I belong to a closed group on Facebook, or maybe it’s private…..I don’t know
the difference.

They’re my family on my father’s side.

My aunts and uncles are gone, so mostly it’s my cousins and their adult kids…..my second-cousins.
I’ve met most of them, some not in person but their personality shows with the things they write back and forth in this group, so I feel like I know them.  

There’s a particular family consisting of six siblings; one awesome woman and five very funny men, (she’s funny too!).
They’re the adult kids of my cousin whom I’ve always looked up to and admired and these six people are hysterical!

I love reading their stuff.  They make me laugh. They’re clever and in my opinion much funnier than today’s SNL.

One of the guys must have his hands on lots of old photos because they pop up in this group now and then.  

It always intrigues me to look at the faces, figure out who they were and remember something about them.
Like my grandma with her brown hair up in a bun and covered with a hair-net, a full bib-apron and her thick beige stockings…..not nylons, and the kind of black shoes the nuns wore when I was in Catholic grade school.

And THAT’S why I never wanted to be called “grandma”…..NOT that it’s a bad thing, I just couldn’t relate to the word we called her with my spiked dyed hair, blue jeans, T-shirts and Birks.

 My Grandma.  She was all sweet to me. 

I can close my eyes and still hear her sweet voice and her broken English

She kept Wrigley’s gum in her top dresser drawer and if we asked, we could go get a piece.

And Christmas?
All of the cousins got the same gift.
Undershirts.
Horrible, horrible undershirts…..white with short sleeves but long enough to be worn as a dress.
I hated those undershirts and we got ’em every year!

AND, we had to smile when we ripped the wrappings, saw them and give my grandma a thank you hug. 

But I think back today and I can smile. 

This time when my cousin posted some of his collection, they were movies, black and white movies.

I began watching and it was a gift to once again see all the faces that were part of my childhood….. aunts, uncles, cousins.  

And then….. on a sidewalk in front of my Grandma’s house, a young man in a Navy uniform was walking toward the camera.  He had a smile on his face and his arms were around a lovely young, tiny woman.  

I knew who they were, immediately and I sat frozen.

My parents.  

It was my parents…..young, smiling and holding tight to each other.  

Maybe this would seem naturally normal to you my reader friends but to me, it was a sight I’d never, ever seen.

It was the first time ever.

I lived in the same house with my mother and father for 18 years.  

I never saw an embrace, I never saw them smile at each other but I saw lots of hate.  

I DID see them touch….. with each beating.  

I saw lots of touching then.

So, I sat and watched that film clip over and over and over until it was etched in my brain.

I studied the two smiling, embraced faces.  

What happened so horrible that took them from what I was watching in a movie to what I saw in real life?

My mom was looking at him with adoring eyes.  

All I ever saw was fear and hate.

He was young, handsome and he looked happy.  

I never saw a light in his eyes….never.

I didn’t grow up in a house of love…..far from it but, I DID learn from it.

I guess our parents are suppose to be our teachers.  

Mine were.

They taught me what I DIDN’T want, what I WOULDN’T accept in my life.

I grew up wanting to know what LOVE was.

I sure as heck didn’t learn it at home.  

I saw it at a few of my friends homes (very few I might add).

I saw it at the movies, oh how wonderful it looked in the movies!

And, sometimes I saw it right next door when the husband would come outside in the summertime, strum his guitar and his wife would sit next to him and you could just SEE it.

I wanted that.

And, I have it.

Over the years, our daughters have watched us, they’ve seen the magic.  

We made a lot of parent mistakes along the way but one thing is for sure.

They KNOW what love is and they didn’t have to go to a friends or a movie or look to the neighbors.  

They saw it in live person for 30+ years, right before their very eyes.

Our gift to them…..to know what LOVE is.