Our Journey with Mikey

Mikey’s Journey started15 years ago.

My grandson Michael is my daily inspiration on many levels. He was born a healthy baby in January of 1998, a little early than his due date and just barely six pounds, but 20 inches long. Because he was so long and leggy, he looked like a miniature old man with scrawny legs, but he fattened up soon enough.

He was the first grandson and second grandchild born to our family.  After about a month he began to develop unexplained and irregular shaped bruises on various parts of his body. His Mom, my daughter, would point them out to me,  wondering what they could be. Although he was steady in gaining weight as a newborn should, he was born small and appeared a little anemic. His bruises were attributed to anemia by his pediatrician, even without the benefit a blood test to verify or disregard. Although Mom continued to express concern over the bruising and other seemingly minor instances like spitting up his formula, it was assumed that she was experiencing New Mommy hysteria, overreacting to things that seemed to have valid explanations. After a week long series of twice a day phone calls voicing the same concerns, I finally said, “Honey, I think you need to relax. Babies are very unfinished human beings, they make a mess and just need to be hugged, fed, and kept dry”. I went on with more motherly advice, “Now, if you can’t relax and enjoy him, give him to me.” These were words that would soon to come back and bite me.

At about seven weeks old more bruises appeared, mostly in weird places like his forehead or chest, some irregular in shape, some distinct, but baby Mikey seemed well and generally calm for a newborn. One night, Mom called me and complained that he began ongoing crying, was inconsolable and obviously uncomfortable. I suggested a receiving blanket wrapped tightly around his tiny body, which seemed to bring comfort, so the discomfort was attributed to colic. 

Mom returned to work, and within the next few days received regular phone calls from the sitter telling of a wracking cough and vomiting. Another trip to the pediatrician brought no relief, Mom was told by the pediatrician her child had a cold and to expect it to get worse before it got better. The cough did seem to get better, however Mikey continued infrequent vomiting and was generally uncomfortable.

At the end of her first two weeks after returning to work from her Maternity leave, Mom called me alarmed that something serious was wrong with Mikey and was bringing him to my house to check him out.  When I saw him I knew immediately that something terrible was wrong, but did not know what. He was lethargic, clammy and his usual light coffee/carmel color complexion was almost ashy grey. After another call to his pediatrician she was instructed to go directly to the Emergency Room.

Both parents took him to the local ER, his body temp was 96.5, the ER Docs took a few x-rays, and after about 3 hours of waiting and nothing definite determined, baby Mikey was discharged with instructions to bring him to his Primary doc the following day. Through the night, Mom noticed jerking limbs, but she did not recognize it as seizure activity. With the early morning visit to the doctor, they were sent to CHOP where he was admitted with unexplained seizures, sedated and quarantined in the ER. After a long day in the Emergency Room both Parents were urged to go home and get rest, while the staff continued to work on a sedated baby.

The following morning, Mom got a call from hospital that baby had a difficult night and they should come to hospital. Hospital staff escorted family to conference room and announced to Mom and dad that ‘Someone has hurt Michael’. At that point in time, his injuries were (by this time) healing broken ribs (at least 2 weeks old), torsion fracture of left leg, also 2-3 weeks old (a spiral type of break often happens when a child jerked or wrenched from position or from the arms of someone holding him), bilateral retinal hemorrhages,  a parietal skull fracture (not even 24 hr old) causing a sub-arachnoid hematoma and brain swelling, which was the reason for the lethargic and weak condition that his mom found him the previous day after she left him alone with his father while she ran errands.

Mikey was put on life support to avoid cardiac arrest while seizing and to assist oxygenating his brain. The initial prognosis was not good because it was not known what and how much brain damage was done or exactly what caused the brain injury. Eventually the perpetrator that caused this abuse was identified as baby’s biological father. Initially he claimed that while going through the bedroom doorway that the baby’s head hit the door jamb and that although the baby cried he seemed to calm down when put in his crib. I know plenty of moms and dads that have gone through a doorway while carrying a baby and accidentally hit baby’s head on the jamb and while it probably smarted at the time, babies don’t routinely gain head injuries as a result of said doorjamb.

