. My favorite show of all time was Dobie Gillis, who I thought was the coolest. Because he was a beatnik that frequented coffee houses, and listen to obscure poetry, and snapped his fingers instead of clapping.

Even now sixty-plus years later it’s hard to fathom what motivated my father to abscond with not just my childhood playthings, but my memories as well.

LESSON LEARNED

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It was 1969, my senior year in high school. I was seventeen but would turn eighteen in May. Everyone else was doing it, had been doing it since they were sixteen. But not me, the other girls in my class told me I was a baby, asked me what I was waiting for?  What was I waiting for?

As my birthday drew closer, I made the decision I would do it. I would learn how to drive. But

Father’s old car

who would teach me, who? Well, the most likely candidate was my father, since he was the only member of my family who owned a car. My mother never learned how to drive. In fact, she seldom went in the car, except to the doctors, or the food store, and she didn’t go often.

My father was not an easy person to talk to. He was prickly like a porcupine, and you never knew what would set him off. He was in one word a grouch! In fact, his nickname in our family was” The Old Bear.”

So, the Sunday morning before my eighteenth birthday, I decided it would be D-day. The day I would ask my father to teach me to drive.

My father made his feelings about women driving no secret. He didn’t think that they should drive, could drive, or needed to drive. Up until now my transportation included my feet, my bike, and the bus, in that order.

So, as I sat down at the breakfast table after Mass, I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. My father was engrossed in reading the Sunday paper. He did not encourage talking at meals.

Nor did he encourage conversation, or other points of view. I had asked my mother’s opinion about talking to my father about driving. She said, “well I don’t know Susie you know how your father feels about girls driving. But I guess it can’t hurt to ask.

So, I did. “Dad, would you teach me to drive? You know I’ll be graduating from high school this year, and I’ll need to drive back and forth to whatever job I get.”

“Susan, you don’t have a car, so why would you need to learn how to drive?”

“Well, I countered, I can go on the bus back and forth to work, until I save enough money to buy a car. Then I would need to learn how to drive and get my drivers’ license. And then I wouldn’t have to take the bus anymore. I hate taking the bus. “ I said this all in one breath.

This wasn’t the best argument because my father worked for PTC. That was the Philadelphia Transportation Company; in other words, the Philadelphia bus company. He had been a trolley driver first, and then he was the head dispatcher for over thirty years. In other words, his life was all about the bus.

“You know Susie, if you are able to save enough money to buy a car, then you have to get insurance, in case you get in a car accident, did you know that?”

I had a very vague idea about that, from talking to some of my friends at school. “Dad I will get a job now, and start saving so by the time I graduate, I will have enough money to buy a car.” I had no idea if this was possible, or even where to buy a car, or how much it would cost. Up until now, the biggest purchase I had made was a movie ticket.

Just then my mother said,” Harry teach her to drive; she’ll need to learn at some point, why not now, before she graduates?”

I stared at my mother.I couldn’t believe she spoke up to my father. It was really unheard of. He rarely asked or wanted her opinion or anyone else’s. My father looks from my mother to me, and then with a loud sigh, he said, “OK, OK next Saturday, we’ll give it a try.”

Saturday arrived, and I was filled with excitement and trepidation. As I was finishing breakfast my father said, “all right, Susan get in the car, we’re going over to the Sears parking lot at the Moorestown Mall, and you will practice.”

As we pulled into the parking lot, my father said,” whatever I tell you to do, do it, nothing else.” We switched places in the front seat. My father explained how to sit properly in the seat, how to check the position of the mirrors, the signals, the gas pedal, and, most importantly, the brake.

“Susan, we’re just going to go from point A to B. Then, you will depress the brake, when I tell you, show me which is the gas pedal, which is the brake.” I was nervous and started biting my nails.

Off we went back and forth, back and forth, for about fifteen minutes. “OK Susan, now I want you to start turning the wheel, you’re going to drive in a circle.” I started to do that, although I didn’t make a perfect circle.

My father started yelling, louder and louder, “slow down, slow down, you’re going too fast. The louder he yelled the more nervous I got. I forgot which pedal was which. He told me to stop and,  I hit the gas pedal hard by mistake. We started heading toward a little building, Sear’s Auto Parts.

