the matriarch

It was almost ironic last night that I blogged a bit about my brother Al and his loving wife Dorothy. Marty their first born had given me a call at around 9 pm and when I answered he said, hello uncle Tom...and I immediately said...bad news right? And he immediately replied, yes mom passed away around 8:30 tonight. It was really no big surprise because Dorothy ( who never smoked a day in her life) was becoming quite frail lately with this cancer that invaded her lung. And as valiant of a trooper that she was, there never seemed to be any great battle going on between her and her cancer. It's not that she didn't do everything humanly possible to put this pesky cancer to rest, but it didn't become an obsession with her because she still had a lot of life to live. She would still go out and visit all her out of town kids on a rotation basis, staying a week here and a week there, covering Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio and just down the road in Lockport. For years she would chug along in her car, but this last year she relied on air travel and finally the kids took turns spending a week with mom at her home when she no longer could get to them. And that's the sweetness of a close knit family, when it comes time to nurture mom, returning the favor comes easy. She was somewhat of a pioneer. Born in the early 1930's she straddled generations. Being a child in the great depression and coming from a working class family it was quite an achievement for her to graduate from a four year college in medical lab technology. But she and my brother decided that child after child was in their cards, she became a very educated stay at home mom early on. She definitely was the yin in the often maniacal yang partner she chose to build a family with. Which was a blessing because she knew that a good home was built from the inside out. And she not only was the chief cook, bottle washer, coddler, driver, gardener, she also became an almost magical financial wizard. It's tough to make ends meet having six kids all going to Catholic schools, but the grit to her existence was the adage: you make your bed, you lie in it.  And the real beauty to this matriarch was that whatever came her way, she approached it with aplomb, confidence and a lively sense of humor. And a bit of let down your socks, roll up the carpet sillyness too. Now all her kids have to do, is teach their kids to live their lives full of zest like Dorothy did. Then the celebration of this fine life will come full circle.