After some interrogation by the police Mikey's biological father finally admitted  that he threw a ‘Mommy bear” at the child, a plush bear with a hard plastic battery pack (containing four ‘C’ batteries) inside to play sounds similar to womb. It is supposed to be a soothing tool for infant babies. He admitted that he threw this at the baby while he was strapped in his infant seat, because this 3 month old baby would "not cooperate, would not stop crying". While it is likely that this was used to strike the baby in the head, it is also characteristic of abusers and likely that when the baby did not stop crying, even after the impact of the battery pack, that he took baby out of seat and slammed him down into the crib. Both of these actions caused the most irreversible harm. The impact of the bear fractured his skull, and the throwing down into the crib caused the retinal hemorrhages, forcing the brain to bounce off the backs of face plates and skull. Think of a bobble head doll and how hard the head would snap back and forth as you smacked it against a wall or table top. That kind of impact and momentum on the soft tissue of a baby’s brain banging against the bone of the skull is what causes Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Retinal hemorrhages are pools of blood packed behind the retina and tissue of the eyeball. It is hoped that the blood will dissipate back into the body. Baby Mikey’s retinal bleeds were so bad, it was first decreed by docs that he would be permanently blind.

The brain swelling subsided and after a week, he came off life support and maintained the ability to suck on a bottle, which was the most positive sign. Many brain injured infants have to be coaxed and retrained to the most basic natural instincts, like sucking on a bottle. Although Michael had no problems with taking a bottle, he had to relearn the most basic motor control like holding his head. At this time he was 12 pounds, and flopped like a rag doll. His eyes wandered left to right, the brain searching for what it used to see and looking for something to focus on, as before the skull fracture.

He had just a raspy chirp for a cry because his vocal chords were swollen from the intubation while on life support, but the best sound we ever heard was when he howled at being given a bath. A coarse and hoarse cry but it had gusto. It energized our hope for a recovery.

Along with Baby Mikey's’s physical therapies in preparation to go home, a support therapy was begun for his Mom: the rehab staff stepped up and helped to re-direct Mom to find the strength to pick up the pieces of her life and focus on her son's life. Mom spent nights with her son after she finished her workday, and the nurses and social worker on many nights of her 1 month stay at CHOP’s rehab center,  spent  one-on-one time with her, often just to let her know that this was not the end of the world, that she and her baby would go on, especially with the network of family support that was present and often by Mom’s side. She claimed she had no problem with life going on but at that time did not think she should have to sever connections with the man who hurt her baby and who was her baby’s father or his family. This was a serious problem for the Social Services worker. If she was to come home with Mikey when he was to be discharged from rehab,  Mom  had to relinquish legal custody of her baby to her parents while she continued counseling for herself. Over the course of two years she faithfully attended counseling and eventually severed her emotional connection with the baby’s father that brutalized her baby. It was difficult to watch, as she struggled with taking ownership of her past decisions and her uncertain future.

His disabilities:

Michael has overcome most of the negative prognoses. He walks and talks, has some difficulty with articulation, but recognizes it and perseveres to be understood.  As a toddler he had high muscle tone in his right leg (turns inward at the ankle) and often clenched his right hand. This continues occasionally and  he consciously works on loosening up his hand. With the onset of puberty, his growing pains have caused some of that achiness to return. He is active in sports that afford him a level playing field and there is a budding interest in the performing arts, but puberty re-enforces adolescent insecurity.

He has regained considerable eyesight, he has a pseudo retina “fold” in his left eye (side of the impact), this is like an empty ‘pouch’ that clouds the center of his vision, caused by the amount of blood that was pocketed there. He has only clear peripheral vision in the left eye, and wears glasses to assist the right eye. When he is tired both eyes sometimes drift, this is caused by the brain being just too tired to focus, which sounds almost too simple. His skills and progress continue to be charted as delayed at about 1-2 year behind his age. He does not transition well away from preferred activities. He must be prepped for a change of setting or routine. Even when prepped he sometimes has emotional outbursts and then drops to the floor, although he will never deliberately put himself in a position for self-injury, he balls up his body or becomes dead weight. Even with his emotional outbursts, he is generally pleasant, often very witty and good natured. For every plateau we think he hits, he snaps out to a new level before we accept that this may be as far as he goes intellectually and emotionally.

Emotionally, the family must be all on the same page as far as discipline and structure, no matter how painful or unfair it feels for the adults, he needs to respect the structure of rules and routine, mostly for his own safety. This is probably the most difficult thing for all of the family knowing the brutality he suffered as a helpless infant.