My father’s yelling got me so flustered I smashed right into a pile of car tires next to the side entrance of the building. Which was lucky for us, because otherwise I would have hit the building itself.

I let go of the wheel, and the gas pedal, and that is when we stopped, and my father reached over and hit me on my arm as hard as he could. That was the end of the driving lessons.  Without looking directly at me, my father said, “Get out of the car Susan.”

I got out, I was pretty shaken up, between the yelling, crashing into the tires, and then getting smacked. I could only remember my father hitting one other time, so I knew he was really, really mad.

I thought he was just going to drive away and leave me, but he said, Get in the back!”

After that, I asked my sister Betty to teach me to drive. She said she would. Even though she was married and had four kids. She found the time to teach me and take me to get my driver’s license test. The day I passed the test, I told my dad. And he just shook his head and said, “just what the world needs another woman behind the wheel.”

Sweet Tooth

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I didn’t get it from any stranger.  My mother has the same addiction. She joneses for Peppermint Paddies. It started innocently enough. At first, I would nosh on a bag of shredded coconut or a miniature box of raisins on our front steps. You know, the ones I’m talking about, the one with the dark-haired little girl with the bonnet on her head. It wasn’t long before that didn’t do the trick for me. I needed more, better, sweeter.

Finally, the day arrived when my mother decided I was old enough to learn how to cross the street. “Susie, take my hand and watch what I do, and cross the street with me. Don’t let go of my hand.

After we practiced this a few times, she felt I was ready to take my maiden flight alone. “Remember what I said: look both ways, look right, then left, then right again. Then cross the street when you are sure there isn’t any traffic coming in either direction.”

“Ok Mom, I know how to do it, you don’t have to watch me anymore,” I assured her.

Finally, I was free to roam not just my side of the street but everywhere in town. Maple Shade was mine for the taking. My first destination was Shucks. I heard all about it from my older sisters, Eileen, and Betty who worked there on their school lunch breaks.

When all the other students from Our Lady of Perpetual Help Elementary School would go home for lunch, they would head around the corner to work for an hour at Shucks. They made milkshakes, malted milk, and hoagies.

In exchange, they would get a free lunch, anything they chose to eat. They were always talking about it, saying how all the cool kids in town went there after school, eat French fries, and dance to the 45’s on the Jukebox.

Well, I had a nickel that was just burning a hole in my pocket. No sooner had my mother watched me cross the street than I was off and running. I took a shortcut through Mrs. McFarland’s yard. She was out in her yard, as usual, weeding her garden.

“Hello, Susie, how are you doing today? Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

“Oh, hi, Mrs. McFarland, I’m just going around the corner.”

Mrs. McFarland is a nice lady. And sometimes my friend Joan and I sit on her garden swing and play dolls. She would bring out her doll from when she was a little girl to show us. It looked really, really old. It had a face made from china and had real hair.

Other times, she would take me for a walk on her garden path and tell me the names of all her flowers, explaining the special care each flower needed. Her favorite was her tulips, which she explained had come from some far-away place called Holland. She told me how she had to dig them up each summer and replant them the next year. “Bye. Mrs. McFarland, I’ll see you later.” And I was off and running again.

As I rounded the corner to Main Street, I saw my friend Joanie’s father driving down the street and waved at him. He pulled over to the curb and rolled down the window. “Hello, Susie, what are you up to? Does your mother know that you crossed the street?”

“Yes, you know I’m not a little kid anymore!”

“Alright, be careful when you’re crossing on the way back.” I was almost home free. I came up to the door, as two teenagers walked out, I ran in. They laughed and said, “Look out where you’re going kid!”

Candy from the 1950s &n60’s

There it was. I couldn’t believe it, the holy grail of candy counters. I stood before it, transfixed by the amazing assortment of candy. There were red-hot dollars, dots, ribbon candy, licorice, red and black gumdrops, wax lips, and every kind of chocolate candy imaginable. I stood there, with my mouth watering, almost immobilized by the decision that lay ahead of me. A lady came up to the counter,” Hi dear, what can I do for you?”

I said,” Well, I have a nickel, and I want to buy some candy.”

“You do, well you just take your time and decide which ones you want. It’s penny candy, so you can get five pieces of candy for a nickel.”

