I am about to do something I don't usually do in an open online space. I am going to get very personal in this post, but hey, that's what the internet is for, isn't it? Pouring your heart out to mostly perfect strangers, and oh, mining Bitcoin and stuff. So, grab a snack and strap in, because this is going to be a long one.
Earlier today my mom passed away. It wasn't very sudden, and has been coming for a long time. Luckily she is now no longer in pain and no longer suffering. Yesterday I got a message from my niece that they were putting her in hospice care and giving her morphine to combat the pain so as to let her go as peacefully as possible.
My Hometown
It is extremely saddening to me, somewhat crushing even, but as the title says, it is technically the second time I have lost her. Due to many circumstances which I won't get into here, I left "home" a little over twenty years ago and have only been back twice since then. I put home in quotes because I don't mean an actual home, but my native state of New Jersey, right along the famed Jersey Shore. Not the annoying MTV Jersey Shore -- a bit further north than that in Keansburg. It was a small town with its own strip of beach and an amusement park, which drove the town's economy, and which had its heyday back in the early 1900's.
Dysfunction
I come from a very broken family, and by that I don't just mean there was divorce, I mean there were many divorces, don't get me wrong. Each of my siblings were divorced, and I had two long-term relationships end prior to meeting my wife, who I've been with a little over 18 years now, married for 13 of those years. What I mean by broken is just that; the entire family structure was broken, and we were all outside of the norm. This wasn't how a family was supposed to be -- at least that is what TV taught me, with their idealistic family units who all got along every day and enjoyed each other's company.
I grew up with four half-siblings who were considerably older than me. Jimmy, the youngest of them, was a full ten years older than me. Their father had passed away when they were younger in a very weird fashion. He contracted chicken pox as an adult and died from complications of it. It is a very dangerous disease to have when you are an adult, or at least it used to be. I fear it still is, because I never had it as a child.
The Male Parental Unit
Sometime in the late 1960s or in 1970, not exactly sure when, my mom met my father. In all honesty, I am not sure they were ever even married, but that was the story I was told. As I grew older and older it was a story I believed less and less.
I honestly don't remember ever seeing my father until I was about six or seven, and even that was out a second story window as he and my mom discussed (argued about) something from a different window down to the ground. We lived in a second story apartment at the time, and my one brother and his family lived across the street in another second story apartment. For some reason I was at his house that night when this discussion was taking place from our window to my father on the ground.
You might notice I said "first time seeing my father" in that last paragraph. That is because I didn't get to meet him or talk to him that night. I don't even think I knew it was him at the time, but I could be remembering wrong. It wasn't till I was around 11 or 12 I guess that I actually met my father, and even then it was done in a bit of a sneaky way. You see, my mother's sister, my Aunt Carol, had married my father's brother, Uncle Julius. They had a few kids and one was just a few years older than me, my cousin Mark. So one Christmastime it was worked out that I was going to stay over at their house for a week. During this weekend I would get to meet my grandparents on my father's side. My grandfather was the one who had come over from Italy and didn't speak a word of English. Luckily, my umm, step-grandmother (his second wife)(?) could translate somewhat for him. During that visit, though, they snuck in my father. He stayed for about an hour and brought a Christmas present with him. It was a big remote control tractor trailer. It was black and had orange stripes down the side, the back door opened so you could put stuff in the back, and it had to be a bit over two foot long. As you might imagine, I played with that thing constantly until it broke down, which took some time.
That is the lone time I met my father. There was another time when I was about 15 when me, my mom, and my future sister-in-law Carol Ann went out to get an ice cream cake for my birthday party and we happened to see him. Of course I had no clue it was him, having only truly met the man that one time. My mom stopped to talk to him briefly while Carol walked me away to another section of the shopping center we were in. It wasn't until we got home that my mom pointed out that was my father. At the time that made me very unhappy that it all went down like that.
At one point I did have a newspaper clipping from the New York Daily News that he was in. It seems he was one of the workers that put in place a giant inflatable King Kong on the Empire State Building in the mid-1980s to celebrate one of the film's anniversaries.
Anyway, then when I was 16, my mom, my brother Jimmy, and Carol Ann were sort of mumbling amongst themselves. Turns out they were trying to figure out how to tell me that my father had died. They were worried I would get overly upset by this. Really though, I never knew the man; I met him once and saw him three times in person, sort of. How was I supposed to react? I sat in silence for a few minutes, five or so I think, give or take. Then I continued on with what I had planned, I was heading to the arcade before they told me and was still going to go afterward. The arcade was about four blocks away and I had always walked. This time, however, Carol Ann gave me a ride so she could talk with me during and see if I was okay. I suppose I was, at least it seemed that way -- never really knew him, never really grieved.
