mom

Mom was pregnant eleven times, birthed six kids, and held her oldest, Jamy {named for Jack/Myrtle} in her arms all night while she convulsed from meningitis back in the pre-vax dark ages,. Nuns at the Catholic hospital said we';ll take her now; go home to your living children: She told me Jay's skin peeled off in sheets from scarlet fever.

She and dad met working in a Charleroi department store. He was a window dresser and demonstrated and other toys in the basement.

She told me an odd story that they got married but lived apart to please dad's mom. Mom's mom was dying of breast cancer her dad couldn't afford to treat and told dad 'shit or get off the pot,." They married and eventually bought a fiour-room starter home in Allegheny county.

Jamy, Jackye {who became Jenny when I was a teen, Jay Mark, Jill Marie, Jack Lawrence Jr {called JL until high school} and Joi Aimee {dad took high school French, told me it meant Joi of Love} ~~ one senses a pattern.

The thing about mom is there were at least two.

There was the open the windows and let the sunshine in mom who efficiently supervised morning hygiene and breakfast, and there was the Mr Hyde mom, amped on black coffee and Chesterfields who burst into my room and threw all my toys into the closet.

Mom was always good to my friends, set us three kids up with rooms with guest beds in the Corbin house. She cooked for an army.