“I want a licorice whip and a red-hot dollar, bubble gum, dots, and oh yeah, I want wax lips.” She took a small paper bag and put my booty in one at a time.

“Here you go, sweetie. Now, don’t eat it all at once.” And she handed it over to me.

“Thanks,” I said as I was walking towards the door. Two girls walked in, but I was too busy looking in the bag to notice that it was my friends Helen and Teresa from school.

“Hi,” they both said at once to me. I mumbled hello and took off for my house. I couldn’t wait to get my first taste.

After that first bag, I couldn’t stop thinking about getting more, but the problem was I didn’t have any money. Then, I came up with the idea of collecting the coins from the church floor that people dropped during Mass on Sunday.

And so that’s what I do. Every Sunday afternoon after church, I walk up and down between the pews collecting money. I’ve become a regular customer at Shucks’. I wish I could tell you that I feel guilty, but I can’t. Life has never been sweeter!

What If?

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What if?

For anyone who is reading this, you’re so welcome. Today I’ll be writing about creativity. For me it is the driving force in my life. And it always has been as far back as I can remember. I was a shy child, quiet and introspective. But I had a vivid and active imagination.

I have a fraternal twin, she was outgoing. Most people would question why are these two so different? They are the same ages, exposed to the same environment and family. Both spent twelve years incarcerated in the Catholic School. We had to wear uniforms including the same shoes. All methods to make students conform, act the same, lose all personality and originality. Methods to control children’s behaviors.

From the outside it looked like I was conforming, fitting, but I wasn’t. My imagination knew no bounds. I made up stories and tell them to anyone who will listen. I would draw pictures of animals and insects, and flowers who could talk. I was a daydreamer. I made things out of odds and ends that I found in my house and out in the yard. I would run in the house and say, “Mom, Dad look what I made.”

The question I asked myself as a child was “What if…” What if the sky wasn’t blue and white? What if I could fly like a bird? What if I could talk to animals and we could understand what they were saying and thinking?

But the real question is why aren’t all people more creative? Why isn’t creativity supported? Why is creativity inhibited in children? People who think outside the box are the people that become scientist, engineers, artist, writers, innovators, musicians, poets.

By putting two dissimilar things together, two unrelated things you can come up with new ideas, new inventions. Think about it. Think about how different your life would be if you let your imagination go and not stifle it. Open yourself up to a new way of thinking and being in the world. What if birds decided to float down to the earth instead of flying,

UMBRELLA BIRDS by Susan A. Culver

 

It’ Monday Night So We must Be Having Meatloaf

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My father sits on his faded orange rocking chair in the living room. He is watching the news on our new black and white TV. Walter Cronkite is saying, “And that’s the way it is.”

As he gently pets our dog Andy he absentmindedly stops. And Andy pushes his wet nose up into my father’s palm until he starts stroking his head again.

My father shouts, “Marie could you get me a cup of coffee.”

Marie is my mother’s name but my dad usually calls her Mom. My father is the king of this castle.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table staring at my spelling words. I’m supposed to be memorizing them for a test tomorrow. But instead I’m kicking my sister Karen’s leg and she’s pinching my arm under the table.

My Mother is busily wiping the kitchen counter unaware of the silent battle Karen and I wage just five feet from where she stands. We know better then to make any noise because my father doesn’t put up with any boloney while Walter is discussing the world news.

The problem is Karen is left-handed and I’m right handed. We’re both stubborn and refuse to change seats, so every time we try to write or turn a page, we bump arms. The battle would be on. My mother calls out in her sweet voice, “Be right there Harry.”

She fills his cup and adds three teaspoons of sugar and brings it into the living room wrapped in a dishcloth. My father has diabetes but he doesn’t let that affect what he eats, or drank. He adjusts his insulin shots depending on his blood sugar level.

His drink of choice is watered-down ketchup. My Mom places the cup on the table next to my father and warns him, “Be careful Harry, it’s hot.” Looking down at Andy, she says, “That animal has the life of Riley.”

My father loves Andy and lavishes all his attention and affection on him. Once a week he walks down to the corner store and buys him an ice cream cone. Karen and I sit there with our tongues hanging out wishing we could get a lick in, as he holds it to Andy’s mouth.

