Every December 19th...

{I wrote this blog post a year ago and never actually shared it.  I even said in the post that I was going to share more of my experiences so this December 19th I'm holding true to that.  It may be 33 long years overdue but who's counting.} 



I have an unending pain.  It reignites every December 19th since 1986.  I have a pain in my soul such that if a soul could be visible and look at its reflection in the mirror, it would wither and weep at the picture of the memory it sees. 

A scared 13 year old girl who one moment is chatting with her neighbor on the phone and laughing away to begging her to call 911 because her house is on fire.  Not only that, the very spot where the fire started was where her feeble grandmother sat in her chair and died before she and her sisters even knew there was a frightful emergency.

We didn't know the fire had even started until the flames were fully engulfed.  Grandma lived in a little apartment attached on to my house off the back porch.  I was the last person to see her alive.  It was my turn to help her that morning by bringing her prunes and whatever else.  She would always say to us, "Take a quarter."  She always had a roll of quarters and whenever we helped her out, she would reward us.  I was the lucky recipient of a quarter that morning and then the next time I looked at the chair she was sitting in, it was nothing but charred ashes and smoke.  All I could think of in my 13 year old mind was how could she have been sitting in that? What happened to her?  The smell.  Oh the smell of the fire.  I kept that quarter for so many years after and have always been disappointed that I lost it along the way...

The things we over here adults say when the adults don't realize young people are listening can be the most impressionable in our memories.  For example, I heard my mother talking about our priest coming over to pray and anoint my grandmother's body and I heard her say that the priest said, "There was nothing to anoint."  But I had JUST seen her only hours earlier...Looking back, I can't imagine how hard that must have been for my mother.  It was HER mother.  Her own mother died a few days before Christmas in such a tragic and devastating way.  And two of my sisters and I were the only ones home at the time.  

A man came from across the street and broke the window where Grandma was sitting and that only fed the fire and made the flames shoot out of the window.  I know this because as my neighbor was walking us across the street to her house and she told me not to look back.  She kept saying, "Don't look back". 

I looked back.  

Before the fire trucks arrived and before my neighbor arrived to help us across the street to her house, I had to find a way OUT of my house.  Come to think of it, I don't know which way my sisters went out of the house.  Instead of going out the front door where it was safe, I went to the back of the house where the fire was and walked through the smoke to get out the back door.  I was so panicked and ill prepared for anything of this nature and it has actually affected me my whole life.  I still have trouble with quick decisions and emergencies to this day.  

The reason I went through the back door was because it was slushy and snowy outside and I remember thinking that I had my slippers on and couldn't walk in the slush.  It makes no sense, but what does when one is in a situation like that.  So scary. Getting out of my house is something that I remember so well.  The thoughts that went through my head...the panic feeling...the black black smoke. 

I couldn't see for a few seconds as I went though it and that feeling has stayed with me.  And then to get out on to the sidewalk to fresh winter air and cry for help.  So so real. 

That night my family all stayed with different friends and family.  On the news, they showed the medical team taking Grandma's draped body on the stretcher out of the house. I was so completely horrified.  Also, that afternoon after the fire was out, the investigator wanted me to go back over there and answer questions.  WHY?  I couldn't recognize anything.  Charred burnt things and smoke.  I saw her CHAIR.  

What my parents told me they chose to believe was that she had a stroke or heart attack, died suddenly and dropped her lit cigarette on herself.  We have always prayed that she died before the fire.  She was frail and needed a walker.  She chain smoked.  There was a buzzer she would push if she needed us and that never buzzed.  

My home had smoke damage all the way up to the third floor and attic.  I remember something about gunpowder being on our back porch that never even exploded. A small plastic statue of Mary that was in our kitchen melted back from the heat.  It was a staple in our kitchen for years after and many commented on how it appeared that Mary was leaning back out of the way and that she was looking out for us all.

