... it pours

...continuing on the weekend roller coaster...

We woke up early Sunday morning to the sound of the phone ringing.   My Mom Mom, who'd had a stroke a few weeks ago, had passed in her sleep.  Though it was not unexpected, it still shook me a little bit.  My third grandparent to pass in 3 years. Our family (on my side) is back to three generations.  My parents had just left for a week at the shore the day before, and ironically enough, my Pop Pop had passed while we were at the shore 13 years ago.  Fathers' day will have a new meaning for my Dad from now on.  Mom Mom just turned 90 last week. 

Mom Mom was a quiet lady, half Italian half French who married my Pop Pop while he was home for a week during WWII, before he had to ship back off to the Pacific.  They had one child - my dad, and lived a modest life in Overbrook for as far back as I can remember.  She was a working mom before it was popular, working as a seamstress and a member of the garmentmakers' union.  My dad affectionately refers to himself as a "the original latchkey kid".

When we were little, our parents would drop us off at Mom Mom and Pop Pop's house to sleep over.  Their house was a typical Philly row home with the garage at the basement level opening to an alley with shared fire escapes leading up to the homes' kitchens.  This made the back bedrooms seem so high off the street level - 3 stories up from the alley.  For some inane reason whenever we slept over there I was afraid of bears.  Yup, those west Philly bears.  I was like five, ok?  And envisioned King- Kong type bears.  Anyway, as Mom Mom would put us to bed and I'd express my fears, she'd quell them by assuring me if the bears get near the window, she wouldn't let them in the house.  The next morning breakfast she'd always let us mix the apple juice and orange juice together and we thought it was the best tasting thing in the world.  Last week when we were visiting, my older sister reminded my of how Mom Mom would take her teeth out to make us laugh / scare us.  It was simple entertainment on our trips to her house, and we would always leave with newly sewn matching outfits for our cabbage patch dolls.

Once a year, the church that she belonged to would hold a carnival.  When I was three or four, I won my first ever carnival prize - a giant polar bear - on a spin the wheel game.  I still picture it in my head, I laid the quarter on the number 3, my birthday, and low and behold the wheel landed on three.  I picked the largest white bear with a rainbow shirt and cap, and still remember proudly marching it back to Mom Mom's house. 

A lot of holidays were spent at Mom Mom's, I can still smell her escarole ("scuttle") soup and her homemade, hand cranked linguine with gravy - no sauce in that house!  And nothing beat her ricotta pie.  My sisters and I would parade into the house and Pop Pop would shout "Here come the three miss Americas!"  We'd sit too close to the TV watching the Phillies game or whatever parade was making its way through Philly.  When it would be time for us to leave, he would never let us go without "secretly" giving each of us a few crisp new dollar bills.

I'm happy that Mom Mom got to meet her great-grandson a few times and even got to hold her great granddaughter once when my parents brought the kids to visit.  I'm sad that over the last year life got in the way and I only saw her a handful of times, and incredibly guilty that prior to her stroke I hadn't seen her since before the baby was born.  I know my visits after the stroke were received, as she reacted with slight smiles and muffled laughter to the videos of the kids I played in her ear, but I still feel like telling her I loved her one last time and wishing her a happy birthday could have been done while looking her in the eye.

I'm not sure how life will change for my parents now that they are the grandparents, and how it will affect my relationship with them.  But I do know that I will work hard to make sure my kids spend enough time with all four of their grandparents to establish lasting memories that they can someday share.

I love you Mom Mom, rest in peace.  And, as your son pointed out, enjoy the view since you can now see again.