My mother would offer the same reframe, “Oh Harry you’re spoiling that dog.” Then she glances over at the two of us with a look that says, there’s not much I can do about it.

After we finish our written homework, my mother quizzes us on the spelling words. If we aren’t sure of the spelling, she’ll give us a little hint by saying the first two or three letters.

That night I have math homework. I hate math, hate it even more because my father tutors me when I have trouble. This is a daily occurrence. He’s very good at math. My father is the Head Bus Dispatcher at PTC. which stands for the Pennsylvania Transportation Company. He’s been working there forever. He created the procedure of scheduling the buses and trollies that’s still in use today.

After I complete my math homework my father says, “Give it to me. Let me have a look at it.” I lived in terror of this moment every day. My father expects nothing less than excellence and perfection. I feel I’m far from excellent. He would go over each problem, while I sat on my hands because they’re sweating. Praying that they’re correct.

He makes me so nervous I can hardly think straight when he asks a question. He looks over at me and says, “How did you get these answers? Show me the work, do this problem.”

I stare at it for a moment, my mind is a complete blank.  I ‘m afraid that I will disappoint him again. He says, “What are you waiting for? Get to it!” I finish the problem.

“Let me show you how you are supposed to do it.”

He shows me how to do it his way. I look up at him, afraid to speak.

“Well?”

“Dad, we use the new math, we don’t use your old math.”

“Old math, what are you talking about, old math?”

“But Dad, that’s the way Sister Joseph Catherine told us we have to do it.”

My father’s is a very bright man. “Alright Susabelle, use the new math at school. But when you need to do math in your life later on, you’ll see that my way works better.”

“Daddy, When Sister Joseph Catherine calls on me, she says, Hey you, and not my name.

“Well Susabelle, just tell her that Hugh is your father’s name not yours.”

My father doesn’t make jokes very often but when he does it would behoove you to laugh along with him, even if it’s at your own expense. After our homework is finished, we all go and sit in the living room to watch TV. I hear, “This is Walter Cronkite and good night.”

My mom sits down probably for the first time all day. She has a cup of coffee, and we watch Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke. My dad’s favorite show. Andy lays asleep next to my father’s chair, snoring quietly.

You Ain’t No Miss America Lady

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Well here it is picture day, isn’t that just grand, as my mother would say. All the kids at school are always so excited about picture day. For a couple of reasons; one we go to Catholic School, and therefore we have to wear hideous uniforms everyday.

The girls’ uniform is a wool, maroon jumper with a pleated skirt,  and a button-down white shirt with short, sleeves, and lucky us, a Peter Pan collar. No matter how fat or thin you are, you look horrible in this outfit.

I never get a new uniform because they cost a lot of money, which my family doesn’t have. We have six children instead. I’m the youngest. Sometimes I have to wear the same uniform for several years, and by the time Karen passes on her old uniform to me, the one I’m wearing waist is up under what I suppose what will someday be my boobs.

Anyway, I was saying I never get a new uniform, I get to wear my twin sister Karen’s hand me downs because she is a bigger size then I am. To top off this outstanding look, is the OLPH beanie. Which is also maroon, and has a peak in front, and a little maroon covered button on the top.

Sometimes if it is a first Friday, we get to wear a mantilla on our heads when we are all herded to group confession. A mantilla is a round piece of lace, also maroon. What’s with maroon already? Why pick the ugliest color in the world? We Catholic kids get to wear it for eight long years. Probably has something to do with the fact that we have original sin. And they are trying to get us used to the idea of eternal damnation.

Wow, that’s another story I could write a book on just the whole Catholic Church, Mass, and Confession ordeal. I’ll tell you about it later. Anyway, I was saying, the boys are not blessed with the whole horrible uniform thing, like the girls are. They get off easy with wearing black pants, white shirt and a tie. I’ll tell you life is just not fair. I know this and I’m only eleven years old. So, get used to it.

Back to picture day, everybody was looking forward to it because they don’t have to wear the ugly uniform for one day of their pathetic lives. I knew it was going to be torture for me, and I guess my sister Karen too.

Last night, my mother said,” Susie and Karen, after dinner I want you two to get a bath and wash your hair. Oh, and Susie don’t forget to wash out the shampoo.”

