The path I chose made all the difference

My grandma, Baba Rose

In my drafts I found this I had written partially  back in 2012 after all my relatives had passed away.  Today clearing drafts I decided to tune it up and post it here.  Life does take its turns and yet if we have faith and can see thru, we can navigate those twisty windy roads and emerge onto the straight a-ways.  Hindsight is indeed more than 20 20 and if we could look into the effect our current decisions would have on our futures, would we be as rash?  Who knows.  So I am posting this pondering here and kind of a tribute in a way to my grandma Rose.  Today I wear her crystal cross necklace that she received as a young girl, how I wish I had more photos of her when she came to CA but we did not take many pictures then, the cost of developing film and all.  It was 1965. She was 70 at the time, and today I am 73, she looked so much older but most grandmas did back then. So anyway, here we go......
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   I do not know if this blog site that I reference is in existence today and I have long ago lost touch with that person, but I keep it here for reference.  Rosaria, over at 65 Now What pondered  "What I did for Love" You can read it at her blog, http://sixtyfivewhatnow.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-i-did-for-love.html    . 

I  replied " As we journey through life when we pause to look back over our shoulders, the past changes shape. I have had many of the same thoughts you expressed here as we prepare to go to PA next week, my old home, not as far as Italy, but with no more family, some distant cousins who are off on their own lives. I joke that when I want to see my relatives, I go to the cemetery, but that is telling and chilling. But lately I find my mind meandering, oh what if I had not gone to CA, if I had stayed in PA. It is so true that the choices we make when we are young make our worlds different and our paths diverge. Hindsight....should'a's...oh my."

1958 PA me with Baba and two cousins visiting from CA
I was the big girl 

And it seems a mouthful.  Much good has come from my life that I was fortunate to be able to rebuild in CA. But even that I could not have done without the help of my late maternal grandma, Baba as I always called her,  Polish for grandma.  Finding myself a single mother in CA but employed, she was determined to help me. She road the train cross country to come stay with me and babysit while I worked and got some money set aside. I regret to this day that  I never thanked her enough, I could not have made it without her and when I pray for her soul I pray she knows how very dear she always was to me.  She really did  raise me as Mom was working, not common back then, but my Mom did.  

There were many reasons or justifications for my decision, most having to do with the impetuous rebellious nature or spell I felt at the time. I wished often that I could have talked with someone, my grandma, my Mom, my aunt somebody who could have rescued me from what would create the curvy twist on my life road.  At odds with my Mom, ours was a rough relationship through my adolescence, today I know she wanted better for me than what her life had been, but I so resented her.  To say we did not get along would put it mildly.  How much was my rebelliousness and how much was her innate ability to try to control me I will never resolve.  I only know that I had no intention of getting married to that guy, no intention of running off as I did, but I was so tired of Mom nagging and sneaking around finding out where I was, with whom, etc.  So to the surprise of everyone including myself as soon as the spell wore off, I eloped with him, impetuous rash dumb decision but at 18 I thought I was so smart,  Rocky road to be on, regretted it very soon, but I was young enough to think it could work and it would get me to CA,  destination of my dreams as a young gal growing up in western PA. 

One morning after arriving in CA,  I woke up across the country in CA with the man I could not stand, and thought, "What the hell am I doing here, I belong back on the Allegheny campus!"  But a stubborn soul who could not admit a wrong choice caused my perseverance and after all it was CA, the Golden State.  From that mistake,and after shedding him, I decided to stay out west where Jerry and I met and well here all these years down the road it has been a good thing.

But like Rosaria, I wonder about my family ties.  These become more important now or is it that I think more about that with the frequent trips to PA and the impending trip this coming week?  Sometimes we know it is not beneficial to entertain our own thoughts to an extreme--persevere and onward.  Somewhere in the Bible and literature those powerful themes recur.

Greenwood cemetery, PA where I visit all my family.

And when I say visit the cemetery I realize I am continuing a ritual from my ancestry; I remember going to the graves with my grandmother and her sisters.  It made not much sense to a child, but to me today long into adulthood it makes all the sense, a time to reconnect, reminisce and remember.  Remembering is important--just ask those who care for  the demented who have lost memories. 

2018--1988--1928

Sorting continues 

Thirty, sixty, ninety year spans or some other combination is what I spent some time on yesterday, continuing through the wonderful box of cards, letters that I mentioned in a January post.  Yesterday I found a letter Jerry's mother wrote to us in 1988 when we all lived in CA, we in Newcastle, they in Riverside.  I was surprised to find it and have no idea why or how it went into the box which held other letters from aunts cross country and lots of cards, birthday, anniversary, etc, greetings from from my Mom and aunt.  I have not completed going through the box yet, taking time and enjoying the memories,  but I have been clearing lots of other accumulated clutter out of our study.  

Bags full of papers have gone the way of the recycle bin and stacks of various books have gone to the local library sale and some to Goodwill.  A binder filled with clippings about books I might want to read someday,  entire literary review sections of newspapers some date in the 1990's.