The Family
Our family was not very well off. My mom worked for decades as a laundromat attendant, which paid next to nothing, plus tips, but more on that later. No one graduated high school for one reason or another. Basically this led to the whole family living together for extended periods of time well beyond the normal time that everyone goes off and gets a life of their own.
I have already introduced Jimmy, the one ten years older than me. When I was young he "went away" for an extended period of time. I believe they tried to hide the fact that he was in prison from me, but then I also remember at some point they tried to tell me that he and his friend Joe cut down a tree in someone's yard for our Christmas tree and that is why he went to jail. I actually think they went away for some sort of assault on a guy, but who knows. All I know is the sibling I may have been closest to due to age disappeared suddenly for at least a year, maybe a bit longer.
He was in with the wrong crowd and doing drugs before going to jail. Soon after, though, he met Carol Ann, who would eventually become the guiding force in his life, the force that led to him being an almost normal person for a good twenty years. They stayed together through quite a few regressions early on in their relationship. To explain how some of his regressions went, at one point he borrowed her sweet 1973 Nova, which had a paint scheme where the body was powdered blue with the roof painted white. Her dad got it for her and fixed it up. He went and got drunk or high or some mix thereof and managed to crash and total her car. It amazes me that she put up with him for as long as she did.
My sister Debbie, who was essentially my caretaker most of the time (more on that later as well), was the next oldest. She wound up married to Shaun and had my niece, Jessica, who is the one that contacted me yesterday. Shaun was not the greatest person either. He was an alcoholic and their marriage didn't last all that long. At one point, he was drunk and driving home from where he worked. I think he was on the New Jersey Parkway or the Turnpike and fell asleep at the wheel. His car drove under a tractor trailer and cut the top right off of the car. He, however, had fallen over to a mostly laid down position in the front seat which they said was the only reason he wasn't decapitated. I think as Jess got older, their relationship got a little better.
Next in line is Eddie. He married young to my former sister-in-law, Janet, and had my niece, Nikki. Being young, they all lived at home at the time Nikki was born. I was five at the time, but oddly one of the childhood memories I have was them rushing out of the house at 8 Maplewood Ave. to go to the hospital for the birth. That might actually be one of the first memories I can actually envision in my mind; it was 1976. They divorced somewhere between 10 and 15 years into the marriage. Janet soon after would move off to somewhere in southern New Jersey and then eventually Pennsylvania.
Lastly was George, the oldest. While I was growing up, we were never that close, probably because of the big age gap -- he was 13 years older than me. As adults, though, we got closer. He married Deborah and had two kids. They divorced after maybe 5-7 years. As I said, we all lived together at multiple times throughout our lives. He would wind up back home with me and Mom afterward. After I left Jersey, he developed diabetes; well, I suppose it was there before, but no one in my family were big on going to doctors, so it was diagnosed after I left. At some point, he gave up and stopped taking his medicines. They found him sitting on his bed, laid back, and dead one morning. It wasn't until they found a stockpile of his meds in the bedroom that they realized he had stopped taking them. They believe his heart just gave out.
My Childhood and My Mom
So my father was never in the picture. My mom, as previously stated, worked as a laundromat attendant for decades. The pay was horrific by any standards. At some point we ALL worked for the man that owned that laundromat. He also sold real estate, built some houses, and rented many out as well. All but two of the places I lived there were owned by him. His name was Dominic Bellezza. He was always old the entire time I knew him. That is to say, he was born in 1917, meaning he was 54 when I was born. My mom was born in 1939, so she was older than normal to be having a child, for even back then. She was 32 and already had four kids on the verge of entering their teens. By the time I worked at the laundromat as an attendant, the pay was $2.50 an hour plus tips; if it was doing some other work for him either in the laundromat or other odd jobs, it was $5 an hour. You can imagine that my mom worked for about $1 an hour plus tips for a long time.
She also worked as his secretary for his real estate business. Eventually, he decided to open a bar where the real estate office was, since he no longer dealt in real estate other than his own holdings. She would work as a bartender there as well. If it isn't already obvious, they spent a ton of time together, and actually had a relationship for about as long as I can remember. I know for certain it started in 1977 or even earlier, and would continue until his death which was around 1999 or 2000.
She worked all day long -- in the real estate office in the mornings and then off to the laundromat at 3PM until closing at between 7 and 9PM each night and EVERY NIGHT. She worked at the laundromat seven days a week, with weekends being from 7AM to closing. Their relationship usually consisted of her leaving work and going to stay at his house afterward. She essentially lived there while spending little time at home.
