A REMINDER

In my first blog dated September 5, 2010 the first line told of an acquaintance who had just been arrested. She had moved in with a man she claimed she had married. She also claimed she was a nurse who saved his life when she found him on the floor in the hospital. First, let me say she is unconditionally a big fat liar.

She was arrested after his death for forging documents saying he left her his car, his bank account and the ability to live in his house for five years at no cost. His house was held in a family trust for his two daughters who hired an investigator to prove the fraud.  She had been nursing him in his home when he went into a coma then died. It was suggested she had never called his family to tell of his situation.

Yesterday there was a short article in the paper saying she pled guilty and received 18 months probation. She had been out on bail and will never spend even one day in jail! (unless she breaks the terms of her probation)

She has been surrounded by those who for several years believed every word that came out of her mouth, to the extent that when arrested and needing a court appointed attorney, one of them wondered how that could possibly be when she had that large trust fund in California.

Last year at the age of 57 she married an 82 year old man just before she was arrested. She lives in a rental property owned by one of her biggest supporters.

She gets no jail time and also gets to keep her stupid friends.

(This is so politically incorrect and maybe borders on libel, but hey it’s a blog, right?)

ARE YOU ESTRANGED FROM SOMEONE?

When talking with a woman my age about the holidays she told me that she had treated herself to a Christmas Day rib roast although she had no one to share it with. I asked if she had any relatives left and the story she told me continues to haunt me.

She has three children, several grandchildren and a great-grandchild who will have nothing to do with her. She said she had been a good mother to her children. At age forty three she started college while working a part-time job.

After being married for thirty-eight years, she divorced her husband after he threatened her with a gun when he was drunk. Knowing she would be killed, she fought him and he fell to the ground on his stomach.  They were in the yard of their property where there was a pond. She had knocked the gun out of his hand and threw it into the water. Though she never reported it to the police, she did file for divorce. The children were so upset about the divorce they stopped speaking to her and for that reason cut her out of their lives.

I remember my own brother disowning my mother because his daughter had asked if she could come and stay with her grandmother because she was in trouble and to please not tell her dad. She had run away from home at seventeen with a man in his twenties and needed help. Mom sent her a plane ticket expecting to call my brother once she arrived safely. My niece promptly turned in the ticket for a refund and also informed her father about it. He then called and told Mom that he would no longer speak to her. He also called me and said the same. Years later he called and said he would forgive Mom if she apologized. He made short visits when she was in the nursing home and attended her funeral service.

My brother reconciled with his daughter. He also divorced and remarried. I did speak to my former sister-in-law who told me he had forbidden her to contact my mother who she loved and was grateful for all that she had done for them.  My niece had married the man and after having two children got divorced. I have since found out she is remarried with two more children.

My brother had four children.  The third was severely retarded so they were unwilling to leave him alone and didn’t want to rely on a babysitter.  On weekends my mother would drive across the state to help them out and then drive back home in time to go to work.  She also did the same thing when his wife was in the hospital near death after the birth of that child who was severely deformed. None of the other three children ever wrote or contacted their grandmother again although she had taken care of them from the time they were infants.

Several years ago I sent a copy of my cooking memoir to my brother.  The book included a family history. A few weeks ago my brother e-mailed that my niece had lost it and could I send another because his son wanted to know the family history.

It’s possible that one definition of estrangement could be the enormous desire of someone to punish the person who loves them unconditionally.

THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION: WHY?

Mom told me this story long after I was married. At that time, I didn’t equate it with what happened to me at my second confession. I don’t think I ever told anyone my own tale. I must have thought what happened was actually my own fault and I really had done everything wrong.

From a young age my Mother studied piano and organ. For years she was the organist and soloist at church. When she and my dad got engaged, they picked a wedding date and made all their plans. Mom went to the parsonage to arrange for a church wedding on the day they had chosen.  Immediately the priest became outraged and accused her of purposely choosing that date so that he would be excluded.  The wedding day coincided with his annual vacation time. She told him she simply had forgotten and never intended for that to happen.  He refused to believe her and as a result HE NEVER SPOKE TO HER AGAIN!

He knew all the men, women and children in his parish, so he certainly knew who I was when I went to confession after catechism class on that Saturday. I now think he was paying back my mother, but she never knew what he had done to me.

Years later in making my own wedding preparations, I went to the original church where I was baptized and made my first communion. I needed a copy of my first communion certificate and the pastor was helping me. We both looked through all the documents and I was not listed anywhere. I told the priest that I remembered making it there and he said “I know you did” and gave me the necessary document.

I never found out why there was never a record of me.

WHAT’S A NAME FOR IT?

I know you’ve read of the sexual abuse by priests within the Catholic Church.  I’ve never really met one who was abusive in that way.  However, I did have an experience with a different kind of priest.

My mother left my father the year I was seven and had made my first communion.  We moved to a smaller town about 20 minutes away from our former home that summer.  After two years in Catholic School, my brother and I started public school that fall which meant on Saturday we had to attend catechism classes held in our small church.

Going to confession for the second time, I started going through the ritual I had learned, when the priest said to me “Where did you learn to go to confession like that? Get out of here and don’t come back until you can do it right!” Exactly that! Do you think I could ever forget those words?

I sat outside the confessional trembling as I went over what I had learned. After quite a while and still shaking, I went back in. I guess I passed the test because I got to leave.

I went home too embarrassed to tell my mother and grandmother what had happened.

The following Saturday when I was expected to attend my catechism class, I started sobbing and couldn’t stop and no one could figure out why.  They tried to soothe me and by the next week I calmed down enough to return to class, but I was still frightened to be there.

On Saturday, classes were held in the church itself.  Each age group occupied several rows with their individual teachers, so there were groups scattered throughout our small church as the priest walked up and down the center aisle with his perpetual sneer glaring at everyone in the groups.  He never said anything to anyone, just wanted everyone to be aware of him. I was totally afraid of him.

For the five years we lived in that town where we went to Mass every Sunday.  In the late 1930’s not too many people had cars, but the ones who had them escaped to the small towns around us on Sundays. Many years later when the priest finally died, the parishes all around said they knew he was gone because attendance had dropped when our people went back to their own church.

I’ll tell you more about why the people disliked him in another blog. Also something my Mother told me many years later which may explain why he treated me so horribly.

ACTING SERIOUSLY

We moved from Chicago to a small town in Ohio where I envisioned sitting on my front porch and waving to the neighbors as they walked by, but we couldn’t find a home with a front porch and majority of the neighbors were old time residents not really interested in newcomers.

There was an article in the local newspaper about a group starting a civic theater. I attended the first meeting with about six or seven of the town’s people.  Their first order of business was to elect officers. Each of them got a title and I became the only member.

I stayed in the background as they made plans for the future.  The first production was “You Can’t Take It With You” and my role was Essie the dancing daughter. I had never done a straight acting part so I was interested in preparing for my character. My part called for interacting with the young woman who was playing my sister. We were to have a little sibling rivalry but she couldn’t understand the concept not having had a sister, so I asked did she ever fight with her husband.  No, she never did. It became a lost cause.

My character always wore a tutu and was constantly dancing in the background.  At one point in my stretching exercises I got my foot stuck on top of the buffet and hobbled around trying to get it down. No one seemed to laugh.  The reviewer said he liked my quiet humor in the background.  Later some audience members told me they thought I was hilarious but were afraid to laugh out loud and ruin the scene. The townspeople were not very sophisticated theater goers.