In school, Mikey’s school program  requires him to have a one to one aide to assist and mentor with decisions and tasks. He has attended some type of contained classroom scenario since the age of 4, always with other children of various different disability, the primary purpose being to develop socialization skills. He attends a facility for only special needs students, that houses classes on a campus that serves K through 12 and a continuing vocational education program. There was once a goal  to transition him into a mainstreamed classroom situation and develop life skills to support independent living. That plan failed miserably with emotional breakdowns due mostly to the over stimulation of the atmosphere of the normal elementary school.

Socially, he prefers to be around adults, probably because of the attention, but sometimes plays well with children in his age group. Like most young kids, in the earlier grades of 1 thru 3 Mike liked to be in charge, he was often the ‘model’ child for others in his class, so they will know “how to do it”.  In the later grades he has not been so forthcoming and needs to be continually encouraged. Adolescence is proving to be especially difficult since he is a extremely naive and gentle personality. Recently he has been medicated for his emotional outbursts. This was a hard decision for his Mom, but after a second instance where school personnel felt it necessary to put Mike in a straight jacket, so as not harm himself or others, it was time to seek additional help and tools. This has been another success in his journey. He is relatively independent with his medication schedule.

Although he likes to learn, he does not seek out new things to learn, that’s  the transition thing again. But given time to vent and time to realize he must do the task, he will eventually get into it. 

Until recently he had an extended school year and attended school through the summer, having a summer vacation of only 3 weeks in August. It seems like a long school year, but the extended school year does not allow for the normal digression some kids get with summer vacation.

This first summer off from the extended school year he participated in a theater camp and although he has the sight and reading problem he was cast as the Top Dog in the production Aristocats. He thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. Likewise for us, it was an awesome sight seeing him perform front and center on the stage of a packed theater.

We were blessed with babysitter that took Michael on and reinforced structure and routine within a community setting.

When she could see how he was going to interact with the rest of the daycare crew, she put his bar a little higher, but only when she was sure that he could manage it. She gets the most credit for how much he has managed to get through many of his daily challenges, as well as pushing his Mom to do the right thing even if it would be inconvenient or uncomfortable.

Hopes for Michael’s future? Who knows? He has surpassed most milestones that may have been set for him. Every single one of his docs are amazed at his progress to the present and we all marvel at his potential. When we enlisted with his neurologist , I dropped off his CAT scans and hospital records to be previewed by this new doctor. After looking at the films and then meeting Mike (he was 6 mos. old at the time) he could not believe that he was the same baby that the films and records should have portrayed. His brain damage was that bad. His vision doctors continue to use his films to teach student doctors that even the most severe bleeds can heal. 

Our lifelong journey with Mikey was defined for us when he was about 20 mos. old, he hit a long stagnant plateau. With no sign of new progress, we thought this ‘was it’. All he did was belly crawl, eat and sleep, he barely sat up unless he was forced to sit up. On this particular Sunday afternoon, his PopPop was watching football in the another room, the French doors were closed, Watching football can generate some animated language and PopPop was screaming at the television to his team that was playing 500 hundred miles away, “Get the F*&king BALL”. This kind of emotional outburst was pretty common on Football Sundays and nobody paid much attention to it. While I sat at the kitchen table and Mom on the sofa watching her television show, Michael quietly climbed up opened the doors and pushed in a ball to PopPop. Once the shock wore off that he acted so independently, we all cried. Once again he showed us we were not done working. It’s been that kind of roller coaster ride over the last 15 years, but Michael seems to know how far to go as he leads us on this journey with him.

If there is a reason for all the bad that happened to Mikey in those first months of his life, I believe it was to save his mother’s life. I believe that had she stayed, she might be dead or would be in the worst unimaginable spot in anyone’s life, a situation that she never would have been able to safely live in and clearly did not have the courage to remove herself from, at that time. I frequently have a one sided conversation on my head, more like a rant “How did this happen? Do you even ask yourself that question? You were raised in a different world than you have chosen for yourself. I come from a world NOBODY would have the opportunity to hurt my child. I come from a world where if someone were to hurt my child out of frustration or anger, I would have to hurt them back, maybe even kill them.  Probably not kill, but definitely hurt them. Definitely. Count on that.”

But because she is my daughter, my child, I bite my tongue and keep that conversation one-sided.

