Family for me is the most important. Starting with my own.  My husband and my three daughters. 

 

My daughters, their husbands and my seven adorable grandkids. They can brighten your day.  Keep you on your toes.  Exhaust you to no end.  But you would do it all over again in a heartbeat. To hear them call you grandma melts your heart.  To watch your grown children nurture their own families validates that I did something right.  And when they all go home after a day at our house and your husband looks at you and says "Listen....its quiet".  And we laugh.  Then head to our spots in the living room to unwind.   That is the definition of family in a nutshell.

 

Geno is my husband.  My second husband.  We have been married for 31 years.  Most of those years have been a challenge.  Not because we don't love each other.  But because the cards we have been dealt would suck in Vegas!  Just saying...  Our relationship has survived nonrecurring lung cancer, a motor vehicle accident that left him as total care for almost 18 months, building a house (lol), another accident where a semi tire blew up in his face leaving him with a TBI and unable to swallow, leaving him tube fed for the last eleven years.  He has a shitty vascular system  resulting in vascular dementia. I could go on and on and on...I will later lol. The year before his accident we were in a place where life was grand.  We worked hard.  Loved hard.  And had fun and laughed a lot.  The kids were all pretty much settled and it was now our time.  Now.... I am his care taker.  A role that I didn't want.  No one would.  But I am his wife and I refuse to quit. He is a good man.  And I love him.  And at times, in my frustration, I have had to learn to choose my battles.  I mean I was thrown out as a child.  With a child.  And forgotten out of convenience.  So it would be a cold day in hell that I would ever turn my back on anyone and kick them in the head when they were all ready down.  I choose love.  Commitment. Loyalty. I choose to take my vows seriously.  I will advocate for this man because he always believed in me and my girls.  But more importantly, I choose to be an example to my kids and grandkids.  You do not run when it gets tough.  You stay and make things right.  You always look up for strength and direction.  No one knows the future.  And one day things may get to be so much that I need to make a decision.  But we ALL have this sooner or later.  Until then, I will love him and take the best care of him as I can.  Yes....I may complain to a few (you know who you are) but this can be frustrating and lets just say it...lonely.  And exhausting.  We do not have what we had or the life we dreamt of.  But we have life and each other.  And I thank everyone I have leaned on for the past 31 years, from the bottom of my heart.  Because without the few that I have to talk to.  To vent to.  I would have crumbled. 

I love you my sweet husband.  Always and forever.  

 

I am the oldest of four kids.  I have a very handsome brother and two beautiful sisters.  And I love them so very much.  I see my youngest sister the most because she lives in the same town as I do.  And she lives alone.  Which means she cooks alone,  as I do.  And so I will say come and eat...I made tacos.  Or spaghetti.  Or whatever I made!  Come and eat.  Yes, we are Italian and we love food.  But its so much nicer to share a meal than to eat alone.  Or I make so much damn food that I deliver it to one of my kids lol. My other sister is very successful in her job and busy, busy, busy.  I miss her and would love to spend more time together.  And my brother works hard.  And he spends a lot of his time with his own family.  And so that's the normal part of our lives....we are all so busy with our own families that its hard to get together.  We need to work on this.  But even though we may not speak as often as we should.  I know that there is bond like no other.  There is a love like no other.  And there is pain like no other.  And there are four stories each to be held locked in their own protections.  Respectfully.   And so I say,  I love you three and your families, with all my heart.  

 

My Dad. My best friend.  My biggest confidant.  My biggest fan.  We lost you on April 17th, 2023.  Almost two years ago.  That's almost two years without a phone call, hearing your chuckle, listening to your politics, sharing a pizza, etc.... I miss you.  Losing you has been a struggle like no other.  Your home was HOME.  And your love was unconditional.  Not a day goes by that I don't look at your picture and say "Hello Dad, I miss you"  I was lucky to have you as long as I did.  But losing you and then finding you.  Then having you in my life daily, then losing you again, forever.  It left me devastated.  You went as you would have chosen.  But I wasn't ready.  I never would have been ready.  I know your still here because I can feel your presence at times.  I could hear you walking in my house one night.  I get signs like dimes and feathers or little yellow finches.  And one day we will be reunited in a place where there is nothing but love. No bullshit.  No hate. Until then dad, keep in touch.  You will never be forgotten.  I will make sure of it.  Love, Mar Mar

 

My mom.  As a young child I lived to make you proud.  Longed for your approval.  A hug.  As a teen, I was your biggest disappointment.  And your biggest nightmare.  You loved me and then forgot me.  You turned your back on truth and made me the problem instead of facing the real problem.  And that's it!  I am doing this for me.  I figure maybe I can have the next ten years to live like a real person.  To shed the pain, the fear, or self doubt.  To be UNDERSTOOD for the person I really am.  Not the one you talked terrible about.  To maybe be an example for some poor girl living a nightmare and thrown to the wolves to save the hunter.  My goal is only to laugh again and be my authentic self without hearing the same shit in my head putting me down.  Minimizing me to make others look grand.  Ignoring my hard work that I have done on myself for years, only to knock me down.  My goal is not to hurt or to defend.  My goal is only ME!  And its about damn time.  Because you see, I have heard all my life that "its in the past".  Is it?  I think not.  It doesn't leave.  And from what I have learned in my years in psych. Is that the past is what makes you.  So I guess its not on me.  Do I love you?  I think we all can say that we wanted to have a mom that we could love,  but did we have that?  And as children, we were no different in that we loved unconditionally.  Today there are conditions. As there should be.  I grieved a mother for years.  And she was still alive.  I grieved family that we were not allowed to see because she said so.   And I don't even know aunts, uncles, or cousins any more which is horribly sad. I grieved my father years before he even died because we couldn't see him because she said so.   I grieved my grandparents, especially my grandmas,  because we didn't get to see them.  You can not write people off and then go back and then write them off again and again and again when ever it appeases you.  And then you expect love.  It complicated.  And I will leave it at that.

 

I always said I could write a damn book.  Then they could make it a movie of the week.  But its so long it would have to be a mini series.  OMG!  I scared that thought right away.  I did start a blog some years back but then life got in the way.  Imagine that hahaha.  This isn't a book because frankly I am not sure about that process.  I would rather share stories of my life, my feelings, dealing with fight or flight most of  my life, parenting, saving a piece of junk from a thrift store, painting a picture,  a recipe, yard work and gardening.... all the things that have saved my life in one way or another.  And maybe reminding each other about faith, because without that big guy upstairs I would not be here.