Letter to My Children (April 12, 2022)

Your Gramma Eileen, Uncle Pat, Aunt Jackie, Aunt Nancy - May 1981

Dear Jonathan, Sarah, Josh, and Christina,

You’re on my mind right now, perhaps you are sad too. Understandably sad. A decade since you have hugged your mom and talked to us. I was just down for a few days. Standing outside your homes, silently waiting for you to come to the door. Hoping you would even look out the windows.

Above is a photo I took of my mom, I was 19. Home from college for a cousin’s wedding. Mom looked pretty in the green sweater she knitted. She was happy, visiting with her sisters and brothers, father, nieces, and nephews up in Sheldon, NY. We lived about a half-hour away, in Attica. Next to dad’s (Grampa’s) parents and brothers.

Life is full of captured moments like these. I didn’t have any idea, none of us did. That in 6 months, we would be burying my mom. She probably knew she was sick. But dang, she looks so healthy in this picture in May. At the end of August, I would be getting a call from mom, to tell me that doctors had found her body was full of cancer.

I left college, came home to care for her and the kids. She died in November, we buried her around Thanksgiving. She would have been 42 on December 14 (your nephew’s birthday). Too young to die. But she had her children and husband. She had her father and brothers and sisters around her. She was loved to the end. And missed still today.

Come home. Please.
Mom