She probably has similar one-sided conversations with herself. I often see a sadness in her that she wishes things were easier for Mike. Every Mom wishes that for their child, no matter the life circumstance.

How could things be different for Michael? Certainly as a veteran Mommy, I know there are things that I would do differently. BUT, that is easy for me to say. We always have different standards for how we think our own children should be as parents and adults. I think that Mikey’s Mom does the best job that she can when it comes to being Mikey’s Mom. It’s not the job that I think I would do, But I am not her and I am not Mikey’s Mommy.  We all have to find our own way through life, just like Mikey.

Mikey's life is full and he has a diverse support network that will serve him well in most of his life situations. He is accepted for who he is but not given a free pass for unacceptable behavior just because he has some disabilities. He is expected to fit in with the rest of the family, mind his manners and do as he told. Most importantly Mikey is loved and a very loving human being who is naturally kind and considerate. He is truly a very graceful soul.

He inspires me at some of my lowest emotional moments and reminds me everyday that things could always be worse. For the moment we’re counting our blessings as we travel this road with such a great kid.

Part 3 of Philly Girl in Jersey

Part three...conclusion, or is it? 

Two years after Bridget moved in with her son,  daughter Chrissie became engaged, married and moved out to begin a new family life. The household was reduced to niece Bridget and her son Sean and my husband and I. We were comfortable and complacent with the way things were for a while, two more years to be exact. During that time Theresa moved back in again, temporarily, while she waited to settle on a condo purchase, in Washington Township, New Jersey. Her condo was not much more than a mile as the crow flies from our house.  Theresa then also had to become an official Jersey girl, but she wasn’t feeling the same mournful resignation her sister felt. Theresa embraced her new status and fully immersed her existence as a New Jersey resident, with a job in Jersey, continuing her education and getting her masters at a Jersey college and eventually she married a Jersey Boy, named Steve, but affectionately called ‘Goon’. All that can be said about that moniker is this; the name applies at the most opportune moments. We love him, nonetheless.

In the meantime one of Bridget’s and Theresa’s younger sisters, Lindsay, had a steady  boyfriend named Alex who lived in Glassboro, Lindsay lived in Hatfield in Montgomery county but also started out in Philly, just like the rest of us. Lindsay’s weekends were spent over Alex’s house here in NJ while she kept her residence in PA. She finished her college education, in Philly,  got a job close to her home in Hatfield, PA, but travelled every weekend to NJ. Soon after her engagement to Alex he surprised her by buying a townhouse in NJ. Lindsay rushed to get a job with a NJ school but for more than a few months really had a hard time adjusting to living in NJ on a full time basis. She was homesick for her parents.  Living in New Jersey 7 days a week did not hold the same charm as traveling back and forth every weekend to spend time with her boyfriend and his family.

Like her sisters before her, she officially became a Jersey girl, not from New Jersey.  Lindsay has found more things to like than not about living in NJ, like her starting life on her own and romantic memories of her meeting her future husband and his wedding proposal. A little more important though is the comfort of having her two older sisters close by. 

Soon after Bridget became engaged and married,  Mike and I again planned to downsize, placed the house on the market and found a townhouse in Mullica Hill. I tried valiantly to shop the Philadelphia real estate market, but it just wasn’t happening. I like Mullica Hill, it’s artsy and somewhat unpretentious, I could see me living in Mullica Hill. At this point in the lives of my troop of kids, everyone seemed to have their own course charted and their own home base. We were ready, but the universe again had other plans.

All the plans for selling the old house and buying a new smaller house fell apart in sequence. Things have a way of working out for you when you think it’s all going against you.

Fast forward and the downsize plans were quickly snuffed by the crashing real estate market and a serious need for my oldest granddaughter  to attend a better school system.

That’s right, we are full up again in a multi generation household with my eldest daughter Kate, her husband Scot and their two daughters,  Tayler the Timid Teenager and Meghan, aka, Todzilla the Tyrant. The thoughts of living through teenage years again don’t make me shudder half as much as life with Todzilla; we don’t call her Todzilla because she’s a peach of a child. Even now, at six years of age, the name aptly applies, in most situations. 

