I have to admit I really haven’t had the best role models in my life. Well, at least not positive ones, anyway (not until I met my future husband and was blessed with the most AMAZING mother in law…. see how God works in mysterious ways, he has a plan, it might not ever make sense to you, but there is a master plan and it’s much bigger than you or I, you just have to trust in it). I mean there were people whom I looked up to, friends mom’s, my grandparents (both sets), but I certainly didn’t live with one! As I’m sure you all know by now, my dad died when I was 9 years old (a freak construction accident on a job at work, of course it was totally unexpected, as he wasn’t sick or anything, which makes it even harder for a little girl to swallow, understand) and my mother kinda went off the deep end. Not kinda, she DEFINITELY lost her shit. And to make a really bad situation even worse, her winning personality (Sarcasm..) had already alienated every single possible good role model/relative (on both sides of our family!) that we could have had. So, essentially, I didn’t just loose my Dad – you know, as if that wasn’t horrific enough, I lost his whole family! Her family! My family! (my mom was REAL GOOD at pissing people, who loved her, off, and then holding a grudge, and not speaking to them for years, yes I said YEARS! Ahhhh to be Italian…) So, instead of embracing my brother and I, keeping us close and holding tight (you know, finding peace, love and comfort in us, the living, barely breathing, frightened kids – two of the most amazing gifts, if you ask me, to come from love, anyone’s love!), since we just had the rug pulled out from under us, I learned, the hard way, that she most definitely was not the “norm” lovey dovey, huggie kissy, widowed parent, or adult MOM. You know what I mean – normal, basic EASY things like making us feel safe and loved. It was as if when he died – she died too. Now don’t get me wrong, she was never any Mary Poppin’s or anything to begin with (sadly I knew this deep, deep down in the pit of my stomach, but never wanted to believe she was different than my friends moms, but she was, for sure!). As my early memories of her, when he was still alive, consisted of evil….. For example, them arguing and fighting A LOT, about everything! She wanted what she wanted, right then and there no matter what…..spoiled bitch! And I must add that they were always struggling, i just knew…. Dinner at my Nan’s (an hour away, a few times a week!? Boy o boy did she have a temper (one of my earliest and clearest memories is of my brother and I hunkered down in his bedroom closet as they were having a knock down, throwing things at each other, drag out fight, yes this is true, the memory so vivid!), so I’m thinking he was (and, no, I’m not romanticizing this just because he is gone!) definitely the more loving parent of the two. The softer one. I was never ever afraid of my Dad as a kid. I can remember countless evenings spent on our front stoop anxiously awaiting his arrival home from work, the smile on his face, my face the moment we locked eyes as he pulled in the driveway…. I’d run to him and he’d pick me up, smother me with kisses and twirl me round and round till we were both dizzy with laughter…. So excited to hear about my day, the questions, the conversations, the details, he would always ask me to paint a picture for him so he could feel it as if he was right there and experiencing whatever it was, too. Plus, there’s also all the stories I’ve been told, over the years, growing up about how funny and sweet and big hearted my Dad was….(Oh how I loved to hear my Aunt Gina tell me story after story about how amazing he was, how silly, and loving and what a great cook he was too, did you know that my dad could create greatness from nothing!) Aunt Gina, my mom’s best friend, my surrogate mom, without her I don’t think I would have ever survived. I can’t even count how many times she and her daughter, my cousin, my “big sissy” 3 years my senior saved my ASS! Literally! (without them I wouldn’t have survived my high school years) See, after jumping from house to house during the aftermath of my father’s death, my mother finally settled us into a 2 bedroom apartment, where lucky me got to share a room with my younger brother – during a time in which a young adolescent girl should most definitely have had her own room, and being the selfish bitch my mother was, she didn’t even think to give my brother and I our own rooms and take the pull out couch, or at the very least the larger room, since we 2 were sharing, NOOOO, she took the master bedroom and squeezed 2 twin beds and us into a tiny second bedroom where we proceeded to constantly argue, fight, and nearly kill each other, for 5 years, the remainder of elementary school and all of junior high!) I like to think I was the one who had inherited my Dad’s personality…. Because he was the kind of man who was destined for greatness….. And he was certainly on his way until he, well, you know…. I don’t know, about my mother, maybe something in her snapped, and she became the most selfish woman on earth (maybe that was the only way she could cope!?, or maybe she had always been this way and it was he, my dad, who kept her in check my whole life, well the 9 years of it he was