For me it started with the Ackers. My mother had been gone for about 6 months when my father tried to fix our furnace and instead blew up the basement, with him in it. While the firemen came and secured the house I played at Ruthie's.
I had started to head home and I heard a voice. "Hey, you, come here." It was Mrs. Ackers, although at the time I didn't really know her, just as the nice lady that lived next to Ruthie. She handed me an old purse and when I looked inside it was filled with costume jewelry. Necklaces mostly. I sat and talked with them for a while. I never suspected that they were keeping me from the ambulance and the fact that my father may have just died as well. He didn't - but I am so appreciative that they would care that much for someone they really didn't know - I spent many days at their home. Mr. Ackers was quite a gardener. He raised roses, peonies, and so many other flowers in the side lot.
My father wasn't really around much after my mom died. It was just so hard for him to look into the faces of his children and see his wife looking back. I don't blame him that and I don't tell you this as a pity statement. Just a matter of fact.
My dad remarried two years later and although I now had a new mom, she also had five more children. Not to mention that she soon had two more children. I don't think there was any reason to not feel close. I can't imagine trying to take care of that many kids. Chris and Mary Beth (the youngest) needed her and my fathers attention. My older sisters were into boys and life in general. I kept myself busy with friends and schemes.
After we moved to Oak Creek I was lost. My friends, and my life had been thrown into turmoil. I hated Oak Creek. Everything was spread out. In Cudahy you could walk anywhere and you had the city bus to take you places. But then I started making friends. Liz, Arlys, Cheri, Patty, Elise, Lori - they were my friends. My peers. But something was still missing.
My sister, Judy, had started babysitting for a lady named Blake. She had two children, Jenny and Rachel. Every now and then Judy would clean and I was allowed to babysit. I understand now their hesitation in allowing me to solo. I wasn't too much older than Jenny - maybe six years. But as time went on Judy got a job and I moved on to top babysitter.
I loved babysitting for Blake - but I would run over and hang out there even when I wasn't needed. Blake became more than an employer. She showed me a different form of parenting than I was used to. Most of my life I had been a loner. I took care of myself and didn't need anyone. Or so I thought. I'm not sure how much Judy had explained to Blake but she didn't seem to mind me hanging around.
Blake was tall and slender. She walked with a kind of grace and self-assured attitude that I had never seen. Her and Bob were both college graduates, and prior to having children Blake taught journalism and English at the college level. Years later when I was in college I would send her my papers to proof read and critique.
She was also skilled at sewing and helped me to sew my Junior high graduation dress. Starting by taking me to Treasure Island to pick out material and a pattern. I felt like a princess in the blue swiss dot dress we made together. It had puffy, gathered sleeves and a empire waist. Those were terms I didn't know before working on the dress.
Blake also tried to teach me to cook, but that was a skill I have never truly perfected. She would have dinner parties with so many plates and utensils. Thanks to Blake I know how to set a proper table. Blake made me as much a part of her family as she could without overstepping bounds. She had a membership to the YMCA and took me along to help with Jenny and Rachel.
She probably taught me one of the most important lessons I would use years later when I had my own children. The art of relaxing. Bob and Blake were taking a vacation and would always take a babysitter along. Judy went to the Bahamas with them and a few years later asked me to come along to stay in their condo in Florida.
On the day we were going to leave, Bob broke the news that he had quit his job. It was summer break from school so Blake asked if I could stay for the entire summer. My parents gave their blessing and we all climbed into the car for the trip down. We drove for three days - this was my introduction to road trips, something I enjoy to this day.
When I was a sophomore my parents bought a smaller house in a different part of Oak Creek and I had to move away, again, from all of my friends - and Blake.
Without sidewalks, bike paths or a car my world was once again trashed.
Blake figured out a way to have me spend more time at her house, she started teaching CCD (Sunday school) two days a week and asked me to help her out. The church was close to my new home so she would stop and pick me up on the way. She always arrived early and made sure we had time to talk after each class. I believe Blake gave me my love of teaching, watching her interact with the kids in the class was magical. I wanted to be just like her.
Two years later Blake found out she was pregnant again. I was so happy for her. At this point I was a Junior in high school and had started life guarding and teaching swimming lessons.
Jenny came in for open swim on Saturdays and I would talk with her in the locker room when she was done. It was there that she dropped the bombshell that they were moving to Boston! I had to walk my bike home the full five miles that day since I was crying too hard to see.
After they moved I wrote to Blake weekly to keep in touch. Bob and Blake invited me to spend the summer in Wellesley with them to help with the new baby (Matthew) as well as Jenny and Rachel. I jumped at the chance. Blake cleared it with my dad and sent me a plane ticket. When the ticket came I froze. I had never been on a plane before and my first flight was going to be solo.
Blake sent me letters to calm my nerves. I read them over and over again. I actually still have the notes.
The day came and I climbed on board, doing exactly as Blake had instructed in her letter. My heart just about jumped out of my chest when we landed and I saw Bob's smiling eyes at the bottom of the escalator. I had a wonderful summer with the family. We went to the White Mountains for a couple of weeks and spent time on the cape. Blake tried to get me to eat lobster, but she made a mistake by letting me pick them out (live) at the store and carry them home. By the time we arrived I had given them each names and imagined their family life.
Consider having your new friend looking back up at you with sad eyes as you watched it be plopped into the boiling water. Jenny was teasing me as it was put on my plate and I left the room crying. Blake came out and comforted me and even coaxed me back into the kitchen with the promise of a hamburger.
At the end of summer Blake and Bob offered to have me stay for the next two years and finish high school in Wellesley in exchange for watching the kids and helping around the house. They even said they would pay for my college. But I was so homesick by that point that I passed up the offer. I often wonder how my life would have been different if I had stayed.
Years passed, but I never lost track of Blake. I kept on writing. I told her when I got engaged. Blake and Bob let us stay in one of their condos in Florida for our honeymoon. She was one of the first people I told I was pregnant and the first person to send mail to my son Jimmy the day he was born.
Blake and Bob had moved to Florida when Jenny and Rachel were in High School and when Jimmy was a year old I took him and my niece Kim to Florida to visit. (That story will be another day). In a rare turn of events, Blake came with us to Disney World for a couple of days to relax at the pool.
More years passed, but I never lost contact with Blake.
When she wrote to tell me about the cancer I was numb. Breast cancer. But Blake was a fighter. And a strong woman. I haven't mentioned it yet, but she swam, daily, Never missed it. Even when we were on all of those vacations, Blake would be in the pool every morning, doing laps.
It took cancer a number of years before it won. My little sister, Jenny (yes I not only adopted Blake as my mom, but Jenny, Rachel and Matthew as siblings) let me know that she had entered hospice, most likely for the final time. Blake never called it that, she always called it 'going to the spa'.
I was able to visit two more times before she was gone. On the morning of her funeral I gathered in the lunch room of my office and had my co-workers raise a mimosa in her honor.
I lost my mom when I was 7, and again when I was 51.
Damn...in tears.
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