After scads of emails, actually a few, concerning where I have been I decided to share about where I have been, being absent, from this blog. Unfortunately, it does not involve forgotten weekends across the border nor anything remotely about lotteries.
My family is a large one. With many sisters, many nieces and nephews and even more of their children, there are many lives of many differences. One of my sister's children has had a hard life of which we were kept in the dark until that life had affected her children. Badly.
As families do when they are real family, we discussed what to do, not how to tut-tut and reprimand, but to take action to assist. Our part in this drama involving the magnificence of life has been to welcome into our home a wonderful, but storm tossed 14 year old who has seen the wrong side of Yuma and life.
It is sad, but at the same time delightful to watch her realize that she doesn't have to fight for food. It is frustrating, but natural to stem the tide of attitude born of fear as she realizes her room is her room and will not be taken away nor will she "move" once again because mommy needs to find work. As it was with our now 24 and 26 year olds, it is the little things that are the signposts of moving forward, treading water or drowning. Our 24 year old son has been indispensable in being a listening post and her supporter, quietly encouraging her that this isn't a temporary station offering stability which will be snatched away at the first hint of discord.
It has been humorous to watch her interact with my wife's Italian family. Soon after arrival we were off to the beach for a week to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday with no number. In a quiet talk on the beach I found that this was her first vacation and that she felt guilty for it. She felt guilty for the piles of food, the laughter, the constant hugging and the fact that we had not just one, but two houses looking out over the Atlantic that were ours alone to enjoy.
The little things we take for granted softened that guilt as she silently watched the prayers before each meal, one fisherman son gently chiding the CEO son for being a cheapskate, a grandmother sharing her crossword puzzle with a grandchild snugly explaining the purpose and the meaning of words, the unending waves begging to be ridden and the whole cast directed by the ghost of a now gone 4' 10" giant of a woman who brought, shaped and ruled a family into being Americans. Thank God this ghost didn't have time to teach this new family member how to play cards because I have never even come close to beating one of them in any game domestic or foreign.
That's where we have been and am now. Thank God for it, but how do I explain that, yes, Ireland is over the horizon on the far side of the Atlantic? She thinks I am making that up.
