My Family

Someone recently mentioned to me that my blog seldom mentions my son. I did a search via the labels at the bottom of blog posts and discovered that “son” is spoken only twice in my posts. I can’t imagine I haven’t talked about him more. Probably I haven’t always noted the use of the word “son” in the labels, meaning that post is not searchable for him.

Anyway, I have only one child – my son Tony. Tony is married to Michele. Tony will be 27 in the fall. Michele is almost 25. They will be married 5 years in September. They are the parents of Ember Rois (pronounced Rose), who will be 2 years old tomorrow! She's the cutie in the slideshow to the right.

Having only one child was a choice Patrick, my husband at the time, and I made. I am so grateful for modern medicine which brought us birth control via a pill and a procedure called vasectomy. LOL I married Patrick at age 30. Tony was born when I was 32. Since Em’s birth, there have been occasions when I think it might be nice to have another child – a girl child – but I don’t dwell on what can’t be. Besides, as much as I love Tony, Michele and Ember, I also love being an adult with a wonderful husband and having the time my husband and I have together without having a lot of kids around. It’s just the way I am: independent and not wanting to be tied down more than I choose to be.

I also have two older sisters: Maureen and Judy. Maureen is seven years older than I. Judy is four years older than I. Maureen is married and has two children in their 40s and two grandchildren in their teens. Judy never married.

I have only one first cousin, a woman who is 14 years older than I and someone I haven't seen in over 10 years. I had one maternal uncle and one paternal aunt, plus their respective spouses.

My parents died relatively young. My mom died in 1979 at the age of 61. My dad died at the age of 65, 11 months after mom. In between, I married Patrick. It was quite a year.

It's obvious I come from a small family in number and continued that tradition, and then some, by having only one child. It set the tone for my personality. I like peace and quiet. I don't like chaos and mayhem. My personality is such that I favor being alone or with Ron more than not. I've never been comfortable with people just dropping in, especially if they stay for hours, and being with a lot of people for a long time is stressful to me.

Today's weather - It actually feels like SPRING today. The sun came out. The temp rose into the high 40s. The wind was warm. After doing some cleaning and running errands, I raked leaves away from the daffodil and tulip leaves pushing up and I wore only a sweatshirt! Yeahhh!!

Life changes - Not to get too morbid here, but of the few people I've mentioned above in my family, so many have died. My parents. My aunts and uncles. My former husband Patrick, who died at the very young age of 57. Nothing can be taken for granted.