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Love, Heartbreak, and Life Is Short

Believe it or not, I was a very shy child.  Really.  When it was time to go to high school, I went to a coed Catholic school   I didn't do well.  After I survived one very unhappy year there, I begged my parents to let me attend the all girls Catholic school where a couple of my good girlfriends were.  I felt safe there with none of those annoying boys hanging around.  Yeah, I was spoiled.  I had no idea how expensive that place was.  But, I was happy there. In my senior year, we were offered the opportunity to go on a religious retreat somewhere in New York.  Yay!  I don't know who thought it would be a great idea to have an all girls school and an all boys school attending the same weekend retreat, but it was there I met the boy who was to be my first real love and my first truly devastating heartbreak.   David (not his real name...I've changed the name to protect the innocent) was so handsome.  He had long blond hair (this was the 1970s, so long blond hair on a Catholic
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Memory Struggles

I don't know when, but at some point my memory began to fail.  I'm 69 years old now, so perhaps I should expect this.  I don't like it and I don't want to accept it.  Being the hypochondriac that I am (that's a whole other blog), I wanted to see if my brain was rotting...or whatever brains do when they are no longer fully functional.  My long suffering primary care doctor (the woman is a saint) ordered a brain MRI.  The results: "Very mild chronic small vessel ischemic changes of the supratentorial periventricular and subcortical white matter." Sure.  That sounded troubling to me, but my primary care doctor wasn't concerned.   On the positive side, it's interesting to see all the new sights everyday that apparently I have seen thousands of times before.  On  the one hand, it's nice to be happily surprised...a lot.  I ask my husband, "have we been here before?" to which he often replies, "countless times."  Hmmmmm.  Nope, don
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Confusion

       I have an ongoing battle with envy and gratitude.  I know how fortunate I am.  That good fortune began when I was born to intelligent parents.  We had a nice home in the suburbs.  I attended a Catholic grade school and, after a year in a regular (read: boys and girls) Catholic high school, I told my parents that I wanted to switch to an all girls' Catholic high school.  And off I went to Saint Mary of the Angels Academy.  I figured I'd be less of a loser in a school without boys.  Looking back, I'm glad I didn't ask my parents to send me to an all girls Catholic boarding school. One of my friends from grade school, a very sweet, smart, lovely person, was going there.  My parents would have gladly sent me off; I was getting to be quite the emotional handful.  Being a rather sheltered adoIescent, I was clueless about the cost of Catholic boarding schools.  I was clueless and confused and just plain scared of just about everything.   Adolescence is a bitch.         
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The Little White Cottage

        S e veral times a week   I drive by a lovely little white cottage near my home.  I don't remember what was there before the cottage appeared;  I think the former structure must have blended right in with the rest of the houses on the street, so I never paid much attention to it.        T he little white cottage is unique in many ways.  What occurred to me the first time I saw the place was that the owners must love their home very much.  Every season and holiday, they decorate the cottage beautifully.  The most recent theme was autumn; soon it will be time for Christmas and the little white cottage will be transformed in a winter wonderland.   The seasonal decoration is abundant; I find myself wondering where the heck they store all that stuff!!!  It's a lot, but it's a lot in a really good way.       Often, I thought to myself that I should just stop at the cottage and tell the owners how much I admire and appreciate what they've done to the place. Then, myself
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Doctor Kelly’s Husband Part 2

  As I wrote in Part 1, Papa (my father) and Nana (his mother and my grandmother) were living with Nana's mother (my great-grandmother) in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania when Papa’s father/Nana’s husband committed suicide on December 22, 1916,  in Wilmington, DE.  Nana lived with Papa for the rest of her life.  Even after  he married and had children, Nana was a constant in his life and in ours. Given all of that drama, I always assumed that Nana and Papa had a challenging, difficult, perhaps even sad relationship.  As I wrote in Part 1, my father never wanted to talk about his life before his marriage. From bits and pieces of household conversation, I gathered that things were not always rosy in the Trower/Kelly household.  My great-grandmother was Mary K. Brown until she married Lee Trower in 1887.  Something happened that resulted in Lee Trower moving out of the house.  The 1930 Census data shows that he lived as a "lodger" with a woman named Dorothy Watson until his death
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Doctor Kelly's Husband Part 1

My father wasn't always Dr. Kelly's husband.  But when I was growing up, that was what people called him.  It seemed to me that everyone knew my mother; she was a woman doctor in a time when there were very few women doctors.  She graduated from medical school in 1943.  As one of her two daughters, I was very aware of her importance in our community.  We couldn't go to the grocery store without what seemed liked hundreds of people coming up to us with, "Dr. Kelly!!!  Dr. Kelly!  Do you remember me?  You delivered my babies!  Oh, are these your daughters?  Aren't they pretty!  You look great, Dr. Kelly!  I am so grateful to you for all the care you've given me and my family.  Blah, blah, blah..."   But this blog isn't about her; it's about Dr. Kelly's husband, my father, Cyril Francis Kelly. My father insisted that my sister and I call him Papa; he thought that Daddy sounded too much like Dada...and that really bothered him.  It's what babie
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Nature on My Patio

  My patio is what I love the most about our house.  It's a covered patio, with fans, lights, a table and chairs, and lots of plants.  It's not screened, so we are open to the nature that surrounds us.  Just sitting out there cheers me.  Sometimes we are visited by critters, including lizards, frogs, raccoons, armadillos, and lots of birds. Occasionally, birds will nest in a plant on the patio.  I watch as the mom and dad busily build the nest; I wait for the appearance of eggs, mom and dad taking turns sitting on the eggs, babies hatching, mom and dad feeding the tiny arrivals.  I hear the faint chirping of the newborns and hope that I will be around to watch as the parents urge the little ones to leave the nest.  I've seen that nest-leaving operation only once, but it was a beautiful and life affirming event.   A few months ago, I noticed the frantic activity that accompanies nest building.  Two Carolina Wrens were tearing back and forth from a large Christmas Cactus on t
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