Inspiration for Today: Life before children–every parent had one (a life). How much do you know about what your parents did–and didn’t do–before you came along? How open are your parents with talking about their lives when they were your age? What have you learned from their stories? I am re-posting this poem in memory of my father whose birthday was this week.
They called me Skippy.
They dressed me, the only child,as a little sailor.
I loved building model cars, trains, and airplanes, in my room
until high school, where I ran track and sang in the choir.
The track team was for me,
but I would never be on Glee.
In fact, I was asked to leave the risers,
which sort of broke my heart
because being around people was good for me,
and I always loved Paul and Art.
Notre Dame was not what I had dreamed,
though I was proud to call the Dome home.
I became a teacher, but then all you came along,
so I had to write a new song.
I was one of five, one of two daughters
of a Catholic, Italian immigrant.
The boys were favored and us girls, well,
we had to follow the rules.
I was a good student– perfect penmanship and straight “A’s,”
but still I had to earn acclaim, so a nun I became.
We’d pray at dawn and scrub the holy floors,
but we also played volleyball.
Imagine me spiking in my habit.
I left the convent young and
met your father shortly after.
We’d go dancing and write love letters,
but then all you came along,
and I wrote a new song.
*previously appeared on 30 Poems
Write your poem or story in the comment section below.
After a few hectic weeks, I recently realized that I was sacrificing the wrong things. It’s rarely ever the actual work of teaching that sinks me, it’s the battles with other adults or paperwork that make me feel like I have at least one foot in a deep pile of…quicksand. It was Wednesday of this past week that it hit me that I missed writing here and reading the writing of my peers. Thank you all for this space and the sustenance it provides me!
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I have a picture of my mom as a 5 year old on a beach in Belgium. It must be around 1954 or 1955. She is grinning madly as 5 year olds do and in the background my grandfather is laying in the sand with a cigarette between his lips. Her life, long before me.
I did an interview with my stepfather recently with the StoryCorps Chicago organization. That interview is now archived in the Library of Congress American Folklore section. In the interview we discussed his childhood in Rochester, New York in the early 1930’s where he frequently ditched school for weeks at a time to wander the neighborhood or just stay home and tinker with the radio. One day he even blew the power circuit for his entire apartment building as a result of trying to figure out how the electric radio worked. We laugh now, but his eyes have a distinct sadness in them when he talks about his childhood. He later took to traveling across the country on foot or by hopping freight trains. He still has the soul of a solitary vagabond even though he is the most loving and present man I have ever known. His life as a child before his sons, before me, before his grandkids.
Thank you for sharing this, Sabrina. Sometimes we can think of our parents as superhuman or even as somehow detached from our own concept of human-ness. When we reflect like this, we can see that they have a lifetime that they carry, that has made them who they are, that has made us who we are.