Home

Where we love is home-home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

Home has so many warm associations if you were fortunate to have the kind of experience I did as a child. The experience of warmth is something that is taught and fostered from another soul. While both my parents are credited with my memories and happiness, my mother was the heart. Her intentional dedication to every nuance is something that lives with me even though she is no longer here.

Often, I think of where she built her skills to create the home she did. My mom was the third baby girl born to Irish parents who met one another in their local parish in Cicero, Illinois in 1932. Blessed with two older sisters they named her after a popular doll at the time. My mom spoke of the cozy kitchen where her mother prepared delicious meals ‘from the little they had’ or how they would all be tasked to go through the drawers to find a nickel so they could go down to the corner store for fresh bread. My mom had the seat closest to the oven so she commented that she was always toasty even in the hot summers when the idea of air conditioning was a long way off. She told stories of how in awe she was of her older sister preparing meals and how much she learned from watching her. 

This same home was a place of comfort in unspeakable sorrow. My mother’s oldest sister died at age 15. I remember being stunned the first time I heard my mom suffered such a loss.  Creating images in my head of what it must have been like to have a wake in their living room; I knew pain was loud of course. Having my mother in my life, I knew it was also something only profound love could have endured. 

My mother’s younger brother lived in that home all his life with his own family and I had been to many parties there. My child mind would try to imagine how it all looked during those days of visitation. The contrast of  death in the midst having celebrated wonderful childhood memories in the same home that nurtured my mother’s family into the adults I knew to be unconditionally loving aunts and uncles was emotional.  The enormity of love is HOW you are able to make something so devastating become a sacred space of prayer and remembrance. 

My mom was only 9 when her sister died from pneumonia, an illness we now treat with antibiotics and quickly return to school or work in just days. Back then, it hadn’t even been invented. My mom watched her parents mourn and grieve for years. 

My mom, just prior to losing her sister, had endured Scarlet Fever and nearly died. My mom’s two sisters had to be out of the house and everything she touched, my grandmother had to burn. My mom had a little bunny my grandmother would bring to the top of the stairs to greet every morning. to  My grandmother would then take it back downstairs so my mom could look forward to playing with it when she was well.

Their little Irish family lived bonded in a close knit bubble of warmth with the threat of illness very real and foreboding. The depression was ruthless and on top of illness, they lived meagerly. My grandfather took anything he could for work.  My mother told me she would often get the same doll for Christmas under the tree with a new outfit. Instantly I would picture my own Christmas morning. What joy for her and my dad to gift us brand new items. I grew up knowing I was born into both deep love and serious grit. 

It would take many years before my parents would meet and I would be born into their happy Irish household.  As time passed, my mother’s older sister got married and started her own family. My mother was working in an office and taking care of my grandparents who were ailing. Soon, she made the decision to leave her office job and care for them full time. She describes it as her highest honor to show them the care they deserved. Pretty trays of food were arranged at mealtimes. She delighted in “fussing for them”  as she would refer to it. They were thrilled when my uncle built a little tv for their entertainment, watching I Love Lucy together would have them all roaring in laughter.

I never met my grandparents or my oldest aunt who died. Yet, they are without a doubt the most pivotal people in my personal mission. All the stories casually told throughout the years impacted me. I remember being about 10 and having a sudden awareness of how sad my mother must be without this larger than life woman she described. I innocently asked her, “Do you miss your mom?” We were standing in the hallway outside my bedroom and the early evening sun was streaming in on us. She paused and quietly said, “Yes, every day.” And I inquired, “What did you love most about her?” My mom replied, "She saw the good in everyone." In that moment I was so moved in my soul. I silently adopted my grandmother's approach to life and it is my motto each day.