The Story of a Life

When you write the story of a life where exactly do you begin? I often think of it in terms too large and realize I have to tone it down some. I think of my life, but then my thoughts drift to that of my mother's and her mother's before her, and so on.

So really, the story of our lives goes back through time to when man firs developed in whatever form we first took. And no. I am not a feminist who worries too much about the term "man". In this case I mean it as mankind; humankind - -people. So all of us date back to that prehistoric time when we crawled from the sea or swung from branches in the the jungle. Some people believe that humankind has only been around 6000-8000 years. It does not matter. I know where I am in history, and the particular branch of me stops with me. My sisters will both carry on the line, but for me, this is it. All the things I have learned in life, all the steps I took; I always wanted a daughter to pass it on to as my mom did me, and she hers and so on. I spoke the other day of regrets, and my not having children is a bit of a regret, but it is so pointless. God made the decision for me; the cards lined up as they did and it just wasn't meant to be in this lifetime. So. I think of my mother. I think of all the things she was and gave to us. I think of her as a young girl; she and my Aunt Lynn. There are photos of them, although I don't have any. They look like my sister and I when we were young. I think of my mom growing up in the 1950s when the world was so different. I've written about her house in previous entries and I think her room was the one that became my grandfathers as he aged, but I am not positive. I remember pressing my nose to the metal screen as a child and smelling dust, metallic screen, wood and outside. It is a smell that stays with me; I can't smell it any more, but now and then I am reminded of it, and it comes back as if it still lives in me where my smell-memories live. But my mother. She was a little girl who had loving parents. They lived in a big, beautiful house, that still is beautiful today. It was not a mansion, just an old, regal two story house set on a small hill. My grandmother gardened, and she planted violets and crocus and snowdrops on the hill, all intermingled with English ivy. The porch was simple; just a porch, no screens, but in the summer there were chairs to sit in of a summer evening, or even in the morning, though as a child it was not something I did. I can picture the adults sitting there sometimes; after-dinner coffee, maybe where my parents smoked as we were older. My grandfather smoked Camels, and his grandfather smell was fabric, his skin, and the smell of cigarette smoke; not unpleasant, just my grandfather smell.

My mother, though. I keep falling off track, but that is fine, because the words want out. My mother grew up. She dated a lot before my father, and I often wonder what she was really like. I have heard a variety of things, and what I piece together shows that she was a bit of a mean-girl to my aunt and her cousins, but everyone loved her just the same.

 I picture her young, beautiful, an Elizabeth Taylor look-alike (not with violet eyes, however), skipping down the stairs, holding the banister at the bottom with her right hand for that slide into the living room. The coat closet was at the foot of the stairs to the right too, and in later years my grandparents did not much use the front door, except when major company came for family holidays; my mom's side of the family was not nearly as large as my dad's side, so the crowds were much less. I can hear her in my mind saying, mom, dad. I'm going out. I'll be home later. I can visualize my grandparents, old when they were young to my minds eye, but also from the photos I see of them in that time frame. I can see my grandfather in his chair, newspaper in his lap, my grandmother, crocheting in her own lap. My aunt - in her room? Gathered in front of the television? I am not quite sure. When my grandparents met it was during World War 2. Interestingly enough, I do not know their history. I remember pictures of my grandmother - who was beautiful in those days; late 30's, early 40's. There is a photo of her stretched on a blanket, young and so beautiful. My grandfather, dashing in his uniform; looking a bit like Bing Crosby with his long face. My grandmother was born in 1920; my grandfather in 1917. I think of my great-grandmother - a 1st generation American Irish. Her parents immigrated from County Cork, the little town of Charlieville.

They were Mary Regan and Dennis Murphy. They had 7 or 8 children - the records are here at my house somewhere. My grandmother Elizabeth (Betty) was the oldest of my great grandmother's children; she had twin siblings, Jean and Joan. What must it have been like for her growing up in the small town she did in the 1920's and 30's? It fascinates me. A tidbit that makes me proud. My great grandmother; Nora (Murphy) Hooker, my grandmother, Elizabeth (Betty Hooker) Moon, my mother, Norene Ella (Moon) Fields Damico and I all attended the same school throughout our years. The school houses themselves moved around the village a bit, but we were all graduates of Phoenix Central Schools. That it something that fills me with pride. The story of me goes back a long way, before my great-great grandparents came from Ireland, before my father's grandmothers was born a full blooded Mohawk Indian. It goes back farther than the family Aunt Lynn discovered immigrated from Holland in the 1500's. All of that history moving forward produced me, produced my sisters. My life is tiny on the blip of the historical radar, yet it is huge inside of me; it is mine and it is who I am. I have not been through anything some one of my relatives have ever been through; marriage, divorce, unfulfilled pregnancy, loss of a child, health histories. We are our relatives, and it fills me with awe that we are.