12-12-24

 

Wednesday, December 12, would have been your 88th birthday.  I imagine you will have a marvelous birthday celebration in Heaven, with chocolate cake, those sparklers you love so much, champagne and dancing to old Cuban songs, I am sure "Quiereme Mucho" will be played.  I can see you dancing with Daddy, smiling, dressed to the nines, happy.  I still make a chocolate cake on your birthday and light a candle, watch some schzmaltzy Christmas movie and start decorating the tree.  This year the tree decorating will have to wait until the weekend, it's going to be a rough week at work, particularly Monday through Wednesday, so no chance of leaving early on Wednesday to get the tree.  Saturday afternoon, my lovely Fairy GodMother Ruby is coming over to help me decorate the tree (my first REAL one here in the Cocoon), I will bake Snickerdoodles for her and a pound cake (no frosting) for Sis' Mae, her sister.  We will toast with ginger ale (Ruby does not drink and it looks like champagne) and feast on roast chicken, salad and cheesy corn muffins.

This weekend has been good (next weekend will be even better), started early Friday afternoon when my boss gave me the afternoon off, after taking one look at me and saying "You need to get your hair cut, call your hairdresser, see if she has anything open for today."  I have to admit, I felt wooped, shwooped and ready to droop.  But I called and she had an opening and off I went to the hair salon for a much-needed tune-up.  My sister called while I was there, saying she's in town.  Really wish she had told me about the trip, I would have planned differently for the weekend.  But it was a really rough week work-wise and my plans were for a Pajama Day Weekend.  So, although I realize it was a bit selfish, I did not change my plans. Have not heard from her, don't really expect to.  It really bothered me, this continued indifference of hers to my asking her to let me know when planning to visit.  The expectation of my dropping everything and driving over to whatever family member she is staying with (never with me) has to stop.  It is the indifference that bothered me the most.  I should be used to it from my "family" by now, but somehow this one got under my skin for a bit.  Still, I proceeded with my plans and can honestly say it has been a lovely weekend. Slept until 9:20 both days, made Talley breakfasts both days, watched holiday movies, baked, made some truly delish canellini beans and turkey soup and lovely cheesy, really, really cheesy corn muffins to go with it.  Worked a bit on my beloved Whimble stories, which FGM Martha polishes into little gems, gardened a bit with my neighbors this afternoon.  Had a most marvelous telephone visit with her after gardening.

Our chats always energize me and, for some reason, when I speak with her all these memories from long ago and far away flood my mind.  Today we were talking about the story of Velvet and her little mouse friend, Droffats.  Talking with her I realized the story was not only about you, but also about me, I guess I merged the two into the protagonist of the story, a little girl named Velvet.  We were speaking about Abuelo.  He was such a joy, my grandfather.  Really relished his role.  I always remember him spinning fairy tales for me, or carving beautiful things.  I remember the time one of my dolls lost a leg and he carved a new one for her, a perfect little leg, right down to the shoe.  And that beautiful, magical crib with the pale pink tulle netting dotted with teeny-tiny rhinestones.  Would love to have that with me today, it was such a thing of beauty.  For a four-year old it was heaven to wake up Christmas Day and find it in the middle of my bedroom with a baby doll inside!  It wasn't exactly the baby sister I had asked Santa Claus (and the Three Wise Men) for, but still I found it enchanting.  The baby doll wore REAL baby clothes, I named her "Bebita."  I had been praying, writing to Santa, the Three Wise Men, even asking the nuns at school, for a baby sister.  You and I walked regularly to the mail box to send off letters to the City of Paris, where I had been told babies came from, delivered by French storks.  See, that is one of the things I loved most about you, your willingness to go along with the fantasy, the joy and the wonder.  You had such faith in the good of humanity.  You found joy in the simplest of things.  One of my first memories of you is of your pasting beautiful red and gold foil angels on the dining room walls for the holidays.  Some of the angels had trumpets, some harps and you also cut out musical notes and told me that when we were all asleep they came to life and played the most beautiful music to give us lovely dreams.  I remember your decorating this amazing Christmas tree in my bedroom and keeping it lit around the clock, with these teeny tiny fairy lights in all the colors of the rainbow.  Not only did we have a towering tree in the living room, I had my very own tree, just as big (as Daddy grumbled) in my bedroom and no matter when I got home from school or woke up during the night, it was there shining in all its glory.  I remember the fun we had making the town for the Nativity scene, the little mirrors we used for "water" where we positioned the animals as if they were drinking, you would tell me the story of the Baby Jesus and the Three Wise Men.  You taught me so much, MiaMamma.  You gave me the gift of love, faith, imagination.  Of a happy, stable, imaginative home, full of laughter, hugs, joy.