Our neighbors came together and gave us Christmas gifts that year.  I can still picture the sweatshirt I received!  Oddly, I can't really remember how we celebrated Christmas that year or how long it was until I stayed in my house again.  Maybe a few days. 

Where is this traumatic memory stored in my brain.  Why, after 32 years, do I recall every detail and still feel scared?  Overall I believe we are all a product of our own pains, hurts, joys, fears and brokenness.  We all make our way through things that pain our hearts and cut us to the core. We never know the sufferings of another, the memories that hurt, the scary situations we encounter head on.  Life is not one moment.  It is journey of a million of little moments.  It's up to us to store these memories and turn them in to something healthy and to heal.  Maybe sharing this story has helped me.  Thank you for being a part of my million little moments.  

I tend to use humor and sarcasm to make people laugh and to make myself laugh. In the second half of my life, I plan on sharing more of the pain and realness of life that has taught me sooo many lessons.  Laughter truly is the best medicine, as they say.  Boy, has it been my savior. But maybe I'll actually ease up on the sarcasm.  Just maybe.

So every December 19th I stop and reflect as it gets so close to Christmas.  I stop and think about what is truly important, what makes me tick, and what I have to be grateful for in life.  Many blessings, many moments, many journeys.  I pray you have the courage to share what you need to share and bring out in the open what weighs you down and what is not your fault.

"The Very Harried Month of May"- Making Intangible Memories in Physical Places

NOTE:  If anyone who reads this blog post has any information about how to contact the family who was affected by the fire at 1588 Bradley Street in Schenectady, NY, please comment below or message From Teacher to Mom on Facebook.  I am hoping there is some way to send a monetary gift in form of a gift card, or something of that nature, to help them in their time of loss.  Thank you! 


I have changed the song to the "Very, Very Harried Month of May".  May is not so merry.  It is just not.  EVERYTHING happens in May.

These are the events on my family's list this year:

• Baby shower (sister in law in NY.  Sorry to be missing it!)
• First Communions (2 of our Godchildren and 1 friend)
• Dance Productions (Valley Dance Theatre spring show, Carmen's first year doing this)
• Senior Prom (my two teenagers are going together and I am honored that they want me to go to dinner with them!)
• Mother's Day (Um, whatever about that. Whoever made Mother's Day in May was playing a joke.  It is the busiest Month of the year for Mom's, I would venture to say)
• Our Annual Memorial Day party (I guess I dug my own grave there by adding another event to an already busy month!  Well, it all started when John decided to be born on May 14th and my friend convinced me to have a party two weeks after he was born.  She was a wonderful help with the party! Couldn't have done it without her.  We had John baptized on Memorial Day weekend and celebrated afterwards and thus began our annual Memorial Day party.)  
• High School Graduation  (one of my teenagers is graduating from High School on June 6.  Oh wait, that is June.  But I have to plan in May, RIGHT?)  
• Birthdays (John will be 3 on the 14th!)  and our dear friend Uncle Jerry's birthday is on the 11th, always around Mother's Day.
• Standardized testing (This is the first year I am testing both Emmett AND Carmen, so it is taking even longer) 

I told George I was going to just prepare myself to miss something big.  I will probably forget something, even though I live with my calendar and my phone.  

Yesterday, I found out that my childhood home (I lived there the first 19 years of my life) had a fire and two people people, a mother and daughter, died.  The home, 1588 Bradley Street, is no more.  It is being demolished as I type this. Both of my grandmothers and my own mother died in this home.  My maternal grandmother, in a fire in 1986, when I was just 13 years old.  And now this week, a mother and a daughter.  I don't what it is about that house and fires and claiming the lives of strong women, but the saga has now ended.  

As I pray for the family affected by the fire and reflect with my own siblings about memories we made in that home, I realize that everything on my own family's list for this busy month of May is about making memories and being together with people I love.  

While we are making memories in physical places that can perish, as with my childhood home this week, the important thing to remember is to not get caught up in all the physical stress of life.  It is so fleeting.  Unfortunately we are reminded of that all too often through tragedy.  