Tayler, the Timid Teenager now refers to herself as a Township girl, certainly not a Jersey girl, “that would be tacky”, she says. We live in Washington Township, a” Premiere Community”, the water tower on Delsea Drive says so, therefore, she is a ‘Township girl’. Tayler’s still at that stage where her world is only as big as her day at the shore, her bus ride to school and her Facebook posts of cliché sayings and quotes that she finds on Google and posts them as though it’s her own words, sharing her pseudo sageness with her fellow Facebook compadres. It’s fun to watch.

Meghan the Todzilla is a pint sized six year old with a behemoth temper and a stupid stubborn streak that often tests your humanity. She is a master at testing your patience or resolve and can set you off to a point where you almost fail to remember she is a child, a very small child and you are the adult, supposedly in charge of your own self control. I often tell my daughter she doesn’t ever have to worry about any abduction of Meghan. Twenty minutes, tops, and the kidnappers will eagerly and urgently return her. I guarantee it. She has that kind of power. She’s all piss and vinegar, lots of vinegar. She has her warm and fuzzy moments, just not enough of them to help contradict the nickname. She’s actually kind of proud of the nickname.

So here I am, still a Philly girl but living a Jersey life. There are things I like about living in New Jersey, I like my grassy lawn and appreciate it even more as long as I can afford to pay someone else to maintain it. I like having a drive way and not having to jockey for a parking space after a long day at work and. I like that a lot. I like the big swimming pool on my own backyard. I like the schools. I like my neighbors and most of them are Philly transplants. I like shopping for fresh produce at a Jersey farm. I like being able to watch shooting stars from my back yard in the middle of the night. It’s a free show from the universe and a gentle reminder that it can be really nice.

There are some things I will always miss since not living in the city. I miss people walking with a purpose other than exercise or walking the dog. No one walks from their house to the store like WaWa or even Starbucks. There is a sports field complex within my development where ball games are played. Folks that live within our development still drive to that field! It can’t be the miles, because there isn’t a road that’s a mile long within our development. Yet they will walk or jog the development for exercise but drive to watch their kid play soccer.

I miss the corner stores like the corner grocery store where as you walked in the door you could smell barrel pickles and that had a small four foot counter squeezed in a corner where you could buy lunch meat or hoagies. Although there’s hardly any around anymore, I miss the corner luncheonette that made only burgers and cheese steaks, but always had a case full of Breyer’s ice cream that could be scooped into one of only two different kinds of cones, regular or sugar.

I miss the corner bar. Not any corner bar, but  a corner bar that you can walk to and the bartender knows what you’ll probably have to drink and has it half poured as ‘hello’s’ are exchanged  and “howYOOdooin’s?”. The corner bar where half the patrons know something personal about you and your family and even though they might know it, it’s nobody else’s business. That’s proprietary information. The corner bar where you can walk to and back home. The corner bar that has a wood shuffle board table, with a well polished shellac surface and just enough wax dust sprinkled to make those metal quoits glide so silent down to the end of the board that the only sound is a light ‘clack’ on another puck. The corner bar that would offer to sponsor your softball team for the season, not just because of the business generated after the games, o.k., maybe that had something to do with it, but it really was a neighborly and community gesture that reinforced a sense of belonging to something specific to our community identity as neighbors and friends. I miss the corner bar a lot, especially in the summer. It’s the meeting with no agenda needed.

            From the looks of the family that have settled in and around me in New Jersey, that is where I’ll be for as long as the universe allows. With the grown kids and their kids we have quite a comfortable network of family connected by our initial relocations of home base.  I have become the accidental Matriarch of this collection of new Jerseyites. Being that matriarch isn’t something I planned or even assigned to myself, it just seemed to work out that way.

It’s not perfect. In fact, there are days when I deliberately stay later at work so I don’t have to hear the noise that is my home life, a life I claim I didn’t sign up for. The reward comes with little unexpected gestures, like after a particularly bad day, the teenager who ‘hates her life’, puts her head on my shoulder as she passes by me and says, “I love you, Grammy.” Or once in a while even Todzilla comes through for me and squeaks out, “You’re the bessstt”. It’s not perfect, but it’s what we do and where we are, in New Jersey.

 (Note: This story came right from the heart and each of the characters had something to contribute. A tighter version of these 3 parts appears in Tall Tales and Short Stories from South Jersey, found here  www.bit.ly/TallTalesShortStoriesSJ)

Part 2 of Philly Girl inJersey

…..With confidence that my offspring would correct the silly behavior of their dad, I went my merry way on my day trip down to the Jersey shore with my girlfriends while my family kept their date with the Real Estate agent.