Jeez, one time you forget the rinse part of the hair washing and they never let you forget it. “Yeah, Ma, I know wash and rinse, wash and rinse.” I take my sister aside and say, Karen,”let me go first. You always take too long.”

“ Ok Susie, but if you don’t clean out the tub before I have to use it, I’ll make you sorry.”

“ Yeah, yeah, I’ll wash it already.” I go into the bathroom with my pajamas in hand. My favorite ones with the cats all over them, luckily, they are my favorite because I only have one pair.

I would like to wear them, all day everyday, I love pajamas. I hope someday, people will be able to wear their pajamas all day. I have told my mother this many times. And for some reasons she keeps saying, “Watch what you wish for Susie, you may grow to regret it.”

She has a lot of sayings like that like, keep making that face, and it might stay like that. Keep crying, I’ll give you something to cry about. She sounds mean but she’s really not, she just doesn’t put up with a lot of complaining.

She never complains about anything, I mean never. If she ever got run over by a car, she would just get up and take an Aspirin. She thinks aspirin is the answer for all that ails you, cuts, sore throats, Charlie horses (which I get in my legs all the time.)

If Aspirin doesn’t do the job there is always Vapor Rub, or as a last resort butter and sugar mixture, which is disgusting. Let’s not forget Exlax, God forbid.

I don’t tell my mother when I’m sick, unless I feel like I am close to death, if I see the light at the end of the tunnel. One time I had a really bad toothache, it hurt a lot. It hurt all the way up into my ear, especially after Sister Saint Joseph clapped her hand against it because she thought I wasn’t listening.

So finally, my older sister notices that the left side of my face is swollen up. And says, to my mother, “ Hey Mom I think there’s something wrong with Susie. Her face is all swollen up on the one side. Didn’t she already have the mumps?”

My Mom says come here, “Susie let me have a look. She looks at my face , in my ear, and then, open up, what is going on in there? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she has a big cavity, and an abscess in there. She’s going to have to go to the dentist. Oh God, your father is going to be fit to be tied. Do you ever brush your teeth Susie?”

Next thing you know, I’m at some dentist in  Philadelphia, the only one that my parents could find open on a Saturday. By then, I was in such pain, I didn’t care what they did to me, as long as the pain stopped. And sure, enough he had to pull that sucker out of there. He told my parents that they should be ashamed that my mouth was in terrible shape, and had all kind of cavities, and it looked like I never took a brush to them ever.

My parents were pretty upset with this, and my Mom got a job after that so she could pay for my sister Karen, and I to go to the dentist. I had to have three teeth pulled out, and so many fillings, I lost count. My father was pretty mad at me about that for a long time. My mother checked my teeth  every day after that. I never had a moment of peace.

Back to the night before picture day, I get my bath, and do a quick rinse on the tub. When I come out my mom calls me  to the kitchen and says, “ Susie, I am going to set your hair, so it looks nice for picture day. Good Lord, I’m thinking will the punishment never end? What did I ever do to deserve this? My mother sits me at the table she has long strips of white cloth about an inch wide (probably an old sheet) and starts rolling up sections of my hair and tying the rags in a knot at the end.

The next morning, when my mother unrolls my hair into long curls, she has a big smile on her face and says,” Oh Susie, you look just like Shirley Temple.” I look in the mirror, and I see that I am transformed from my usual straight hair, pulled back in  a ponytail to God knows what!

Then Karen, comes in and my mother says, I have a surprise, your brother Harry bought you two dresses for Easter, but we decided you could wear them for picture day. She shows us twin dresses, yeah, that’s right twin dresses. Identical visions of blue satin, and blue chiffon that are fitted at the waist, have a bow in the back, and best of all big, I mean really big puffy pleated sleeves that come down to our elbows. “ Oh, I can’t wait, go put them on.”

Karen and I go up to our rooms and put these fashion nightmares on, when we get upstairs, we discover to my horror , that there are matching crinolines that we will get to wear all day at school. You just cannot imagine how uncomfortable they are.

I have it on for about two minutes when I realize that until now, I didn’t fully understand what the expression hell on earth meant. I have only my sneakers to wear, or my school shoes, so I opt for the sneakers, at least one part of my anatomy won’t be suffering.

