Mom part 5...

Life’s a Beach

Over the years, our family had a number of vacations. There’s no question, though, that Mom was drawn to the water. She loved to get in the water, and even more she loved to bask in the sun and get a tan at the beach or poolside.

Whether it was a lake, a pool, or the ocean, Mom could be found there over the years. For a while she and Aunt Helen rented condos during the same week at Bethany Beach in Delaware. Kids slept on sofa beds, couches, floors, and even out on the balcony, and there were friends as well as family. Later, she and her friend Ceil McCabe joined Aunt Helen and her friends at Aunt Helen’s condo in Florida for a girls’ week. She and Ceil and their families also joined forces on more than one ocean vacation, and always planned at least one night out without the kids.
 

“The Irish are...typically clannish and place great stock in loyalty to their own…”
                                                                                                             Monica, McGoldrick, Ethnicity and Family Therapy
 
Mom had plenty of clashes with other members of the family, particularly big brother Bill. But no matter what the issues that initiated conflict, the clan pretty much always rallied together in times of difficulty or rejoicing. When Mic and I hit our teens, as teens do, we wanted to go our own ways, convinced we were quite adult. Mom and Dad gave us a fair amount of freedom to be with our friends and do the things we liked, and they also knew when to say no.

I was a freshman in high school when Mic and I got involved with the North Hills Youth Ministry. Mom taught with Bill Haley, one of the leaders, and encouraged us to join, even though it was a non-denominational group. For the next three years we went to weekly youth group meetings, attended retreats (Mom said at one point, “Stop retreating, start advancing!”), and became part of a Core group that was our primary interest through most of high school.

Dad's Abraham Lincoln look may have been a reference to Mic and I in our teenage years - not quite the Civil War, though he and Mom needed all the patience they could muster

She did get a bit fussed when our weekly meetings moved to Memorial Park United Presbyterian Church. No way were we allowed to eat with the rest of the youth group there, and she got defensive when we criticized the Catholic Church. Our primary leader then was a young Presbyterian seminary student, and she felt a real concern that he was leading us away from the Church. Her fears weren’t unfounded, but at that point neither Mic nor I had any real interest in trading one church for another.

One of the NHYM activities in our first year was the coffeehouse every Saturday night, over on Cumberland Road. The building is no longer there, but Dad would drop us off every week around 7 or 7:30 or we would get a ride from someone, and then be picked up around 11.

Some parting of the ways was inevitable.  When Mic started going to Midnight Mass with her boyfriend Dean, it was a natural, if painful, precursor to further separation as we all grew up. Mom took it in stride, even if she didn’t particularly like it.
 

 Sisters

Mom and Aunt Helen were always close. Growing up, Mom often took Aunt Helen with her, much as Mic later did with me. When we came back from Indiana every few months we stayed with Aunt Helen. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas was at one sister’s house or the other. That was when they became the Yum-Yum sisters. They couldn’t resist testing the food as they prepared to put it on the table, and even when everyone was seated and eating, they would interrupt each other to say, “Mmm, this is wonderful!”
 
I never thought, growing up, that they looked like twins. However, they did have very similar mannerisms like the way they chewed gum, the way they walked, they way they talked, so that if you didn’t know them well, it wasn’t hard to mistake the one for the other.
 
When Mom was dying and in hospice care, Kelly, the nurse, said that people often wait to die until someone in particular comes to see them. Aunt Helen and Uncle Jim were in Florida when Mom went into hospice care at Vincentian. They came home early, so they could see her. They spent hours at her bedside with my dad, and later that day, after they’d all gone, she died. I was convinced that she waited for her sister to come and say goodbye before letting go.
 

Mom and Aunt Helen through the years...

On a personal note, I've been fortunate to spend some time with my Aunt Helen even before  Mom died. Her love and support has meant a great deal to all of us in these past years. It's her turn, now, to be the matriarch of the clan, and she is a worthy successor to her sister, my mother....Doc