While on my own day trip to the shore, my girlfriend Susan asked if I might be missing out on the house hunt with Mike and the kids. I assured her that I had no intention of relocating to South Jersey and neither did my kids. Susan already lived in Jersey, another Northeast girl married to a South Philly guy. Actually she and I were childhood friends through High School and thereafter. Our husbands’ friendship went back even further than ours. Susan wanted to move to Jersey. She was used to driving everywhere she went, and was never fond of public transportation.

“It’s not that bad,” she tried to convince me, going on about all the great places there were to shop and the many movie theaters to choose from and how nice it was to have some land. I knew all that because we travelled with her and her husband Anthony on a regular basis. Come to think of it, we were the ones who hiked over to Jersey to do those things with them. Trying to not sound petulant I responded, “Well, he can look all he wants. I am not moving to New Jersey.”

 My street savvy city dwelling children found the house in New Jersey much more to their liking than I could have ever imagined. I was betrayed. They were seduced by a ¼ acre backyard blanketed in green grass and trees! “Trees, Mom, there’s lots of big trees! And room for a pool! And a driveway, with a garage!”

 That was almost 25 years ago. This Philly girl was dragged, kicking and screaming to live in Jersey. It is the main chapter of the life I didn't sign up for.

Life is full of twists and turns. Life is what happens when you tell the universe your plans and the universe says in response, "I don't think so." It's a tweak to your nose that you had better get with the program….whatever that program might be.

We moved to New Jersey that summer of 1988 and I was promised by my husband that if I gave it at least a year, and was still hell bent on moving back to Philly, we would. As it turned out, fate landed me a direct drive down a Jersey back road to the home of our weekend traveling friends Anthony and Susan. Our new house was close to the Black Horse Pike, they lived just off the White Horse Pike. That was the main stabilizer and calming factor for me making life in New Jersey somewhat palatable. With longtime friends close by, who also worked in the city, we still spent a good deal of our weekend time with them and their pool in their backyard, just like most of my cousins. Our summer weekends were like a family gathering. It was comfortable and we were relatively content with the routine.

Fast forward, life happens, our daughters  graduate high schools, go to college, meet their future husbands, a wedding, a grand baby, a couple different job changes and I get the news that our friends are relocating south bound to Virginia. They were moving for a job opportunity. Soon after our farewells I asked my husband if we could move now. He was surprised.

 "You really still don't like it here?"

I guess I was being too compliant and passive those last 10 years. I've since lost that character flaw.

He continued, "What about the kids?"

“The kids are grown," I responded.

"But now we have a grandchild," he whined. No, really, he really whined.

That next year was an emotionally draining one, and the most life altering in the course of events. My father died shortly after a cancer diagnosis. Soon after, grandbaby number two was born and became brain-damaged. With a need for extra family support and therapy, the new grandbaby and his Mom, Chrissie, moved back home within two months of his birth.

In addition, my mom’s health was such that she was unable to live alone, especially in her three-story Victorian house in Philly. So she moved in with us, and our briefly empty nest became too crowded for multiple generations. So we traded up to a bigger house, with an in-law suite, in-ground pool, oversized grassy lawn, and even an extra bedroom that I unsuccessfully tried to turn into a Mom cave.

But within two months of settling in, Mom died, and suddenly we had a lot of extra space. More twists and turns and more changes in the life we didn't sign up for soon affirmed my mantra that fate puts you were you are needed, whether or not you planned it.

The rooms meant for Mom went unused for about two years when my niece Bridget found herself overwhelmed and somewhat alone as a single mom, trying to work full time and continue go to school. Moving in with her Dad and stepmom wasn’t a viable option, neither was it practical option to go home to her Mom who lives even further than her Dad. She needed an extended support system.  

My daughters’ relationship with Bridget and her sister Theresa was closer than cousins and more like sisters; they are all within a year of each other in age. They still remained close as young adults, sharing each others’ life stuff and secrets. With that, when informed of her situation and we decided to offer her the extra room. It made practical sense since they all worked together anyway and could coordinate with the same daycare.   Bridget moved in and filled the space that was meant for Mom.  

