Full Moon Friday

Tried to find an awesome photo, changed my header to my big toadstool mushroom with my brother's little pewter wizard and crystal ball--taken out in the yard. First full day of Spring and it's snowing like a bitch out there. But of course! I remember right after my mom's funeral 3/29/93 when it was getting real spring-like out and we'd come back to her house (ours now) and soon as I looked out the picture window, there were lots of robins in the yard when, SWOOP! down came a big-assed hawk and snatched one right up...and it seems like it started snowing right after. I remember shortly after we drove to the cemetery for the first time (not having graveside services) and it was snowing and snowing, and I took one big red rose off her grave (their grave--dad having died 7 years prior and also buried on 3/29/86). It was their anniversary when they were both buried, their funerals, and I made sure there were 50 red roses for them as it was their Golden Anniversary. We talked about them dancing somewhere, and I kept telling people "their funeral" was such and such...and it felt that way. And you know, folks, I don't mean to be obsessed with death if it seems that I am, but next week is the anniv of their deaths and their anniversary and the sunshine I got to see for about 1/2 an hour yesterday after being hid away in my "Cubbyhole Sweet Cubbyhole" until nearly 7:30 pm was so welcome. I came walking out of the bathroom in the ofc bldg I work in and saw this unbelievably bright light coming in at the end of the hall--I thought I was having a near death experience! ;o) but it was coming from due west where the sun was going down and it was beautiful. And I had to turn eastward to go home and lo and behold! there was an enormous full moon exactly above the eastern horizon as the sun was above the western. It reminded me of me and my husband right now ... opposites ... ships passing in the night (with his new job on afternoons). It reminded me that my father had died on Good Friday in 1986 during a full moon. Last time I saw my dad he was snoring to beat the band. It gave me comfort to feel that he was sleeping good. Then he died. We got to go and say goodbye around 3:30 a.m. or so, my mom, Jeff, me and Dana, my brother. I remembered the last time my brother and I were with my mom together was St Patrick's Day, and that my grandfather, Frank Haswell, had died on St Patrick's Day in 1918!!! (no, never met the guy) and how he looks in his photo exactly like my brother, except he had a handlebar mustache. They both died when they were 52 of accidents--he from some buzzsaw cutting into his hip and getting gangrene and Dana from being asleep at the wheel. I need! the sunshine and the April showers to bring May flowers. I need to see the flowers shooting out of the ground, even those my father planted, and those my brother planted. I have 2 ancient Christmas Cacti which were my Grandma Haswell's which bloomed and bloomed over the holidays until March! Nature helps me heal my broken heart, my broken Soul. I feel so blessed to live here in the home my parents built. I used to be ashamed of it when I was young...it was made of "cinder block" -- ooh, how awful! and it wasn't big and spacious like my more "white collared" fathered friends who, when we would visit them, we'd have to take our shoes off and be real quiet for fear of bothering the dads ... or moms. They'd come to our house and they'd all crack up and laugh and my folks were such characters. And, yes, they might have had too much to drink sometimes on the weekends, because Saturday nights were date nights for them...local bar and a fish fry or some such thing. My dad would drink his boilermakers and come home and recite us the most unbelievable poetry! I wish I would've written some of them down so I could remember them (maybe even embarrass my own children reciting them, if I had any--and I don't think Tuffy gives a shit!) But so often what I recall as feeling embarrassed was really not feeling like we were "acceptable" enough for others. We had (ssshhhhhh) "mental illness" and "alcoholism" in our families. And we goddamn dealt with it as best we could. But all through it all, we had a lot of love and honesty to go along, to help delve through and find ways to heal myriad levels of ancestral inequities. Have you ever noticed how not many of the very old photos of ancestors had them smiling or looking remotely content? Some say it was because of the photographic process and you had to be very, very still. I say it doesn't take long to show happiness and contentment, that it was just damned hard trying to be oneself and feeling like you were OK the way you were. Stiff upper lip, pip pip!! Well.......I see once again I've rambled on. I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what it was going to be. I didn't find that perfect picture to post...because I don't have any of my parents, or of a full moon, and I guess this was just about as good of a Good Friday as one can expect. I'm just waiting for my husband to get home from his new job. And I better go check on Tuffy Boy...he's out up to his pantaloons in snow waiting for "Daddy".
Goodnight and Happy Spring, regardless of Winter's hanging on for dear life. And I want to wish our Home a Happy 60th Anniversary this year. I'm very proud of it now because I know what it took to build it and keep it going and going. Speaking of going and going, did I mention that I have my mom's old transister radio, little small black plastic piece of shit with an antenna, that has got to be well over 17 yrs old or more (it's been 15 yrs since mom died) and has the same 9 volt battery in it she had...and that bugger still works every time I turn it on! Hello!? She used to keep it by her bedside and listen to "talk radio" and the Tiger's baseball games. It used to drive me nuts. Now it makes me smile and just want to hug it! Do you think the Energizer Bunny would make a private stop at my home? I shit you not! That battery is the same one. I found the radio on the floor of the closet in her bedroom, which was the one I slept in since I was born, and sleep in again now. Oh, it's a G.E. when they were made in the U.S.A. Another "bankshot" thought! My brother used to call me "Goody Twoshoes" because I always ragged on him when he drank and ?? whatever made me so crazy...and I was such a straight arrow (OK, don't believe me) but there's an Adam Ant song called Goody Twoshoes with the line: "You don't drink, you don't smoke, what do you do? Subtle innuendos, there must be something inside!" Yeah, baby!
(P.S. Please let Jesus off the cross, OK?)