We come down the steps, Karen, is walking like a queen. She always did like being dressed up. She is just not normal! I walk down the steps like I’m walking the last mile to the death chamber. My mother claps her hands when she sees us. I have never seen her so excited, my father has his camera out and takes a picture of us together, in front of our glass fireplace. He says, “you look beautiful.”

It’s almost worth the torture to see my parents look so happy, and my father has a big smile plastered on his face. Which is a sight I have rarely seen. Together we walk to school, I can only imagine the horror that awaits me, and Karen is grinning away.

When we get to our classroom, all the kids are excited. The girls are all wearing their Sunday dresses with shiny patent leather shoes. They have barrettes in their hair, and I could be wrong, but I think some of them have on lipstick.

The boys have on corduroy pants, dress shirts, and bow ties. Their hair is all slicked back with Brill Cream. But nobody, I mean nobody looks like Karen and I, when we take off our coats, everybody looks at us as one. Their eyes are big, their mouths round. Sister says, oh now don’t you two look beautiful. You look like you belong on top of a wedding cake. You two can be the first to get your pictures taken.

I think oh my life is complete. I can never top this experience. The only thing that would top this is if , I have to have to marry Robin Schultz my nemesis!

SHAKE THREE TIMES, THEN IRON

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I read in the news today that the Hasbro toy company is tossing out the iron token in the Monopoly game since they consider it to be a passé` icon. Their argument is that only our grandmothers, or perhaps great grandmothers would recognize, in our high tech, high def world such an old fashion household appliance.

This may be overwhelmingly true for the Millennial Generation. I’m sure they don’t own irons. And it’s possible even their mothers shunned this homely gadget.  Perhaps viewed as a shackle that chained their mothers for hours in the kitchen. When they could be out in the world making a real difference for themselves, and their future generations. I have to confess that I too, hate to iron. However, as a frequent sewer, I consider it to be a necessity, not a pleasurable activity.

On the other hand, some of my warmest memories of my childhood revolve around the kitchen, and my mother bent over the iron. My mother was a prolific ironer; she ironed everything from our clothing, to sheets and pillowcases. You name it if it had been in the washer; eventually, it did its time on the ironing board as well. She kept a 7-UP bottle filled with water and plugged it with a metal sprinkle head as her constant companion. She would sprinkle all the stiff dry clothes with the bottle.

These were the days before wash and wear, permanent press, before we had a dryer. The clothes were hung on a line in our backyard to dry, regardless of inclement weather. My mother would clip them with wooden clothespins to a clothesline that was suspended by two metal poles cemented into the earth.

Even Hurricane Hazel didn’t knock that sucker down, it held. When the clothes were dry, my mother brought out her wicker clothes basket, gather the clothes to be ironed. We were a family of eight, so there was an unending supply of things that my mother deemed in need of ironing.

When I arrived home from school at about 3:00 pm, I would find my mother ironing. Perhaps even in the early sixties, this was a passé activity. I not knowing any differently believed all children’s mothers spent hours daily washing and ironing their clothes.

I can picture it so clearly as if it were only yesterday. I run at fast as I could home from school, burst in the front door. My mother was always home, standing there perhaps suspended in time waiting, waiting for me to come home, and tell her all the news of my day.

“Hey Mom, I’m home, I’m starving, anything to eat?”

“Oh Susie, there you are, I was beginning to get worried. How was your day? What did you learn today? Where is your sister Karen? She would pepper me with questions, not giving me a chance to answer her. “Let me get you some milk and cookies. Daddy went shopping today, and he bought your favorite, Fig Newtons, won’t that taste good?”

She would quickly run over to the refrigerator, and fill a tall glass with cold milk, and put two or three cookies on a plate. I would pull out a chair and have a seat next to her near the ironing board. She would get back to ironing and I would tell her about my day.

No matter how insignificant or mundane my day had been my mother would give me her undivided attention. She made me feel as if I was in that moment the center of her life, in a world where I didn’t often feel I was important at all.

Those few moments my mother and I talked were the most life-affirming, and memorable of my life. I can still hear the hiss as the iron struck the damp clothes; smell the fragrant air that perfumed the basket of clothes. And most memorable see my mother smile and hear her gentle laugh at the stories I told her while she ironed her afternoon away.

