Saturday, July 28, 2018

Bittersweet Comfort


Mom and Dad had been gone for over a year. They passed away within a year of each other. It took us almost that long to clean out their house, our childhood home, to prepare it for sale. 

It was a bittersweet chore, and sometimes felt more like a journey back to who our parents were in their younger years, like finding tucked in the bottom of a shoe box of old paperwork intimate notes of love my dad wrote to mom. Dad liked to write letters as much as receive them in the mail and he saved quite few letters. Mom was a collector of ‘stuff’, things of personal importance, like the pink or blue beaded ID bracelets hospital nurseries used to put on newborn babies.  Cleaning out their stuff wasn’t the real chore, although my mom was not inclined to throw out much of anything, not so much as a hoarder, but more a holdover of a post-depression mentality of “put that away, save it, I might need that later on.”

When we finally cleared out the house to mostly just bare walls it was time to freshen up the house to put it on the market and hopefully sell it quickly.

While still mourning the loss of our Mom and Dad and with our busy lives of raising our own families we dreaded the weekends of making time to work on this house for someone else to live in and make it a home of their own. This particular Saturday was one of those days. I was in the throes of helping my daughter coordinate therapies for her infant son with special needs, my sister had three small sons, ages three to six years and my brother had five girls ages five to twenty. We were all very busy with the stuff of our own lives and families.

Our house was a three story Victorian. We were weighted down with painting materials as we entered through the vestibule into the parlor. Although the house was totally empty for months there was an unmistakable scent in the air that should not have been there because the house was vacant.

At first no one said anything about it. We dropped the materials of our job at hand and just stood there in the room, until my brother said, “is anybody going to say anything or am I the only one that smells that?” My sister and I looked at each other and smiled.

It was my mother’s favorite perfume, Anais, Anais. Mom loved her perfumes and after spritzing herself she would spray the air with a quick wafting spray and say, “just to freshen the air”.

Was Mom sending us a message? She was indeed. A house is a home until it’s not. It was time to freshen it up for someone else to make it their home. Message received. Thanks, Mom.

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Saturday, February 24, 2018

Pennies from Heaven?


The Eagles have won the 2018 Super Bowl. Was there any doubt that the Birds would overcome the New England Patriots and Tom Brady, the best quarterback in the NFL? Of course, there was. There was plenty of doubt. There was good reason for that doubt. The previous decade (…and then some…) of Philadelphia sports, especially football, has been an emotional roller coaster ride that had more lows than highs. Even the most dismal losses tested the commitment of the Philadelphia football fan. Yet the fans endured, literally endured.
This winning season for the Eagles was cast a real monkey wrench when Carson Wentz tore up his knee and the humble Nick Foles stepped in. As a quarterback Foles had the arm and range of Wentz, but he did not project the same practical confidence and on the field certainly does not have the same eye for a receiver as Wentz. Yet, he soon gained an obvious confidence on the field and with the support of the team, he stepped up.
Soon after I sent my husband on his way to Minnesota to watch his Eagles play the Super bowl, I sauntered off to my appointment at the nail salon. As I hung my jacket on the back of my chair all my change fell out of the pocket. With the mix of quarters, nickels, and dimes there was about 10 pennies included in all the change.
Every penny was heads up.

If you give superstition any weight to fate, you will understand the importance of a heads-up penny that lands on the ground. Heads up, good luck, pick it up…Tails up, turn it over and leave it for the next person to find and have some good luck and be a penny richer for the find.
My mother was firm believer in this mantra. She religiously picked up pennies if she saw them on the ground, but only if they were heads up and if it was tails up, she turned it over and left it for someone else to have the luck of a little extra cash. I carried on this belief, superstitious or not.
I had to double check all that fallen coinage and sure enough, all the pennies were heads up. I took it as a potential omen, a message from heaven. However, the jaded soul in me decided to not get too excited and kept that secret to myself. 
This was Super Bowl Weekend. I had to carry on as I did every weekend during the season, no shifts in the routine. Now I share this story about this fortuitous omen as the fans still bask in the glory of the long overdue win.
Do I believe my Mom was sending a message from heaven with all those heads-up pennies? Maybe, but I wish she would send some winning lottery numbers.