On the other hand, the memories that are seemingly so fleeting, can impact us forever.  Next year, May will come around again, just as it always does.  Busy months and dull boring days alike have their place.  But the small things we say and do, the looks we give people, and the genuine moments we give to loved ones and even strangers on the street, are what really last.

A mother and a daughter died in that fire in my childhood home.

I think of my Carmen, my daughter. I think of how each night we go to bed and don't see each other til the morning.  The mother and daughter that died in the fire went to bed only to wake up to trauma and heartache in the middle of the night.  Forget about how busy their month was.   What was their relationship like?  How did they feel every day?  Did they have any regrets or anything they would have done differently?

I have read such nice things about them in the news following this tragedy.  I am glad I got to meet the mother, Benita Thomas, last August when I drove by to show my children where I grew up.  She was coming out of the house to her car and I said hello and introduced myself.  I told her I grew up there in her house.  

Reflecting on the tradegy in my childhood home, my philosophy this busy month of May has changed a little.  I am simply going to keep trying to do my best and to not lose focus on my children and their day-to-day needs.  Instead of cleaning the kitchen, I took a few moments to sit on the deck and watch the children play in the yard together.  Instead of making the kids go to bed at their normal time, we watched their newborn home videos together. Watching Emmett meet Carmen for the first time is adorable.  Instead of making lunch right now, I am stopping to reflect, think and just be.

I'm exhausted, my foot hurts and I am overhwelmed with responsibilities of motherhood.  However, knowing it all can be gone in the blink of an eye causes me to pause and think of what I really cherish in my life.  How do I want to spend my busy months?  Lamenting how full the calendar is?  Or being grateful that my days can be filled with family and a love that this is so big that no temporary, physical place could ever hold it.  The love that my family has for each other will go on and on far longer than this home we live in ever could.  That is as it should be.  

The physical place in which we reside is not meant to last forever.  Yes, it is a shock when things comes to an abrupt end, but nothing is without purpose.  What meaning and purpose we find in it is ours for the making...

Beautiful things that come to us from nature are so temporary.  The flower blooms that come forth in May die soon after. But that beauty goes back to the earth in the dirt and mulch that we lay the next year helps to bring forth more beauty in new blooms again and again.  

So are we going to dwell on the beauty in every present moment  (of our own springtimes in life)...

My home in Virginia

 or will we dwell only the charred remains from our past (that so resemble the ugly mulch that we lay on top of the weeds and dirt)?

My childhood home in New York

Another house will most likely be built here in the empty space on Bradley Street.  It is certainly the end of an era, but also the beginning of something else.  That's how it goes.  That is how everything goes.

For me, it is a mixture.  It is a balance.  It is joy and pain all rolled into one.  It is past, present and future working together.  What I dwell on in any given day depends on many things.

One thing of which I am sure to think about every day, though, are the notes my daughter writes to me (we each have a little homemade mailbox outside of our rooms and we write to each other). Seeing life through eyes of a child is a gift. 

So here's to the busy month of May and to all those memories and places and people we hold dear.  May we all have something in our lives that trancends the physical and carries us through the ups and downs, the good and bad, and everything in between.

In conclusion,  as my old childhood home is torn down today, I am happy to have a rather heavy and cumbersome keepsake.  Our phone booth! It was in my house for many, many years.  It was quite a novelty.  I wouldn't have it if it weren't for my brother, Bernie, who was visiting me in Virginia a few years back when I got the call that I could have it if I wanted it.  He drove up to New York on the spur of the moment and got it!

I think it is hysterical that this phone booth made it all the way to Virginia.  Thank you, Bernie!  And thank you to our former neighbors who gave it back to our family after getting it from my Dad when he left the house.  I cleaned it out and sat in it it today and took the pic of the graffiti.  Wow.
It is so strange how physically being somewhere brings back so many memories!

Praying for all families who experience loss and, in particular, for the Thomas family.