by mssinglemama on August 2, 2009
I met the first boy who would break my heart at a party.
My legs were crossed and I had a pillow on my lap, my back leaning into the corner of the sofa. Working three jobs over my summer break between my freshman and sophomore years of college I liked this spot in the corner, far enough removed from the party that I wasn’t expected to chime in but close enough to hear the conversations and the laughter. I wanted to hide my exhaustion and my fat thighs. A hot summer day in Athens, the windows of my friend’s house were open and the light breeze was pulling her curtains and then pushing them back ever so softly. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on June 16, 2009
The radio booth smelled like old men and dusty records but I liked it anyway.
When Glenn Miller came on I would start dancing by myself. Dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer. How can you not dance to Chattanooga Choo Choo?
My Dad had introduced me to The Glenn Miller Band years earlier.
We were cleaning the living room when he popped in his Glenn Miller CD and then told me to drop the broom and “dance with me!” Dancing with him for those few songs, him leading me, trying to teach his high-strung teenage daughter to loosen up is one of those memories I will always keep, the kind no one can take away.
He was always making those kinds of memories for me – teaching me how to live life, to have fun, to enjoy the little things.
Dancing alone in the radio booth, another little fun thing, kept me awake.
I was working the Saturday morning shift, it was my first radio job and a chance to hopefully land a shift in the daylight hours. But for now I was stuck in the darkness – alone and nervous. Whenever I’d turn the microphone on I’d get chills, up my arms, down my neck and sometimes in my throat. The nerves were so intense I would occasionally bumble my words or, even worse, freeze up entirely.
[click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on April 8, 2009
Maybe I gave up.
Maybe I just didn’t want to hear another “I can’t” or “I’ll try” – each one cutting a bit deeper than the last.
But somewhere along the way I just stopped.
I stopped asking my ex-husband to spend more time – time outside of his 36 hours a week – with our son.
So I’m not sure why, when Benjamin refused to let go of his father this afternoon, I said, “he needs you now, more than ever – maybe you should spend more time with him.” [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on December 27, 2008
All of Benjamin’s life people have commented on his eyelashes.
“They’re from his father,” I say. They are amazing. Like little butterfly wings.
He also has his father’s body – his shoulders, his legs, his torso and even his little butt. But he has my smile, my eyes and my eyebrows. Like any mother, I day dream about what kind of a man Benjamin will become. But unlike most mothers, I hope against all hopes that, aside from the physical resemblance, that my son is nothing like his father.
——-
His father is the mysterious man who shows up once a week to pick him up for an overnight. We barely know each other any more. I can’t even remember what it felt like to be in love with him – I must have been delusional, I think. There’s nothing there now. Nothing at all. Just a shadow of the girl I used to be… a naive girl who would fall for a man and marry him on a whim because he needed a Green card.
Here’s the thing, when you’re a little girl and you dream of that damn prince and the castle you forget to dream about how he’ll be as a father. At least I did.
This dream surfaces, for some of us, in the form of a blinding nightmare because it’s after we’ve already had his child. And it dawns on us that we’ve bred with a rotten apple, a dud, a bad father. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on October 28, 2008
My father loved bringing my mother breakfast in bed.
He would also clean the dishes after dinner – every single night, even when he cooked. When he’d come home from work he’d seek her out, “Where is my beautiful wife?”
“Upstairs Dad,” we’d sigh. When he found her he’d scoop her up into a sweet hug and tell her how much he loved her. All six of us, my siblings and I, would groan even more when they kissed in front of us, “stop it!! Gross! Mom and Dad are kissing!”
In the evenings, as we drifted off to sleep, we’d hear laughter pouring up the stairs or quiet voices as they talked and talked and talked. About the house, life, us, the future. The morning he died, after they’d been married for 30 years, I woke up my mother to tell her. “It happened Mom, he’s dead.” His cancer had surfaced six months earlier. Three brain tumors. It spread quickly. He’d been asleep for days when he slipped away.
“I know,” she said.
“How?”
“He was just in my dream, he said good-bye. Why am I still here? I was supposed to go with him.” Her eyes were glazed over. Part of her had left with him.
No more surprise flowers by her bedside, no more lingering hugs and no more soul mate. That fear of ever losing someone like she did had me frozen for years. But after having Benjamin, after becoming a mother, I’ve realized my father wouldn’t want me to be filled with fear on his account. My mother doesn’t either. And she by the way, nearly 10 years after his death, is in love again herself.
We have to go on. We have to keep those we’ve lost alive by living for them, by carrying on and by telling their stories.
—–
They met on a train in 1967 (I think).
He saw her and couldn’t move. His eyes met hers. She smiled and then darted them away. Then he walked up to the empty seat next to her and said,”Can I sit here?”
“No.” My mother answered shortly.
She was dead serious, so sick of men hitting on her. My father, undeterred, took the seat across from her instead. He asked her what she was reading. My mother told him it was none of his business. You get the idea. But, by the end of the train ride from Columbus to Chicago he had convinced her to give him a chance.
I’m giving Mr. Man a chance.
I still can’t find the words to write about him but I can tell you the ice is melting… slowly. And besides, my mother thinks he is amazing – he reminds her of my father. And, deep down, I’m a huge sucker for romance and of course, men who treat women like queens.
In my opinion, they’re the only ones worth having around.
[Photo: My mom and dad shortly after their wedding]