around for anyway). At any rate, since I’m not a licensed therapist I really can’t pinpoint what the exact problem was, all I know is this….. I needed her! My brother needed her! Good God, we were just babies when my dad died, lost in a never ending fog of uncertainty, moving from place to place, living with my Aunt, cousins, grandparents, as she just couldn’t be alone (always playing the victim, woe is me, poor me, and still to this day pulls the same shit, total BULLSHIT!), do it alone, as if the sight of us was too painful!? We were always yanked out from everything we knew and loved, over and over again, cause she couldn’t get her shit together, and well, kids need stability and that one very simple thing – she just couldn’t, and as I learned, the hard way, wouldn’t EVER give us (fast forward 7 or 8 years to the moment we, well, in her eyes, she’d won the settlement case, remember my Dad’s death was an accident and yes, there was monetary compensation for all of us, BIG MONEY – how you put a dollar amount on loosing your father I’ll never understand that – but that money, that compensation, in my opinion, made things much worse for us, much worse, see my brother and I were under 18, SO who do you think had sole control over our money!? Ding, ding, ding, you guessed right, my mother!) See my mother was like that evil character in those horror movies, that needs to feed off others to keep her strength, her beauty, whatever…. the more she consumed the stronger she became, and though she did not eat people or anything, control was her drug, CONTROL. The more control she had the happier she was with herself and her life, but for us, the crazier she became (she went hog wild crazy, houses, cars, clothes, jewelry, vacation – ahem….. Girls trips, shore houses – all this made possible by conveniently shoving, against my will I might add – my bro and I off to 8 weeks of sleepover camp). Now all these years later, I’m a Mom, and I just can’t even fathom what she did, why she did what she did, how she acted towards us….. Good Lord, we were so young, still in elementary school! And we needed her more than ever! Yet, some how in her head, it was ok to completely shut your children out, check out pay your bill and leave….. she felt justified in this conscience decision, as if she’d done enough parenting, was finished and now it was her turn to live….. (those were her words, literally, she sat my brother and I down when we were 11 years old, and told us she was done, it was her turn to live now, can you fucking believe that!? seriously!?) See totally crazy! I can’t even! I’m ashamed of her, appalled at her selfish actions, as I would, if that had happened to me, NEVER do that to my son. Just abandon him when he needed me most. It was as if our souls, still so in need, now more than ever, of nurturing love and feeling safe, didn’t exist to her. She was only capable of very minimal parenting, and I mean MINIMAL! Sorry, but, that shit still don’t fly with me…… As you can see I’m still not over it! And I don’t think I will ever forgive her for that. No excuses. You bring a child into this crazy world, the job doesn’t end. Ever. You’re a parent for life! Blessed forever. Whether you child is 9 days, 9 months, 9 years, 19, 29, you get it! There’s no checking out option when your husband passes, life is not a game of Monopoly, there’s no monetary rewards for passing go, or get out of jail free cards, this is your life, these are the choices you made, and by the grace of God, if you are lucky enough to bring a beautiful child or children into this world that is your responsibility for life! FOR LIFE!!! A concept, still to this day, that I don’t think she will ever understand. Kids are not disposable, we do not just up and disappear just because something horrible happened to you, you don’t get a free pass to do whatever the fuck you want! Children are forever…. Don’t you want to do the best possible job to do right by them? Love them with every single ounce of your being? Unconditionally. Find joy in the little things every day? Nurture their hopes and dreams? Make them into strong responsible people so they can go forth into life bursting at the seams with confidence and self esteem the size of the sun and the moon!? Be the soul responsible for that voice in their heads that constantly tells them they can do anything, be anything? UMMMM YES! This is what I do know, sometime’s life’s not fair, but you deal with the hand your delt no matter what. Every. Single. Day. And here’s the cold. hard. truth. At 27 years old, after 2 long ass years of testing I was diagnosed with a horrific auto immune disease, and with all the trials and tribulations I’ve been through, still no matter how shitty I feel, I get up, and with the best possible version of myself, I add a smile and GO! Go forth and nurture the greatness you’ve created, NO MATTER WHAT THE F IS GOING ON IN YOUR LIFE! Essentially, in plain old English, that means putting all your wants and needs (even, at times, your health!) on the back burner to simmer a bit, while you, basically, cultivate GREATNESS! Because bringing that kid into this world is now and will always be your number one priority. And if you can’t handle that lifetime commitment then you most definitely should NOT be a parent!