prayerful of dreams - 2008-06-28
preschool princess - 2008-06-16
life with my sweetheart - 2008-04-29
the fast approach of four - 2008-04-12
lighting up my own life - 2008-03-08

2002-04-10 - 3:02 p.m.

This is a picture of my beloved grandparents on their wedding day, in October 1946.

I love this picture, because It glistens with the promise of everything yet to come. and somewhere carried in the creases of their smile, I am hidden . I do not exist. and 56 years later, I sit here, a girl of 31 who does indeed exist, and the handsome man in the picture lives somewhere deep inside of me and yet, he has returned to the place where I once was, when this picture was taken. our existence is blurred . One moment you are here shining brighter than the stars, One moment you are not. One moment you are nothing. The next you are pushing out into the bright lights, being welcomed,like the sun and the moon, by people who will someday slide off the edge of the world and disappear into a puff of mist.

When I look at this picture, I feel all knowing. I stare at their shiny faces, and I know their whole story. I did not write the book, but I have read it many, many times. I owe them so much. I love them more than words can say.

This is their story. Look into their gleeful eyes, and I will share with you, some of their secrets.

The girl is young, she is 18 yrs old and dreams of being a dancer. Her name is Dorothy, and she does indeed have ruby slippers. She dreams of home because really, as we all know "there is no place like home", but she dreams of a small house on a quiet side street shared with him. His name is Joseph. He is 24. She was best friends with his sister, Doris, and fell in love with him, the moment she laid her hazel green eyes on him. She thought he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was home, from the war, and was getting alot of accolades by the kids in the neighborhood. He had been a bombadier and survived all his missions so thankfully he was sent home. no place like home, right into Dorothy's arms.

They were engaged after a short old fashioned courtship of stolen kisses in the cinema, dipping into one another's malted milk balls and fell in love to the backdrop of every 1945 black and white movie. Everything in the past so black and white, like this beautiful Sepia edged print of them. Yet this torn and faded Wedding picture hides the brightest colours of a bursting rainbow of faces yet to come. They clutched their love and ran to the alter, never looking back. My grandmother left all her numerous beaus scattered behind her, shaking their heads with disbelief and dropping the boxes of chocolates that they loved to shower her with. She knew. She knew that he was the one. This dancing girl from Warwick, Rhode Island was in love with this handsome bombadier from Cranston, Rhode Island. and all was right in the world.

The war was their soundtrack, the future stretched out invitingly with soooooo much promise. The drove away in their new car for a honeymoon to Niagra falls. They left with stars in their eyes, and came back a few weeks later, with new life between them. My uncle was born 9 months later. A beautiful baby with a full head of black hair and a cherubs smile. A joy to behold. The dancing girl, became a mother, and a wife and blossomed into her no place like home, ( as long as it is spent with you) kind of life. Her darling baby was an ambassador of smiles. He was the prince of their tiny home. and life was wonderful. My grandfather opened a small restaurant and tended to it carefully, while his roses grew at home. A year passed, the happy little family, grew by one more, my mother came spiraling into their world, a bald colicky baby who crashed this happy party. She seemed ravenous and restless, such a contrast to her laughing happy brother. The dancing girl, danced all day, tending to her babies, but dreaming in colour and wondering how her life became so black and white. She yearned for more, but did not know where to find her yellow brick road. She was 21. She was only 21. and a dancing girl no more. Mother of 2 .

and then there was that horrible day, when my mother was hit by a car. Poor dancing girl, clutching her shattered limp child, instead of the bridal bouquet of cascading white orchids with so much shiny and happy in the picture of her wedding day. But, my mother lived. and her dancing girl mother, went to work. at my grandfather's restaurant. She became the hostess and dripped with glamour, in her sequined gowns. She charmed all who knew her. and this filled my grandfather with jealousy. They smiled so brightly on their wedding day, and now every day, was real, and real life is never easy. but I can still look into this picture and smile, because I know that it goes on, their story stretches out with love for 50 years. They fought and fought and made up and raged and threw things at one another, and called each other names, and chased each other out of the house, and flashed with a red hot burning heat. This was true and real love, possessive and rageful, and deep and overpowering. They divorced once, but made up before they signed the final papers. They then , sold the restaurant, moved to Florida and became Real estate Brokers. Their children grew up into individuals as different as night and day. My mother was never a dancing girl, even though my grandmother signed her up for every class possible. My mother was tall and awkward, a tomboy who grew into a ravishing 5 ft 10 raven haired beauty. My uncle was wild and unruly. He and my grandfather clashed all their lives. but beneath it all, love dwelled within these hearts.

and it was love that was held us all together, when my grandfather was ill. Love between us, between all the faces hidden in their smile. and my grandfather wanted desperately to live to celebrate their 5o th anniversary. He clung to that date, and tried so hard to keep his promise. but in the end, we all whispered to him, that it was ok, that he had to go. he had to leave us, and that he had to go home.( a home far from the little quaint house on a quiet side sreet in rhode island) Back to the place and the space wherever it was that he came from, and that his dancing girl bride would wait for him, to return someday and dance her away with him, into the great clouded ballroom in the sky. and he died, 2 weeks short of his 50th anniversary. slipping from our trembling with grief, sheltering arms, and drifting into a blue infinity . and in that exact split second that he died, I remember seeing a puff of mist coming out of the top of his head. and I shivered with the realization, that I had just seen , the essence of true beauty. The vapors of mist disappearing back, into the shadows from whence we all come. and my life was changed. I breathed in the mist. and looked past the window outside. I remember it so perfectly, that moment etched forever in my heart as I sat their clutching my dead grandfather's hand, and seeing a yellow butterfly flickering and drifting in the late september breeze. and I knew that in millions of homes across the world, life was spinning on, in the monotony of normality, but my life would forever be changed. I had seen the mist. The girl hidden in the picture (who did not exist) has breathed in the mist of one of the most beautiful spirits to ever have occupied this universe. and life as we know it,has to carry on. and the dancing girl and her bombadier groom smile at me, from the distance of 55 years to remind me, that life does indeed go on, before you and long long long after you are g o n e. So, I guess really, all you can do, is to just try to fill up all of the in between with as much love as you possibly can.In the end, We are all, just

~ the b r e a t h of the s t a r s ~

Dear papa,

I miss you sooo much. I am going to Italy on Friday. I know that when I gaze at the pink ribboned sky over Firenze, that somehow, you will be there, with me. I will hear you in the laughter of all the old Italian men playing cards in the smoky narrow bars. I will see you in the kind weathered, olive faces that pass me by. I will eat double scoops of mocha gellatti and think about how badly you wanted to be the one to show me Italia. I will light a candle for you in the wedding cake Duomo , because I love the scent of Cathedrals and because I want you to know that I remember you. I will remember you, every moment I am there. I am going back to your homeland. because there is no place like home, and because we both know, that there will never be anyone who will ever love me, like you did~

All my love and tears ~wendy