It has been lovely decorating for the holidays this year.  I have been driving my friends crazy singing "Fa la la la, la la laaaa!  Deck the halls with boughs of holly!" and my co-workers, who do NOT share my holiday passion.  Have been really enjoying playing with my wee Whimbles and the most beautiful, magical ladders ever.  Taken some pictures.  Nowhere near being finished with my holiday tableau, need one more wide, chubby apothecary jar and another Whimble fir tree, which should be on its way to my Cocoon sometime this week.  And more white glitter, need LOTS of that, it's snow!  So, Saturday morning off I will go for a Home Depot Garden Center (for herbs, impatiens and marigolds), Bed Bath & Beyond (ivory towels) and Michael's (white glitter and art supplies) run.  I am stocking up on stuff, art supplies, groceries, cat snackies, now, so that come December 22 I can hole up in my Cozy Cocoon for four days, blessed, blessed, blessed be.  Nochebuena will be at my neighbors like Thanksgiving, Christmas Day they will come over for brunch.  Do you know their last name is Hurtado?  Who knows, we may actually be related!

And this Wednesday, the 12th, is your birthday.  You would have turned 88.  For the longest time, even though I love this most magical time of year, the holidays would bring about the blues.  I missed (and still do) having you, the two of you, here with me.  Then I would feel guilty for being blue, then I would feel guilty for feeling guilty because, truth be told, how many people in the world have ever known what we knew.  How many have had such an extended, blessedly long and mostly happy childhood.  For a very long time I also felt bad for being happy (you have a VERY complicated child) because in making a new life for myself, it felt like I was leaving you behind.  One that didn't really have you two in it.  One that actually did not and does not have any actual blood family in it at all.  Then I realized I was being silly, you would want me to be happy, to fly, to be.  You, particularly, knew how to live "in the moment."  One of my favorite articles in Romantic Homes is about this artist who lives on Martha's Vineyard and at the entrance to her (quite beautiful, welcoming) home is her mantra which is "Be Here Now, Here Be."  I know you, Mom, would have understood it.  I am trying.  At times I still wrestle with the past and all that entails, but I have gotten better at letting things go.  Or, as the Beatles so nicely sang it, let it be.

So, this weekend has been productive, spiritually and mentally.  Watched some movies, two of which made me promise, yet again, to never, ever complain about anything, because there are people living in truly horrific situations out there.  One of those movies was filmed in Africa, they filmed in one of the shantytowns, places where people live in shacks made up of anything they can lay their hands on.  Children are born there, grow up there, in horrendous surroundings.  Then this morning I watched Super Soul Sunday with Oprah (love, love, love her).  Her guest today was Elie Wiesel.  Oh, my.  After the show, they ran the documentary of when he went back to the concentration camp with Oprah.  The museum that exists there now just broke my heart.  Mountains of shoes, of suitcases, of baby clothes.  Behind each shoe, each suitcase, each tiny bit of clothing, a story of a life snuffed out.  By human cruelty.  The photographs, the eyes of the people in the photographs, they reminded me of a story that ran in the news years ago, dozens of animals that had been starved, beaten, tortured were rescued, those that were still alive were being taken care of at one of the humane societies.  The camera focused on this one dog, who came up to the gate of the kennel he was put in, and the eyes of that poor, sweet animal, those eyes have haunted me ever since.  They were so resigned, sad.  Seeming to ask, why?  The photos today in that documentary, those eyes had the same look.  Children alone, children with their mothers.  Photos of people standing in lines, some carrying children, some holding their children's hands.  They were told they were going to take a shower.  They were gassed instead.  Why?  How is it possible for someone to do this?  I have never been able to wrap my brain around the fact that people committed these atrocities and then went home to their families.  How?  How is it possible that someone with children, someone who loved their children, was able to send children and their mothers to the gas chambers?  And then go home, have dinner with and kiss their children good night?  And atrocities continue to this day.  Human upon human.  Whenever they speak about alien life existing, I think, well, shoot, if I was an alien observing Earth, seeing how we treat each other, I'd keep going searching for other intelligent life in the universe.  Because, frankly, I would not want anything to do with the human race.  Speaking with Martha this afternoon, I commented that it takes a lot, a lot, of effort to see the good, to see the beauty, because it is ever so much easier to become bitter, see only the ugly, the cruel.  But you never did, did you.  I never once heard you complain, or say "Why me?"  I, on the other hand, regularly had yelling matches with God in our backyard.  Until I realized I was wasting precious time I could be spending with you.

Darn it, I rambled again.  Okay, stay focused, B-Girl, stay on track.  Wednesday, I will come home and even if I get home at midnight, I will bake a chocolate cake, frost it with homemade chocolate frosting made with Hershey's Cocoa, light a candle, make a cafe con leche, and, in my mind at least, I will share a slice with you.  Saturday we will decorate the tree, I will bake cookies, the neighbors will come over for coffee and cake.  And once more I will dim the lights, light the candles and then light the tree, in your name.  I will celebrate your life.  I will miss you all of my days, but I remember you with love, with laughter, with joy.  I was honored to have you in my life for one second, let alone 37 years and 11 months.  It was a blessing, a joy and a gift.  Happy Birthday, MiaMamma, you were, to quote Tina Turner, simply the best.