Liam and I travel alone to Chicago. We had decided it was too strenuous for Sandra, the twins, Vic and I to go to Sean’s 1st Communion. The trip was to be extremely busy and having the whole family for such a short trip was too much for me. It was a very good thing I had decided that earlier because Vic was still laid up in huge pain with his kidney stones, the twins continunous sinus infection, ear infection and drainage and a cold on top of all of that was in full force.
Chrissy picked us up and we sent straight to her house to help prepare for the party the next day. We had dinner with Pen and my other best friend Ann at a very noisy restaurant. It was so good to have a dinner with three of my favorite people in the whole world. I was relaxed and happy. It has been years since I haven’t felt rushed in everything I did.
My girlfriends could not believe how crazily curly my hair was. When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to give me home hair permanents on a regular basis. She basically forbade me to have straight hair. It was a huge challenge for her since my hair was thin and relentlessly straight. Also extremely disappointing for her was the fact that I started to go brunette after my first 3 initial years as a white haired blond. She and my mother began bleaching my hair first with lemon juice when I was 4 or 5 years old and it never stopped. My grandmother thought that ever one should look like Mary Astor and did her best to bring that about. When I didn’t have a permanent, I used to go to sleep with pin curls, curlers or braids so that my hair would be curly in the morning. My entire childhood was spent like this.
My hair was growing in medium brown with gray in tight, tight curls. As my hair grew longer I had hoped that the curls would straighten out but they did not. Having curly hair was almost as much of a shock every morning as being bald. I did not recognize the woman staring back at me with the thick curly hair bouncing up high off my head in all directions. I wet it down and put the thickest hair gel I could find on it ever morning pinning it all down with a multitude of bobby pins in an attempt to look more like myself.
The next day all of our family and my brother-in-law, Rob’ family came to the church to witness Sean’s big day. Rob’s family came up to me and said, “You look ravishing. How do you feel?” Then he turned to one of his sons and said, “Doesn’t she look ravishing.” I had only met him once before at their wedding and can’t imagine he remembered what I used to look like so I didn’t understand the complement except the missing part…”for everything you have gone through.” All Rob’s brothers and sister said the same thing. “You look good.” “You look healthy.” They said this with complete surprise. I am not sure what they expected but they have a lot of cancer in their family so I guess they expected me to look worse.
When my Aunt, my Mom’s sister, saw me the first thing she said was, “Look at your hair. Grandma would be so happy.” She ran her hands through the back of my hear where there were fewer bobby pins and said again, “Grandma would be so happy.”
I said, “Yes, Grandma is up in heaven orchestrating my chemo-induced follicular damage so that I have tight curly hair for the rest of my life. She is saying FINALLY.”
We all laugh about it because we know it is true.
With my aunt is my cousin who I have not seen in 20 years. We visit and get to know each other a little bit.
On my father’s side, one of my cousins who I have also not seen in at least 20 years is also there. We visit and get to know each other a little bit. It is relaxing to get to know them and relaxing to be at a party which I don’t host.
Liam plays with Sean’s cousins for the entire afternoon even after I leave to go downtown and visit with my girlfriends.
Five of us get together and they bring me the ‘game ball’ from the breast cancer softball benefit they did the summer prior. It is very touching for me but instead of crying, I laugh. We visit and laugh and share. For them it is a regular part of their lives but for me it is so special and means so much to see them and visit.
Pen watches me have the extreme hot flashes that I always have and asks me if this is how it always is….and I say, “Yes. All Day and All Night but nighttime is much worse.”