“Six months”, she kept repeating to me, like some kind of weekly mantra. “Six months, TOPS,” she would emphasize and then continue, “As soon as Theresa graduates from school and gets a job, we’re getting a place together. Six months.” O.K., I reassured her, halfheartedly.

 The short lived semi-empty nest was now full up with two toddler boys and their moms. It was busy and noisy and the days flew by. I was often asked by friends why my niece couldn’t live with either of her own parents and since it was really none of their business, I would shrug and say, “it doesn’t matter, besides, it’s what we do”.

Six months passes by and several things happened. Bridget’s sister Theresa did graduate college, then went on a month long trip with a college buddy touring England and Ireland, returned and temporarily moved in with us, just until she landed a job and found a place to live. However, it was becoming clearer by each day that the two sisters no longer had the chemistry they might have imagined they had growing up. I could see that moving into a place together was not going to happen, at least not happily. They were in two different life style modes. One was a working mom going to school and the other had just finished her college days, but clearly was not on any domestic path.  Eventually, Theresa found a job and made plans to share a house, in Philly, with a housemate that was not her sister.

Shortly after it was clear we were beyond six months I suggested that Bridget get her driver’s license renewed for New Jersey, since that’s where she landed for the time being. “Why would I do that”, she asked, looking at me like I was suggesting she cut off a limb.

“Well, you’re here for now and probably a little longer than that. It just seems the practical thing to do until you finish your degree”.

“But I have a Pennsylvania license. “

“But you live in New Jersey now,” I said matter-of-factly.

I suggested that it just made practical sense to get her driver’s license and car registered for New Jersey. We were in no rush to end her ‘six month’ stay with an open ended extension. On the day she did transfer all her vital information to a New Jersey residence she actually said with almost defeated resignation, “I guess I really am a Jersey girl now. My driver’s license says so.”  Join the club, honey, I didn’t plan this either….end of Part 2.

Philly Girl in Jersey...Part 1

(This is part 1 of the Philly Girl in Jersey. A version of this appears  in Tall Tales and Short Stories, a collection of contributions by local South Jersey writers, now available through Amazon's Create Space. www.bit.ly/TallTalesShortStoriesSJ )

I never wanted to move to New Jersey. I was born and raised in Philly. In my mind Jersey was a Sunday drive to visit the ‘Jersey cousins’. The attraction for me as a city kid was that each of my Jersey cousins had a pool and a large back yard, with grass and trees. We had a back yard too, but it was about the size of a cemetery plot, and required not much attention, just big enough to grow a few tomato plants in buckets. Any trees were the ones found in a park. I always thought that New Jersey was a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

There was no public transportation, if you wanted go somewhere you needed someone to drive and take you if it was too far to walk to get wherever it was you needed to get to, and it seemed everywhere was too far to walk.

I’m a girl from the ‘Northeast’ in Philadelphia, married to a guy from South Philly. South Philly was a section of the city I only understood by way of the maps on the walls of the SEPTA trains indicating stops beyond City Hall. When I first met Mike, he asked me what kind of car I drove. When I told him I don’t have a car, I found out that he and most of his family felt that public transportation was ‘beneath’ them; as if it was something ‘other’ people of a lesser social status are saddled with.

When my family moved to the Frankford area and I could not have been happier that I could walk to the Frankford El and not have to take an additional bus or two to get there. The El would take me to Center City where I could go just about anywhere and do almost anything and still stay out of trouble.

After Mike and I married and had two daughters we bought a tiny row house in the Kensington section of the city that was exactly two blocks from the Frankford El. It wasn’t a perfect neighborhood, but it was the practical choice for that time in our lives as very young newlyweds.

After thirteen years in Kensington my husband Mike announced that we were moving to New Jersey and that he had made an appointment to look at a house that seemed to fit our price range.

“We’re looking at a house in Jersey on Saturday,” he said.

“I have plans to go down the shore with Susan,” I said.

“Well, then me and the kids will go without you,” he said.

“The kids and I,” I corrected him.

“Whatever. I’m going to look at this house on Saturday. You just go to the shore. I’m only looking,” he said.

I sighed, and repeated my concerns about a move so far from my parents and the huge change of scenery for the kids. Our daughters were just starting their teenage years, preparing for high school, it would such be a big change. I felt he was not thinking this through.

