"YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE"

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are grey
You never noted how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you in my arms
When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head, and I cried

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You never noted how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

It’s funny how life can be. Whenever I hear the song ‘Sunshine on My Shoulder’ I think of my daughter. It just seems to me to be her song from me. The other song that affects me and reminds my of a child is ‘You Are My Sunshine’. I used to sing to get my son Joseph to stop crying. Both songs involve sunshine.

When he would be in pain or discomfort, we never knew which, he would cry as a 1-year old would. I would take him and hold him on my lap and sing the song. Whenever I got to the part: You make me happy when skies are grey, he would stop crying and smile! It never failed for his Mom or me.

I remember one Saturday morning, as he sat in my arms in North Shore University Hospital, staring out the window wondering what was in store for him, I sang that song to him as he lay in my arms attached to tubes and quietly dealing with the pain. He slowly looked up and smiled once again, it made my day, my whole day and a woven memory in the cloth I will keep forever.

It’s been 34 year since he was born, the song will still bring that memory home to me, and I will remember his round little face and feel a little pain in my heart. Funny how similar it is to the pain I feel when I see my daughter. I don’t know if the pain ever goes away, ask me when I’m dead. But to tell you the truth, you have to live on, you have to dance and sing and laugh and be happy, because life is so unpredictable.

I know I do silly things sometimes, but I do them because I love life in spite of the bad breaks that come down the pike. But those horrific breaks are balanced by good and wonderful breaks too. My other children, a truly wonderful and loving wife, one that has made a home for me, one I don’t wish to leave and never did.

Maybe the tributes to motherhood need clarity. Maybe they, mothers, should be celebrated on their children’s birthday. Those of us born should not take the bow, the mom that suffered through 9 months and childbirth should be celebrated. It should work so that if you have a birthday, you buy your mom a present.

Maybe when that same birthday occurs, Dads should reach in and buy Mom the present, for making it possible to be a father, and a parent, telling her ‘thank you’ for creating my family.

I know that little Joseph is now 34 years old today. If he had lived I know he would have been suffering just like my daughter, so maybe he was lucky. Sounds crazy I know, but if you think about it, in 100 years from now no one will remember or little care. But if it weren’t for TLW (The Little Woman) I would have never met Joseph, would never have had some truly beautiful memories along with the bad ones. But at least he lived.

So Happy Birthday Joseph, we will always love you, and maybe, just maybe, someday I can sing that song to you and see your smile once again.

MOM’S FINE BUT I’M LOSING IT!

The other night while sleeping, the phone rang and TLW (The Little Woman) answered it. We keep a phone next to the bed for just such occasions. Being how TLW likes to talk at any time and I’m shy, it is on her side. This is good!

Answering the phone she waited for a reply to her rather eloquent: “Hullowwwww?”

Who ever the late night or early morning caller was decided they had the wrong number and didn’t bother to answer, just hung up.

The next morning I get a call from my older sister Tessie (much older) and she voices a concern about Mom. Mom is doing very well but does have a pain for over a year in her lower back and she just told us about it recently within the last few months! The doctors can’t figure it out and I certainly can’t, my older sister Tessie (much older) fears that it is her only kidney she has since her cancer operation a while back. Mom said she is only comfortable when she is lying down on her couch or in bed. Being a good son, I decide to give her a call.

I call and her phone has a busy signal going so I think one of the sibs is talking to her. I try a half hour later and still a busy signal. Once again about 20 minutes later a busy signal, so I decide to call her cell phone. Now Mom has her cell phone out on an end table in her den, amid her statues of Jesus, Mary, and St. Anthony. Being I am her son she got the St. Anthony statue at a garage sale and he is the patron saint of lost causes. So you see the connection: St. Anthony, lost causes and me. No one is picking up her cell phone. No Henry her boy toy, no aids, no nuthin.

Being a keen observer of situations I decide that something is wrong and jump into my chariot and over the river and through the snow to Grandmother’s house I go! I get there and her boy toy’s car is not in the driveway. This causes me to take pause. I guess a cause for pause kind of situation. So what do I do? I get out of the car and ring the doorbell. (Come on, you should have known that!) No answer! I try again, and guess what? Still no answer! (I’m glad you are able to follow this so well!) Fear strikes and I decide I will go to the local hospital and enquire if she has been admitted. The young lady behind the computer looks it up and says: “Room 209” I think: “AHA!” Then the young lady, a little older now says: “Oops! That was in December, no she’s not here.” I explain my dilemma and she suggest I call the police and have them knock the door down! I think about it and say very intelligently: “Nah, she’d kill me!”

“But she could be on floor!”

“And?”

“She could be dead!”

“She’d still kill me for messing up her living room.”

Not knowing what I will do, I decide to call TLW at work. She suggest I go back to the house and wait for Boy Toy to show up, maybe he went out shopping for her and Mom who doesn’t hear too well maybe asleep. Reluctantly I agree and wait in the driveway for about a half hour. All her neighbors are looking over at me and wondering why I am sitting in my car in the driveway. My phone comes alive, (Probably the only thong on me that is) and it is TLW once again checking in. As we are talking, who shows up but Boy Toy, with bags of shopping and a newspaper. We enter the house and Mom is sound asleep on her couch resting her back.

Once again, TLW’s suggestion was correct. But like she says: “Joe, you are NOT ordinary, you are EXTRA ordinary! I wish she would run those two words together.