Jacob...A year without him. 12/22/2010

December 22, 2009…
That was the day I got the call from my husband telling me that our cousin Jacob had died. It was the worst day of 2009 for me and ushered me in to a difficult and sometimes painful 2010.

Jacob was my cousin by marriage; I was very close to him. We spent a lot of time together the two years after his brother, Josh had died. They both struggled with heroin addiction. They both died from that same drug.

When I got that horrible call from my husband the world spun around me. I dropped to my knees and all I could say was “NO!” Then the tears came.

After that, I went on auto-pilot. Both my husband and I did. We went about the things you do when someone close to you dies, making the necessary calls, determining arrangements, etc. I went and bought a few Christmas gifts in the middle of all of it that day. Do the next thing in front of you to do, I kept telling myself. I just could not wrap my head around Jacob being gone. He was so full of life. A bright shining light, and he was gone and I couldn’t accept it.
I still can’t.

I have a friend from Alanon who has a sort of connection to the dead, if you will. They visit her, and it’s not consistent, and no, she can’t contact your dead aunt for you. It just happens randomly for her. Now, some of you may think this is odd, or maybe you don’t even believe in this sort of thing, but I do. I’ve had a few experiences, myself, with the dead paying me a visit.
Is it leftover energy or a ghost? Who knows? I won’t try and label it.

About 2 months ago I saw this friend at a meeting and we had a strange conversation. She was crying a lot. We used to talk more than we do now, and she was saying how much she missed me, but she was really emotional. Naturally, I comforted her. The next day, she called me and said, “I know you might think I’m nuts, but someone that’s passed on is trying to contact you through me.” I told her I didn’t think she was nuts and asked her who.

She started telling me that this spirit had been around her for a few days, and all she kept hearing was the word “red.” When she saw me at the meeting, my hair had been freshly colored bright red. She told me that yes, although it was true she had missed me, she just felt like she couldn’t get close enough to me that day. It was as if she wanted to climb inside my skin and find comfort. That morning it clicked for her why she had felt like that.

She said, “I don’t know who it is, but he is big and he has a beard. He’s jolly and he’s happy and he loves you, and he needs you to know that he’s okay. He wants me to tell you that he knows you’re having a hard time and he’s with you.”

All I could say was, “It’s Jacob.” She went on to tell me more. She told me some specific things about his death that I had already suspected. She also told me some other things about him that she wouldn’t have known, couldn’t have known. I cried as she shared what she was hearing from him with me. I cried quietly and I listened. “He doesn’t want you to be angry with him,” she said. “He’s happy now, he’s okay.”

She told me he leaves me signs: pennies or feathers. “Look for feathers,” she said.

I’ll be damned! There had been feathers around. Several times I would walk outside to my back patio and there would be a feather sitting on my chair. We were at the annual Christmas party for my husband’s work, standing outside talking, and there was a huge feather on the ground between the owner’s feet. The owner is also my husband’s cousin, and Jacob’s, as well.
It was surreal seeing that feather just sitting there. I knew that Jacob was there with us, too.

I have a picture of Jacob up on my wall in my office. I stare at it a lot. I know he is with me. In the picture he is smiling. I know he’s free from his suffering, from his disease of drug addiction, but I am selfish. I want him here. I miss him more than I can even begin to express. The pictures I am showing you show the funny side, that “jolly” man that he relayed to my friend. There are also a few where you see the pain that was there, too. I cherish these pictures.

Today marks a year that he’s been gone. I know that I will never be the same after losing Jacob. He touched my life in so many ways. In fact, he touched everyone’s life that he came in contact with. He was a friend to everyone, and if he only had a dollar left in his pocket and you needed it, he would give it to you. My house was full of people the day we had his memorial. We had to move it outside and my whole backyard was full, as well as my patio. It was amazing.

Jacob was loved by so many people. We mourned him together, and we still mourn him.

Much has happened in this last year. Some days, life is just too overwhelming and I want to run and hide. Other days, life is just life and it’s bearable, but it goes on.

I’ll never forget Jacob. I don’t think anyone will.

I’ll end this post just as I ended the one I wrote last year when we lost him. If you want to read, you can find it here.

“These three remain always, Jacob. Faith, hope and love...and yes, the greatest of these is love.”

“You were loved, Jacob! You still are.”

Rest in peace, my light.

I love you and miss you.
M.

Rest in peace my beautiful Rose. My Noni.

Rose Mary S.

Dec 26 1909~Nov 22 2010

I lost my Noni this week.
I want to tell you about her, all the things I remember about her and how much she meant to me.

She was 100% Italian.
She was an amazing cook.
She was a tiny, petite little woman.
She wore high heels, always. (Really high heels)
She never learned to drive.
She carried chicklets in her purse, always.
She loved to go on Sunday drives.
She colored her hair until about 10 yrs ago.
She had short hair as long as I’ve been alive.
She was born in this country.
She had 3 brothers and 1 sister.
She lived through the depression era.
She was a factory worker.
She married a man that was 100% Portuguese.
She eloped with him.
She was married for 73 years. (Amazing)
She has 3 beautiful children.
She has 10 beautiful grandchildren.
She has 25 beautiful great-grandchildren.
She has 2 beautiful great-great-grandchildren.
She lived a long life.
She was almost 101 years old.

She died at home with her eldest daughter and two of her gorgeous granddaughters at her side. She went to finally be with her husband that she was away from for over 8 years.

There are many things I am sure I don’t know about my Noni. I wish I had asked her more questions.