My job was in Center City. I needed no car of my own. I took the Market-Frankford El to 8^th and Market and literally walked off the train, through a turnstile and through the revolving doors into the building where I worked. I never had to set foot outside if I didn’t want to go outdoors, a real bonus in lousy weather. I could shop for food at the Reading Terminal Market; I could catch a show after work with friends from work for a night out. I could shop without him in tow, whining about how long was I going to be and wasn’t I done yet. I could buy lunch and a huge fruit salad from the street vendors and not even spend five bucks. I could run to City Hall when we needed something official like the official stuff that one gets done at City Hall.  Why couldn’t he see that this worked for me?

Our kids, Katie and Chrissie, were well rounded city kids. They had an appreciation for the outdoors in a natural setting because we were summertime weekend campers mostly at Jersey campgrounds. It was nice to visit on weekends and to get the kids out of the city for break in their routine, but also just as nice to get home and sleep in a bed. 

The girls were street savvy and confident when travelling just about anywhere, with or without me and most importantly they knew how to navigate their way around the city by train or bus as well as on bicycle. Sometimes on weekends we would get on our bikes and ride to the Delaware River along the old factory and warehouse roads and take rest stops at some of the abandoned docks. Our favorite stop was the old Jack Frost Sugar refinery which is now the Sugar House Casino. I would tell them about my Uncle John who worked there his whole life and how much hard work it was shoveling sugar like so much sand to fill the  filtering tanks for the production lines. They couldn’t picture it, but they humored me with pretentious awe.

Sometimes those bike rides would take us all the way to South Street. We’d stop for some water ice and window shop the storefronts of some of the oddest merchandise, taking turns watching our bikes while checking out the shops and then head home. It was fun for all of us.

I was sure, that my street savvy city dwelling children would find the house hunting jaunt to New Jersey appalling and unfathomable to even consider moving to such a rustic and barbaric setting, sparse of public transportation and no such thing as South Street. Certainly they would see the error of their Dad’s thinking and put on such an emotional uproar that he would just stop this silliness. 

....to be continued.

Car Keys, A Prompt

Car keys, where are the car keys?

I put them on the table and now they’re not where I left them or did I leave them on that table?

Maybe I left them on the other table.  Why can’t they stay in one place where they can easily be found?

Move that pile of magazines around, maybe they got covered up by the clutter.  

Maybe they are deliberately hiding out of my sight because the universe has other plans for my scheduled departure.

Where are those keys?

The later I leave, the more traffic I will have to sit in once I finally get on the road. Check my pockets again.

Wait, this is not the same jacket I wore yesterday. Check those pockets.

Where is that Jacket? I left it right there. But now it’s not there, where did it go? Probably the same place the keys went.  

Those keys are like socks in the dryer, what goes in is not the same that comes out.  Without those keys I cannot leave the house, I cannot lock the front door.

I cannot go to work…well that doesn’t sound too bad, maybe it’s a sign.

Maybe the keys are trying to tell me it’s time to take a hooky day off from the workday this week.

Maybe I should pay closer attention to where I lay my stuff at the end of my workday instead of lumbering up the driveway, through the front door, down the hallway, into the kitchen, dropping my stuff that I lug with me daily on to the bench.

Maybe I should pay closer attention to the location of where I kick off my shoes and shrug off my jacket that I drape off the back of the chair at the end of the table where I thought I set down my car keys as I step into the den and plant a hello kiss on my husband’s cheek exchanging check-ins on each other’s day.

Maybe I should pay more attention to what I drop on the table as I walk around to the refrigerator and as I stand in front of the open fridge and have that silent mental argument with it smartly asking what is for dinner and why isn’t it defrosted, how long will it take and how much effort do we want to put into it?

Maybe I should have paid more attention to where those car keys ended up before all those other distractions came about.  

Where could those car keys have disappeared to and why am I standing here like they are going to call my name and verify their location?

The clock is ticking. The house is blissfully silent.

The workday is looking more like a day off.

Retrace my steps and do one more visual sweep of all my stops from kitchen to the front door before I call out from work, thinking to myself,  do I use the excuse that I can’t find my car keys or do I fabricate something?

Down the hall I go and the dog lifts her head as I pass the living room. I tell her she’ll probably have company today since I can’t find my car keys. She puts her head back down and sighs. 

My decision is made, I shut the front door.  As I turn away from the door way the car keys are hanging on the key rack.  I sigh and turn to the dog, asking her, “Where ARE those car keys?”