As I also previously said, this led to my sister being my caretaker for the most part, a responsibility she didn't really want, but why should she want to take care of her brother who is about 12 years younger than her? Also when Carol Ann was in the picture, she too took care of me a lot. Something to also keep in mind is that we lived right across the street from the laundromat at 127 Carr Avenue. It is, as I said, a second story apartment which had three bedrooms, and was not fun when EVERYONE lived at home. I lived there in many incarnations, early in life with the whole family, then at one point with my one ex, and then again with my sister when she lived there. There was also the apartment above the laundromat where Eddie lived, and me and my mom also lived there for a short time. So despite her being at work nonstop I could and did spend a lot of time at the laundromat.
Still, it was not really a normal childhood scenario.
Hearing the News and Reacting
I knew eventually this news would come and sort of dreaded the message coming from Jess, who is really the only one I have stayed in contact with in an on-and-off basis. She was about 13 when I left, and at the time I had been living with her and her mom. I was sort of a buffer between her and her mom's craziness. I don't mean like clinically diagnosed craziness, although I would bet that could have happened if any of us ever went to a doctor, but instead, let's say, as Jess and I often do while talking about her, "batshit crazy." I know it was hard on Jess when I left, and know for quite some time she hated me for it. Like I said though, she and I are really the only ones that have talked a bit through the years.
My mom has had so many health issues through the years. She smoked more than a pack a day, usually closer to two packs, for a good 40-50 years. I am pretty shocked she managed to make it to 78. She has been on oxygen for many years now, and honestly I am not sure how long it took her to quit smoking after that. In recent months, she had her colon removed due to a blockage, and then her gallbladder soon after, all of which had been causing pain since then. It was finally her breathing that did her in. I am not sure what procedure they may have tried, but they felt she wasn't strong enough to even try another surgery. All of the smoking finally caught up with her and she simply couldn't effectively use her lungs anymore. Jess tells me she passed peacefully this morning just before 1PM ET. She stayed with her all day yesterday and through the night to make sure she wasn't alone when it happened.
Jess also shared a story with me of how a while back, she showed my mom pictures of my books and from some of the comic cons we had done so that she could see what I have been accomplishing. At the time, my mom was not verbally communicating because of the oxygen and other stuff. Jess said she nodded her head and smiled proudly when she showed the photos to her. That is something that brought me overwhelming joy. I am truly happy she was able to see some of my successes.
Eddie and Debbie had gone home to get some sleep at some point yesterday. They aren't the type of people to think it matters that someone be there because they felt she was already gone. I am very happy that Jess was there for her and in a way was my proxy. She was able to relay a few message to my mom which I have to believe she heard.
Really though, when I heard the news yesterday, I just didn't know how to react. I mean I truly lost her twenty years ago when I left Jersey. I have only been back twice; once the Christmas right after I left which was barely three months later, and again a few years later when I was on my way from Virginia to an AOL Trivia gathering in Boston, Massachusetts. We stopped by so I could introduce them to Traci (now my wife) and to show her around my hometown a little bit. We were only there for about 2 hours before we had to get going, but she got to meet George, Debbie, Jess, and my mom. She already knew Jimmy because when I moved to Pennsylvania, I lived with him and Carol and they got me a job. I would then take another job where he worked, which led me to moving to Virginia for work. She would later also briefly meet Eddie when he was passing through and came to visit at my house where Jimmy, Carol, and my niece Gina were now living with me.
I found out early in the morning before Traci left to go teach; we shared a consoling hug before she went. After she was gone there was some crying, but I just didn't know how to react. I mean I had already exceeded my reaction to hearing my father died all those years ago; was this going to be it?
Then I found myself suddenly having these vivid flashbacks to certain memories throughout the day and night.
The first was to me at a younger age, I want to say maybe 10, of me and my mom shopping at Bradlees and FoodTown. We would almost always go together. We'd take a cab since she didn't drive, and spend an hour or two in Bradlees (which was a department store), and then go to FoodTown next door to do the grocery shopping. It would usually wind up being a good 4-5 hour trip. For those that have never heard of Bradlees, think Wal-Mart on a smaller scale. We would walk about for a bit in Bradlees, go to their snack bar for some lunch, and then finish up there and walk over to the grocery store. Grocery shopping for us was up and down every single aisle of the store and walking out with an overflowing cart of stuff that would usually last 3-4 weeks.
Photo of the Bradless and Foodtown building prior to demolition. Bradlees went out of business in 2001 and the building sat there unused for a decade.