Perhaps in this hurry up, can’t get things done quickly enough world, we should stop for a moment, and take a breath, and listen to what our children tell us. How they experience the world, how they feel, and let them know that no matter that the cell phone is ringing, or we have dinner to cook, places to go, meetings to take. That just for those few moments suspended in time, we are there, really there for them to lend a listening ear and an open heart.

 

 

POCKETS By Susan A. Culver

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I stand outside the red front door of my parent’s house for five minutes before I’m able to gather the courage to go inside. As I pull open the door a rush of memories of myself as a child, then a teenager in a Catholic school uniform and then as a young mother with my own children travel swiftly through my mind.

I walk through the front hallway, I’m once again reminded that the once bright yellow walls and lime green carpet are now dull and dirty from years of my father’s smoking. The air is stale and musty.

The house feels empty of life and filled with sorrow. I take a deep breath and go into the kitchen. I haven’t been in the house since my mother passed away three months earlier. She  suffered from dementia for the last five years of her life. Each day of her final journey had been marked by a new loss until finally there was nothing left but a mere whisper of the loving woman, she had been during her seventy-six years of life.

Only one week remains for me to clear out the house out before the new owners will arrive. I had put the difficult task of cleaning out my mother’s room off for as long as possible. I felt paralyzed with grief since her death.

I walk through the kitchen into the hall and slowly open her bedroom door. The room feels cold and empty. I look down at her bed, where she spent her final hours. There folded at the foot of the bed is the cream-colored afghan that I had crocheted for her while I was pregnant with my first child.

As I open her closet door a familiar fragrance fills the room. It’s my mother’s perfume Jean Nate’. The aroma surrounds me like my mother’s embrace.

I begin taking the well-worn house-dresses out of her closet, laying them across the bed. I don’t think anyone else will want the,m, but I can’t imagine throwing them away. Then I see a plastic clothing bag hanging in the back of the closet. I unzip it and find my mother’s favorite blue coat. The coat I made for her sixtieth birthday.

I  taught myself how to sew while I was in high school. At first, I made simple skirts and shifts and as my skills and confidence grew I made coats. The first coat was this blue one for my mother. She had encouraged me from the beginning of my journey with sewing as she had with everything I had attempted in my life. She would say softly, “You can do it, Susan, keep going you’re doing a wonderful job.”

When I finished the coat, I feet proud of it, I made of soft pale blue cashmere wool. I searched flea markets and vintage clothing shops until I had found the perfect buttons. They were mother-of-pearl shaped like roses, my mother’s favorite flower. I hand-bound the buttonholes and sewed the lining in place with tiny stitches.

She wore that coat every Sunday to Mass on the cold winter mornings for almost fifteen years. I offered to buy or make her a new coat, but she never wanted another one. Saying she didn’t want to wear anything else.

I held the coat in my arms close to my heart. It brought back so many memories of my mother.  The first time she wore it, I heard her telling all her lady friends, “My daughter made this for me. Look at this fine stitching and beautiful pearl buttons.”

I put the coat down on the bed and look through each pocket, making sure nothing is left inside. I find her rosary beads. The ones my father had made for her for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. The beads were handmade from dried roses and came all the way from County Cork in Ireland. Where my mother’s parents were born.

I found a slip of paper handwritten in fading ink with the names of all her children and their birthdays. At the bottom of the paper were the names Stephen and Gerard. My twin brother’s who only lived a few days. The children my parents never spoke about. But I knew my mother prayed for them every day of her life.

In the inside pocket, I found my mother’s prayer book. Its pages were worn thin from decades of use. As I pick up the prayer book, Holy Cards come tumbling out. I knelt down to pick them up.

Among the Holy Cards, I see a folded note. I carefully open it. The handwriting look familiar, I realize it’s my own. A note I wrote and placed inside the pocket of the coat when I gave it to my mother on her sixtieth birthday. I can see it has been read many times. It read, ” I made this coat for you my wonderful mother. Each stitch represents the love I received from you each day of my life. I hope it makes you feel as loved and protected as you always made me feel.

Love your daughter, Susan.”