She was adorable. Everyone loved her. She could be very blunt at times, I attribute that to her being 100% Italian. There were times that she just kept quiet and other times she made her feelings clearly known. She told it like it was. Between she and my Gramps, they produced three pretty strong willed and intelligent children. Those children created ten very strong willed and intelligent grandchildren. The legacy moves forward and all ten grandchildren are grown up, each successful in their own unique ways. Most have their own families and children. All of those great grandchildren, with the exception of a few, are growing up together. Just as my cousins and I did.

This is most of us. Missing only me.

We all played at Noni and Gramps’s house. We slept over all the time, in fact, I don’t remember a time when Noni or Gramps ever said we couldn’t sleep over. One or two of us would be there playing and someone would get the bright idea, “Hey let’s see if we can sleep at Noni’s tonight.” She would always say yes. We climbed trees and played games. We spent endless hours playing hide and seek. We used to play house in the basement. They owned an old house and the basement was really creepy. There was one area that was separated from the rest of the basement and it was all dirt. Gramps never wanted us to play there. It was a fairly large, dim area. Noni once told me that when they bought the house it was all filled in with dirt, rock and construction debris and that Gramps had dug it all out. When some of us were bad, (I wont mention who *cough*) she would say, “The wolf is down there and he’s gonna hear you being bad. You better behave!” Now, today…I would never say this to my kids, but back then that’s what they did: scared the crap out of you to get you to behave. I laugh now, but I was scared to death, we all were, of that area in the basement. I still won’t go back there.

I was very thin as a child. I was a dancer. I ate constantly and probably burned more calories than I could ever consume. She used to tease me and say I had a tapeworm. Do you know it wasn’t until I was in my late 20’s that I actually found out there really was such a thing as a tapeworm?

When I would sleep over by myself, I would get hungry late in the evening. (Big surprise, this still happens to me.) She would always take me into the kitchen and let me have a snack. Sometimes she would join me and eat something too. I remember one particular time, I was maybe 10, she was saying, “When I woke up today I sure didn’t think I would be up at 11 pm having a snack.” We giggled with each other.

I slept at her house a lot after age 11. My father was a long haul truck driver and my mother was a nurse who worked nights. My brother and sister are much older than I am and were no longer living at home. Rather than stay at home alone I would stay with Noni and Gramps. I would cry sometimes at bedtime because I missed my mother and Noni would come in and sit with me and comfort me.

As I grew into my teenage years and was driving, I used to stop by after school or for lunch. The kitchen always smelled amazing. No matter what she cooked, it was delicious. When I had my first child at a very early age, and out of wedlock, she and my Gramps used to watch him for me so I could go to college classes. I remember when I got pregnant. I was so afraid to tell them, afraid of them being disappointed in me. I remember I wrote it in a letter and had Noni read it in front of me. I’ll never, to this day, forget the look on her face. She was shocked, no doubt about that, but she didn’t judge me or look at me differently. She is the one that told Gramps. He looked at me for a moment, silently, and then asked if the father was who it was and I replied with a simple “Yes.” That was it. No judgment or condemnation from either of them. If they felt it, they never let it show.

My son was the third great-grandchild. He got to play at his Great Noni and Gramps house just like I did. He climbed trees and explored the back yard and got all the same love and care from them that I’d received. He was particularly close to Gramps but he had his tie to Noni, too. They loved him, and he was blessed to have that.

As I got older and started getting tattoos, they never judged that, either. In 2003 my husband tattooed a portrait of my grandparents on my upper back. My Gramps had already passed. He never got to see it. My mother, who hated tattoos, is very proud of this one. I went to visit my family a few weeks after getting the tattoo done and when I walked into my Noni’s house, I knelt down in front of her to show her. She just quietly stared at it for a long while. My mother was there and said “That’s you and Daddy. Isn’t it amazing?” My Noni, quick as fire, replied, “I know who it is!” I laughed, we all did. I think she was just shocked that you could actually make a tattoo look like a photograph. She seemed in awe of it.

The last time I saw her was this past August. Over the last year, her mind started to get a little senile. (Not unusual, considering the woman was 100.) When I walked in, she didn’t recognize me. It wasn’t because of her mind, though. Truly, I believe it was because I look a bit different now than I did the last time she saw me two years ago. My hair is different- it’s bright red- and my face seems to have changed a bit too. I asked her, “Do you know who I am?” She looked at me a few moments and then I said who I was. Recognition dawned, then. “Ohhh, M,” she said. “You look so beautiful.” Wow! She has always given all of us compliments, but this was different. Her eyes were so big. It made me tear up. I thanked her, kissed her, and hugged her.

We chatted a bit about my husband and my two little ones. Then we talked about my oldest and how he is nineteen now. That shocked her, too. We haven’t lived there in over ten years, and although she saw him two years ago, it was hard for her to imagine him being nineteen. In between chatting she would stop and say, “Wow you really look swell honey, you really do.” It was strange and wonderful at the same time. The next day I went to see her again and she recognized me immediately. We talked about all the same things, though. It was cute, a repeat of our conversation the prior day. I told her I loved her more times than I can remember, on both days. I kissed her cheeks and stayed kneeling on the floor in front of her, holding her hands the entire time.

I knew when I said goodbye to her that day it would be the last time I would see her.

She was a diamond in the rough. She was a rare breed.

A truly beautiful Rose…

The legacy you leave behind honors you and Gramps, both.

I love you Noni.