{"id":3299,"date":"2017-08-20T17:20:59","date_gmt":"2017-08-20T21:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=3299"},"modified":"2017-08-20T17:25:26","modified_gmt":"2017-08-20T21:25:26","slug":"then-there-was-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2017\/08\/20\/then-there-was-the-time\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2026then there was the time\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you sit long enough with a family elder inevitably you will begin to hear \u201cand then there was the time\u2026\u201d something. Some story you may have heard before but listen closely for newly remembered details and ask questions.\u00a0 Especially the nagging questions.<\/p>\n

I had lunch recently with my mother before taking her to her doctor\u2019s appointment.\u00a0 She\u2019s a fan of MacDonald\u2019s hamburgers and always seems to get talkative when we eat them together.\u00a0 Just the two of us, no Toti so she\u2019s fully present.<\/p>\n

She began by saying, and then there was the time I stayed at Aunt Nettie\u2019s during the summer when she lived on 42nd<\/sup> St (and 3rd<\/sup> Avenue) across from the Church of the Immaculate Conception. She was on the second floor.\u00a0 We were three in the bed and every night they would light the statue and it would shine in the window and we could see it from the bed. (When recounting this to my sister she immediately confirmed it would freak \u2013 her \u2013 out.)<\/p>\n

The Church is still there but they are all long out of the city.\u00a0 She went on to say that Aunt Lucy lived on 1st<\/sup> Avenue so they would make tomato and egg sandwiches and have a picnic in the park. \u201cI made myself a tomato and egg sandwich the other day but it wasn\u2019t the same\u201d “I get that, I prefer potato and egg”, to which she stated you\u2019re just like \u201cYour Aunt\u201d.<\/p>\n

I knew which Aunt she meant, she never called her by name, she was always \u201cYour Aunt\u201d. Taking the mention, I can\u2019t help myself, I\u00a0say, speaking of My Aunt is that how I got to go and stay with her in Astoria when I was a kid?\u00a0 Was it a thing?<\/p>\n

I\u00a0was asking because as much as it\u2019s one of the highlights of my childhood I never understood how it came about.\u00a0 I figured it was because I was a pain in the ass but she said no. It\u2019s because she never had kids so first it was me (my mother) then it was you. I might have mentioned my sister has a theory\u2026<\/p>\n

I have very vivid and fond memories of one of the \u201csleepovers\u201d but in talking with my mother I didn\u2019t even remember the other one. The timeline seemed odd, the one I remember was in 1965 the other was in 1967.\u00a0 Ahhh my sister said, \u201cthe year everything changed\u201d (you can be pretty sure you\u2019re never going to see a post on that)\u2026is the one my mother remembers most vividly. Interesting on so many levels.<\/p>\n

There is insight in the timing but there was more insight in the rest of the conversation. In the end it confirmed the contention that existed between my mother and I and my mother and \u201cMy Aunt\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cShe had to take charge, nobody could do anything without asking her (did anyone ever try, no I did not ask that question\u2026) she always knew best, she wanted everyone to be like her, do things her way.\u201d\u00a0 Oh boy, I\u2019ve lived in that space.\u00a0 In some ways I still live in that space and ironically my mother won’t make a decision without “asking Sandi first”.<\/p>\n

Per my mother she was a pain in the ass, you might have noticed I recognized earlier that I too was a pain in the ass.\u00a0 But she was important to me, I remember later in her life listening to her lament about being old and not belonging, of not being able to do the things that were so important to her once, like cooking her own meals. Something as seemingly small as a gallon of olive oil being thrown away when she moved from her beloved apartment strickened her. All the while she talked the tears ran down her face.\u00a0 I remember thinking that no one should have to cry when they get old.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m never going to be a mother\u2019s daughter, I think we\u2019ve established that many years ago, and there\u2019s a very good chance that I might turn into \u201cMy Aunt\u201d with a kinder edge perhaps.\u00a0 In this past month of ah-ha moments I\u2019m noticing many of her endearing traits coming out in me. Movement is important, cooking for oneself and enjoying what you eat is important, dancing (even just around your living room), truthfulness with a touch of restraint and empathy (she might have missed that part) is important and living life to the fullest you’re capable is important.\u00a0 This she did in spite of her regrets and her highhandedness. She\u2019s been gone well over a decade but I have her picture at my desk and discuss things with her often.\u00a0 There are times I think she\u2019ll answer me and a tiny bit of fear crawls up my neck but that\u2019s ok, I\u2019ve also had that effect on people and in the end the goodness always comes through.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m looking forward to more of those \u2026.and then there was the time\u2026moments.<\/p>\n

Have a good week and look for the ordinary moments, it\u2019s where legacy lives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you sit long enough with a family elder inevitably you will begin to hear \u201cand then there was the time\u2026\u201d something. Some story you may have heard before but listen closely for newly remembered details and ask questions.\u00a0 Especially … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,6,1],"tags":[852,854,571,853],"class_list":["post-3299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-company-of-women-2","category-pause-points","category-the-elders","tag-favoriteaunt","tag-ask-questions","tag-heritage","tag-listen-closely"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-Rd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3299"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3303,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions\/3303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}