Bottom shelves were cleared, this is a pic before purging

Remember when Sunday newspapers had literary review sections, at least our did. Here was a massive 3 ring binder, filled beyond capacity,over 9 inches thick. Apparently I started it long ago in CA,   and have no idea why I added to it and then absolutely forgot about it, left to gather dust.  So that cleared a nice space on the bottom of one  bookcase.  I noticed I had indeed read some of those books, but the others, not a concern.  There are so many books waiting on my shelf  and loaded on my kindle app for reading, and there is always another book recently released to catch my attention.

 But here was a 1988 letter from Florence, that was so coincidental I thought it worth recording on the blog. We ultimately ended up being her overseers, care takers.  Yet over the years at least my relationship with her was not always positive, sometimes it was downright frustrating, contentious even, she could be a very difficult person. But reflection of memory is a strange thing, in that once someone is gone, we, or I at least, forget the less joyful moments and remember the good. In 1988 we did not have cell phones, email,Facebook, or texting, all preferred methods of communication today.  For me today, there is nothing like texting and Facebook, I can be in touch instantly with friends/family all over the country and world,  I do not have to log in nor do others have to sign in. But enough digression as I tie the coincidental span of these years.   

Easily it starts, it is 2018 now and  Florence, aka MIL, passed in 2013 at age 96, her birthday was January 30th and she'd have been 101 this year.  But in 1988 she was only 60, younger than I am now and she was reminiscing about a Christmas program in which she participated as a young girl.  In this first paragraph of the 4 page letter she tells about the program, her part, and mentions Mr. and Mrs.Cass.  Wow,  our home was built by LaVerne Cass, the son of the carpenter she mentions.  It is a wonderful home, sturdy, first class construction, over 4800 sq. feet, many features we enjoy, and we love it. 

Part of front, our home, built by LaVerne and Marilyn Cass

Coincidentally LaVerne recently passed away here at age 92.  He  had remembered Jerry from when Jerry was a young boy here in LaCrescent and he had regretted selling this home to the other neighbor from whom we purchased it  back in 2002 when we knew we would leave CA when I retired. LaVerne said if he had known we were looking he would have sold directly to us, but that is another long story.  In 1988, we never considered  that we would relocate to MN. I still say, "If anyone had ever told me I would be not living in CA I would have said they had rocks in their head."  Back then we had no intention to ever leave CA.One reason why we relocated to MN  was where ever we moved we had to move Florence too and she was willing to move back here to her hometown and had a sister still alive here at the time.   So much has happened  between 2018  and 1988, enough to fill a book and then some, but let's move along to the other curious events, the gist of this long tale.. 

Florence Christmas 1928, program rehearsal

Staying home this winter has allowed me plenty of time to do long neglected projects,  I have been tossing papers and photos.  Some photos I scan and then post onto our Ancestry web site to preserve the tales of genealogy, future descendants, might be researching their ancestry might be interested just as I was tracing so much of my own and Jerry's.  Right now there is no one in our direct family with the slightest interest so most of the stuff is tossed.  I send some photos, along to Jerry's younger sister who can decide to toss or keep.  Her two daughters  have some interests and memories of the family, so they can share the mementos. 

1928 Florence Christmas tree rehearsal

1928 Florence

I had been clearing thru an old photo album from Jerry's late aunt Marie, Florence's sister. Unfortunately she used one of those awful albums that adhered to the photos and then covered them with a clear film. It was not archive worthy, which would never have concerned her so many of the oldest photos have disintegrated, faded into uselessness.  

 But there in the album dated Christmas 1928 were 3 photos of Florence in a Christmas program garment.  What are the odds, that I would have kept and now found a letter from Florence about that same event?  These are the coincidences that boggle me, cause a sense of  wonder, how intertwined life can be and where one event can lead forward or backward. 

Part of fron , page 1 of the 1988 letter

Perhaps  I have the luxury of too much time to notice and wonder about such things. I had just scanned and  posted these photos to Ancestry I recognized the story right away.  Several things struck me,  it was almost Christmas here and there was no snow on the ground in the photos taken on the old farm, nor was she  heavily bundled up in 1928.  Must have been a mild winter. Take that you global warming alarmists, weather can and does change and fluctuate, hah!  She describes in her letter that she was on the platform and was about 10 years old, she would have been 11 in the photos. We cannot imagine why the Christmas tree would have been outside and decorated on the old farm.  

All thoughts from the letter and there were more, I was reminded that Jerry bought my first diamond ring band in 1988 to celebrate our 25th anniversary, replacing the plain gold band we had for our wedding.  I also recalled that would have been the year we bought the spa in CA, which I enjoyed until we left, nothing like soaking in there with a glass of wine, especially after a day of heavy gardening and pruning. And that's how 2018 and 1988 and 1928 all weave into one story. 

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