Source: The Holmdel-Hazlet Patch
So, was this really my fondest memory of childhood with my mom? Could it be? It seemed strange to me at first, but then with some thought and reflection, I think it could have been. It was a block of 4-5 hours where it was usually just her and I together. I didn't have to fight for attention with siblings or work. It was always something I looked forward to. I think it was my fondest memory. Is that sad? I am not really sure.
The next memory also leads me to believe that the above might be the best one. It was Christmas Eve and Day, and Thanksgiving, and Easter. Those were days when the laundromat was always closed. On Christmas Eve, it closed up early. On those holidays, my mom was always home cooking away with me as her sous chef next to her peeling potatoes or carrots, or stabbing toothpicks into a ham to hold the cherries on perfectly centered in the pineapple slices. Most of the time these holidays would mean my mom would be sleeping at home the night before so she could be up early to start cooking. We also opened presents on Christmas Eve and that is the strongest of the memories. We would all come together no matter where we were and spend Christmas Eve together. There would be snacks like pizza rolls, or pigs in blankets, some sort of hors d'oeuvres. We would watch TV together; they used to air big movies on regular television on Christmas Eve back then. The one I remember most is The Muppet Movie.
With Nikki and I being just five years apart and being the only children at the time, it was all for us. We would be forced to go in the bedrooms and go to sleep some time between 9 and 10PM. That is not really something that works, telling young children to go to bed at that hour while everyone else stays awake. While we "slept" or laid silently in bed, they brought in any remaining presents. It is kind of puzzling why we had to go to bed for Santa to come since most things were already under the tree. We would be allowed to open one present each if we were just the right level of annoying while watching the movie and eating pizza rolls. It was a fine line, though; beg just enough and you win, too much and you went for the forced nap very unhappy.
Also, we lived in a second story apartment with no chimney; how was the jolly guy in red getting in, anyway? (Story for another time, but there were traps set up to try and catch him and that damned Easter Bunny quite a few times.) Anyway, we'd be awoken shortly before midnight to get ready to open our presents. This was a process that would take until about 3 or 4 AM! Looking back, it was kind of insane, but hey -- that was us!
To get back on track, the holidays usually led to a night where my mom slept at home. She would usually go back into her routine and leave the night of the holiday, though. I do remember times of begging her to stay home instead of going on those nights. It was usually a effort that failed.
The next memory to hit me was an unusual one. We had a White Castle, which was a good 30-40 minute drive from our house. It was a place in my youth that we'd go to from time to time, but not with my mom. Instead, it was the sisters-in-law, Janet or Carol, that would usually take us there, sometimes later at night. I remember this one time, though, during the day that me, my mom, Debbie, and George went there to eat. I can't for the life of me remember what we were doing that day that it brought us in the vicinity of White Castle. I just remember the four of us eating there and talking.
The next memory actually came while I was typing the first one a little while ago. When I wrote about going to the Bradlees snack bar for lunch, I was flooded with the vision of me and my mom eating at The Sister's Grill. This was a small luncheonette on the other side of town. Keansburg was just one square mile, so the other side of town wasn't all that far. The only time we'd go there is if we had walked across town to go to the doctor or to go to one of the two drug stores nearby, which was generally connected to a doctor visit. We would stop there and get some lunch. I can almost taste the greasy burger with diced, over-grilled onions. This is probably the reason I, to this day, still purposely over sautee my peppers and onions.
I am beginning to wonder why so many of these memories are based around food!
However, I am realizing how happy I am that I sat here today to write this extensive posts, and I do thank you if you are still reading. I say that I am happy because the Bradlees memory triggered the Sister's one, and yep, the Sister's memory just triggered another food-related one.
Right next to the doctor's office was The Dixie Lee Bakery. There were countless times we would stop there and pick up a black and white cookie. Oh, how I loved those! Of course that memory just led me to think of how she loved a good buttered roll (It is a Jersey thing!) and crullers with granulated sugar, both of which I would usually go across the street to the small breakfast place or to Cumberland Farms (convenience store) to get on weekends so we could have breakfast as she worked at the laundromat.
I will stop there, but I am happy that as I shared these memories I was hit with more of them. I thank you for listening to me ramble on about my life and childhood. And please don't misunderstand. I don't think it is that I feel I had a bad childhood; it was just what I knew, good or bad. It feels good to get it out there and talk about it all, and what better a place to do that than to a bunch of people who really, truly, don't know me.
I think the answer to how will I react to losing my mom today is: I will remember her fondly and try to never forget all the good times we had together, and I will truly miss her even with all the distance that has been between us for the past twenty years. There was a time I really couldn't live without her, but apparently she did enough to make sure that I actually could some day.
Thanks for listening and helping me get through this!