I Remember You

“I saved these just for you” she said.
“I knew you’d come one day to find them.”
Bending to her bureau drawer,
the moonlight swept across her face
and there ‘neath tattered wings I saw
a form familiar.

She picked up bits of ivory
with her musing fingertips
worn now from the years.
A smile, soft and lovely,
graced her frail and shallow face
and flash-backs
just like shreds of lightening ~ flooded me.

“It was you, wasn’t it?" I gasped.
“All the while it was you
tiptoeing past my bed
like a thief who’d stolen jewels.
I thought that I was dreaming,
swore I saw those wings . . .
yes, and that fairy scent you always wore.
You lived with us back then, Grandma,
and all the while
I thought that thief was Mom!”

She bid me, “Close your eyes
and open up your hand.”
and as if I were standing small again
I anxiously obeyed.
Then she dropped them,
my tiny ivory baby teeth
saved since childhood
toppled in the center of my palm,
treasures, jewels she said ~ her memories.

And there we lay that evening
recalling heart-soaked lullabies
rocking in the dark
till all the breath of all the years
dissolved into my arms
and the long cord of Grandma's love
~wrapped my heart with gold.


Joanne Cucinello 2007

Judy Garland - Somewhere Over The Rainbow

I wish every child could feel what I feel . . . every time I hear Judy sing this song!

It's Not Okay!

"Okay" is a friendly little word kids love to use. It quiets Mom and Dad down real quick sometimes and that's probably the first thing they learn about this useful word tool. It can also be posed as a question asking for approval, as in: "Mommy, I'm just gonna give the puppy a haircut. He's too hot. I'll bring the scissors right back. Okay?" When the little Barber of Seville's request is denied and the screaming tantrum is over, it can be heard in its long drawn out form of resignation: "O . . .kay!" Often, this word is used to preface a leadership activity and can be heard if you listen out the back window when one of your kids has decided to take charge, like: "Okay, Lucy, now you go first. Taste the mudpie and make pretend it's yummy!" If your little Politician In The Making gets Lucy not to spit at her and run away, she will have realized the power of her words. If not, she will learn that she'd better brush up on her manipulation skills if she wants to run for office 40 years from now.
Reality bites when your child's actions start evoking the dreaded parental "No! It's NOT okay!" These words will be uttered often for at least 16 years or so depending on each individual child's attempts to transgress and bring shame to the family name. Hopefully, by the time your teenager is ready to become human once more, he or she will be familiar also with the proud and joyful use of the affirmative O-KAY!! . . . its highest form of approval that goes along with wonderful achievements and positive decision making choices, the ones that give a thumbs up and the long happy sigh of relief for a job well done!

Daddy's Girl Remembers

My Dad passed on in 1994, a few days before his 80th Birthday. His car was hit by a drunk driver and his life was over in an instant. I wrote this poem for him one Father's Day many years before and I'm so glad he really felt what I was saying and still longed for even though I was a young mother with five kids of my own by then.
He called me on the phone a few days later and asked if I'd like to take a long walk with him! I said yes, of course, but only on one condition: that neither of us would talk about our kids (he had two new ones from his second marraige)we'd just talk like we used to . . . just for this one time . . . about us, how we'd grown and were still learning to live. And . . . I added one more thing: "Can you put your arm around my shoulder, like you used to?" Guess what? He did it all! How blessed I was to have him.

I Will Always Love You, Dad

There's a little girl inside my heart
who still on Father's Day
is taken back to years ago
when both of us would play
a game of "who's my special girl?"
and "who's my daddy dear?"
I'd ride upon your shoulders high
and never have a fear.

Sometimes we'd walk for hours it seemed
around the reservoir
Forest Park or Highland . . .
we never traveled far.
But you were always there for me
when my young heart needed love
and someone who would listen
when the going got too rough.

And yes, it did get rough at times
as only you would know
but gosh, you were a trouper
and how I loved you so!
Although I'm not that little girl,
at least not on the outside,
there's still a little part of me
that somehow I just can't hide.

It's that part that's still your daughter
and though I've changed and grown,
the years that I did live with you
were the happiest I've known.
You really made me special
and gave me so much love
I'd like to give it back to you
but that wouldn't be enough.

I still need time to share with you
the person I am now,
the things I feel, the dreams I have
this space just won't allow.
You'll always be my father, yes,
but time is passing by.
So many things we haven't said,
there's times I want to cry.
I really miss you Daddy,
so much I want to say.
I'll have to make a date with you
and talk the night away.

Do you think that we can do it?
Do we need a reservoir?
Or will a cup of coffee do?
I really don't live far.

Joanne Cucinello . . . a long time ago.

One Umbrella-Two Princesses

 

A trip into Brooklyn to visit my sister, both of us grandmothers now, both of us in love with our granddaughters . . . hoping they'll stay small a little longer. Can't you just eat up your grandkids? Don't they bring back so many memories of their parents when they were small? You know some day they'll be skipping out the door, just like their parents did and off to live their grown-up lives. That's why I intend to make lots of happy memories for them to keep . . . so they'll never forget how much they were loved.

More Precious Than Gold They Will Always Be . . . My Family

They are the center of my world. What ever I do revolves around the fact that I am a wife and mother. It's what I've wanted since I was young and the answer to my childhood prayers. Some people go through life without ever finding their soul mate. I can't imagine living all these years without mine.


Little did I know that fairytales only come true when you're willing to work at them. Keeping a marriage alive for 45 years, raising five children, marrying some off and letting some back in when their marriages ended, accepting their new partners and learning to love again. Disoriented when two of your kids "come out" . . . even though, if you really dig deep down, you can see the truth of their lives even clearer now. Watching your world fall apart when tragedy overcomes you, fear when illness strikes, learning to pick up all the broken pieces and start sewing the patches together again; these are parts of the fairytale, too. Losing your faith . . . finding your faith . . . losing your faith. But through it all, we stay connected. My circle of light may flicker at times but then . . .oh my, how bright it burns!

Love Is a Decision

So much of life centers on food . . . a primary need for our existence. Without it, we couldn't live and we learn that from the first suckle at our mother's breast or the bottle of warm milk. But much more is involved in those first experiences of nurturing and sustenance for the human child.

Few things can compare to the feelings transferred between mother and infant in those early moments and days of warmth and cuddling. Gazing into the eyes of your newborn, whose face was still unknown just days ago, is a mystical transport to wonderment and will begin to build the first layers of love's bonding.

Throughout life, the need for food of many kinds will be a driving force in self-fulfillment . . . the need for nourishment of body, mind and spirit. Yet, our children will always need the food of our love and acceptance throughout their lives, whether some believe it or not . . . they do. The roots of love grow deep and are buried in the souls of our offspring . . . ingested by every cell that remembers and long after we are gone they will remain.

I remember a phrase from long ago on our Marriage Encounter: "Love is a decision" and those words came alive when our kids were teenagers. Love isn't always easy when the rebels are roosting and your son's hair looks like a pink chicken is his mother. Love isn't easy when your fifteen year old daughter tells you she thinks she's pregnant. And where is love when a son calls his father sobbing he's been locked up in jail for drunk driving? Oh, where are those feelings we had for them when they were little and innocent? Well again and again, and again . . . those words ring true: Love is a decision." So after you rip out your hair and make strange promises to God, after you threaten to disown that mortification of a child . . . take a minute to breathe and look in the mirror . . . you might get flashbacks of your own rebel days . . . you might even say " This child is mine and I will love him through it" and make the decision to do what must be done . . . with love. Don't wait or turn away blind. Blunders are opportunities for growth . . . and to quote an old wise person: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!"

Joanne Cucinello