{"id":488,"date":"2011-08-09T06:27:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T10:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kikis-list.com\/2011\/08\/09\/a-new-chapter\/"},"modified":"2011-08-09T06:27:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T10:27:00","slug":"a-new-chapter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/09\/a-new-chapter\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Chapter."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Today would have been my parent’s 42nd wedding anniversary. \u00a0I am thinking of you today, Mom<\/a>. <\/i>\u00a0She has been gone for almost six years now. \u00a0It’s hard to believe. \u00a0Time marches on, and things change. \u00a0Last month, my father and his girlfriend, Helen got engaged. \u00a0Helen is a lovely woman and has been a part of our family for many years now. \u00a0We absolutely adore her, and we are happy to celebrate this union with them next summer.<\/div>\n
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\n \u00a0\u00a0Lately I have been having dreams that my mother is alive, and Dad and Helen have moved on, and she is left out of the mix. \u00a0I feel so torn between them. \u00a0I know, it’s my own craziness. For some reason, it feels like a part of our family is being left behind. \u00a0Don’t get me wrong, Helen has done a wonderful job navigating through these tough waters. \u00a0She has never tried to replace her, and we talk about my mother constantly. \u00a0To top it all off, she often helps out with my 90 year old grandmother, Nanny (my mom’s mom.) Which for most would be quite awkward (especially since she is not an ahem<\/i>… easy woman.)<\/div>\n
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\n Nanny giving a toast at her 90th birthday party.<\/i><\/div>\n
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\n As time goes on, I am nervous that it will be harder and harder to keep the memory of my mother alive. \u00a0I am scared that I will forget the feel of her skin, or her smell, or even the piercing sound of her voice (think Fran Drescher.) Then I look to my girls, who seem to have this unwavering connection with her. \u00a0They think that she is hilarious, and they never even knew her. \u00a0Every night as I put them to bed they ask me to tell them a story of when I was a little girl. \u00a0Inevitably, all of their favorite stories contain my mother. \u00a0They think that my impersonation of her New York accent is hilarious, and E is constantly repeating the one-liners that seemed to come out of her mouth.\u00a0<\/div>\n
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\n For example, my entire family and Mike came to JMU for my college graduation. \u00a0My mom (Neets, as I called her) was never much of a drinker. \u00a0The night before my graduation, we dropped my mom and Nanny off at the hotel. Mike drove my Dad (who we affectionately refer to as Big John), my siblings, my roommates, and I around from bar to bar. \u00a0Sure enough it was closing time and Big John was not ready to throw in the towel. \u00a0Not only did he convince a local pizza joint to open it’s doors and make us pizza, he greased them into serving us more beer. \u00a0So…… with two hours of sleep, we were all a wreck the next day. \u00a0Neets was PISSED. \u00a0So with all seven of us packed into the family roadster, my mother would not stop talking (which was not unusual for her) but the more we asked her to stop, the louder she became. \u00a0It was clear she was going to teach all of us (especially Big John) a lesson. \u00a0In between her ramblings, we passed by a flower bed that beautifully depicted the JMU logo, and without even taking a breath she said in between ramblings “Awwwhhhh, look at the flowaaaas” (my best phonetic NY accent.) \u00a0It was so funny, I nearly peed my pants. \u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n
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\n Now, when Mike and I are driving in the car with the girls, E will randomly bust out with “Awwwhhhh, look at the flowaaaas” \u00a0Still gets me every time. \u00a0Through these moments. it occurs to me that we are keeping her memory alive. While it’s important to share memories of the past, it is much more important to live in the present.\u00a0So, as we move into this new uncharted chapter for our family, we welcome Helen with open arms, and will continue to keep Neet’s memory alive. \u00a0Above all, we will always “look at the flowaaaas.”<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today would have been my parent’s 42nd wedding anniversary. \u00a0I am thinking of you today, Mom. \u00a0She has been gone for almost six years now. \u00a0It’s hard to believe. \u00a0Time marches on, and things change. \u00a0Last month, my father and his girlfriend, Helen got engaged. \u00a0Helen is a lovely woman and has been a part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,32,46,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-motherly-moment","category-family","category-mom","category-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kikis-list.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}