Coming to a Nursery Near You

Archive for February, 2009

As I’ve mentioned a few times, my beautiful baby boy shares his birthday with what was my Nana’s birthday – February 20th.  We celebrated his birthday on Friday, and as is typical with baby birthday parties, ours was pretty low key.

This year, we didn’t bother wrapping presents – we just kept presenting him with presents throughout the day, and after dinner, had his cake. 

Chocolate + babies = funnnnny.

He was trying to blow out the candle (after the initial song, that is) and every time he’d blow, he’d cheer  LOL

  All in all, I think he had a great day!  I can’t believe my baby’s already 2!!!!!

If anyone is interested in the memorial pictures, they’re on my photography blog.

I had such a ball taking pictures this weekend! 

This is my beautiful nephew Donovan, who is 8 months old

Donovan and big brother Devon.

  Middle brother, Dylan

I also did some new headshots for my brother Tommy.

Oops, that’s not him.

There he is

He’s actually freezing.

And he’s soooo handsome! I think he’ll be famous some day

Ok, so enough for now

You never know where it’s going to come from. 

This weekend, I had the opportunity to reconnect with a lot of family members that I hadn’t seen in a very long time.  I met some I hadn’t met before – I even (re?)met a cousin who was supposed to have been named Dawn, but I was born first, so my mom used it instead LOL

And, for the first time, I was able to connect with my aunts on my bio-father’s side as an ADULT.  We talked about real things, real feelings – things that, 20 years ago, they might not have told me.  But now they told me, and it helped me much more than I expected it would.

I had a lot of apprehension about Saturday’s Memorial service.  In the past, when confronted with family-type situations for that side of my family, I’d always felt out of place – sort of the odd duck, because I wasn’t around them very often.  In fact, the last time was at least 9 or 10 years ago.  So I expected to be met with some … I don’t know – annoyance? that I hadn’t been around more.  Particularly with regards to bio-dad – I hadn’t been there for him in the last years of his life.  I hadn’t paid more attention to that relationship.  I’d let my feelings of abandonment keep me away.

But they UNDERSTOOD.  It was something that I thought he’d only done to me, but he’d left a lot of people out of the loop.  So many.  Although from the assurances I received from my aunts, as well as his long-time companion, he absolutely loved me, he lacked the capacity to truly tell me or show me.  He was a private person, and because of his lifestyle, he felt that I wouldn’t approve, that I wouldn’t accept.  That revelation really left me taken aback because it had never, ever been the case. At least not in my adult years.

I’d always wondered what I’d done to make him continually walk back out of my life – so I guess now I know.  Despite the assurances that I’ve received that it was nothing I’d done, I think I know, deep down in my heart – and in his, that a letter I wrote out of teenage rebellion, had found a place to sit and fester and infect and as a result, we never had the relationship that perhaps we could have. 

He was cremated and wished his ashes to be spread in the ocean in Florida, and that companion – a very lovable, affable man, who was with him in one way or another for the last 42 years, who took care of him in his last years, will do that for him – will carry out that wish.  That is the most fitting of all, I think.  He deserves to do it.  I hope that HE finds closure in that act as well.  I think I have.

This is the link to his online memorial.  I am glad I had the opportunity to say goodbye, and that I was able to reconnect with that side of the family.  Despite the occasion, it was a good weekend, and I came home feeling better than when I left. Exhausted, but somehow fulfilled.  I think. lol

or… another reason why it sucks to get older.

I am of the opinion that no parent should have to bury their child. I am also of the opinion, however, that no child should have to bury their parent either.

Rather leaves things up in the air, doesn’t it. 

After the loss of my nana and poppy, my parents & I sat down for a serious conversation about death.  I needed to know the specifics of something I so deeply dread, it gives me nightmares.  But I’m the oldest.  I’m the one my siblings (well, 2 of them anyway) will look to if and when the worst happens.  So we had that talk.  We’ve had that talk several times since then, particularly about insurance and making sure that everything is taken care of.  It’s never a conversation a kid wants to have with their parents, but it’s a very necessary one.

I never had that conversation with my bio-dad.  I never gave his mortality much of a thought because he’d always been so removed from me – I just figured that whomever he had a relationship with would take care of those details.  In a way, I was right – his long-time friend did know what he wanted and communicated that to me and the funeral home, etc. last March.  When I spoke with the funeral home last week, I asked if the financial arrangements had been taken care of and I was assured that they had.  So that, in any case, is a relief.  But I’ve been thinking a lot about what I might say at his memorial this weekend, and the only things that come to mind aren’t necessarily what anyone would want to hear at such an occasion.   I never called him “dad” – and he never asked to be called that.  He knew that my DAD was the one responsible for me and so in a hindsight kind of way, I’m grateful for that.  As his only kid, I am his next of kin, but I don’t think they could have possibly found anymore MORE removed than I.  I suppose that’s what has left me so … unsettled about the whole affair.

So tomorrow, I’ll hit the road again and head to Rhode Island.  I’ll stay with my parents – the ones that love, and dare I say, cherish me.  I’ll hug my dad while I tease him about not wanting to be the guardian of his ashes when he dies.  I do the same with my mom – perhaps that sounds horrible to some, but we’ve talked about it enough that we CAN joke.  I tell her that I’ll keep her in a closet, and take her out and dust her off for the holidays – or that maybe Heather & I will trade off on holidays.  Maybe I’ll paint their boxes like checker boxes, or get out the bedazzler. 

Saturday, we’ll all say goodbye to a guy that, from all intent & purposes, no one really knew.  I’ll be one step further in my adult-hood – but I sure as hell don’t have to like it.