The Diary of Queen Mothy |
Hearts in Pittsburgh written @ 3:32 PM on June 30, 2003 This weekend was my cousin Scott's wedding, and Saturday morning we left for Pittsburgh. I hadn't been back to my mothership hometown since my grandfather died some four or five years ago, and lately the city has held the pretense of being either good or bad, a comedy or a downright tragedy, but only because of the situation I was dealing with at the time. I always think of my hometown, though, lately more than ever. For anyone who's ever said that Pittsburgh is the "pits" of the United States never saw it for what it is and was. God, I love that city. I'd be as content living there as in New York. That place is one big history of the middle to lower class blue collar sons and daughters of immigrants. At least for my family anyway. This was my cousin's second wedding. He's so weird. I actually really liked his first wife, Kim. I got to know Kim very well during both my grandparents' funerals, and I thought she was very nice. Plus she used to collect unicorns, so that was a bonus in my book. Scott and Kim became estranged after a few months' worth of marriage, and finally they divorced a few years ago. Apparently they remained "friends" and saw each other on and off, but she didn't find out he was getting remarried until a couple days before his second wedding. Now, as for his second wife, Natalie seems really nice, too, but I don't know her as well as I knew Kim. And after being away from Pittsburgh for so long, I felt quite out of the loop from my dad's side of the family. Kim was married and divorced once before, and she brought four kids into this marriage, all under the age of ten: Stephen, Lorenzo, Kieffer, and Francesca. Italian, anyone? So I guess I inherited four step-cousins from this marriage. Francesca was adorable. Kieffer broke his foot in two places the day before the wedding and spent a goodly amount of time in the emergency room. Lorenzo is bound to be the struggling, competitive middle son following "Scotty daddy's" footsteps. And Stephen is going to be very, very cute when he gets to high school. Because Scott and Natalie were both married and divorced before, they couldn't get remarried in a Catholic church. Soooo they were married by a traveling minister to whom-- I could only guess-- they picked straight out of the phone book (Dad said he looked "dapper"), and the actual ceremony was at the 3rd Presbyterian Cathedral in Shadyside, Pittsburgh, smack dab in the middle of the historic district. It was very simple, much more simple than the to-do it had been when he married Kim. And as far as family goes, it was just Dad, Mom, Jonathan, Aunt Bobby, Uncle Steve, my other cousin Claudine, and her husband Marc. None of the other relatives from our family had been invited, not the other Blatnicas, Kaucics, Komans, (add your own surname) on my dad's side. I was a bit surprised, and I was slightly disappointed because my whole ulterior motive for this trip had been to gather genealogy information. The reception was at this wonderful Italian restaurant right across from our hotel outside Oakland, Pittsburgh. Having had only a bowl of Cheerios that morning, I was starving. Scott tried to pry out of me stories from college that would have made my mother raise her eyebrows, but I honestly did not have many. Claudine told me about her new baby Hannah, to whom I had not met yet. Aunt Bobby talked about any old thing. She said she finally called some of the relatives up to let them know Scott was getting married, and apparently that news was taken with a grain of salt. I don't think cousin Celestine was happy, or any of the others that still live on Saline Street. But Aunt Bobby raised a point when she said that none of the other relatives made an effort once to stay in contact with the family-- even with Claudine living up the street in Grandma's old house. All through the trip, everyone kept saying how it was "so nice" that we came for the wedding, especially my dad, whom they lovingly referred to as being "the phantom uncle." There was a period when it was just me sitting at the table by myself, fiddling with some Italian pastry, and Aunt Bobby dropped across from me and asked how my parents were. I had a vague recollection of my parents saying that they weren't going to tell anyone on that side of the family about the separation until after the wedding. I wasn't sure if they held to that, especially when my aunt said, "Don't worry, I know what's going on. I know how it is." I suppressed one of my doubtful looks and gave a small smile. She really wanted to know how I was handling it, but I honestly don't think she knows about the intended separation. "Okay," I told her, "I'm kinda out of the house and it doesn't really affect me like it could, so it's been okay, I guess. It sucks, but what are you going to do about it?" "It's a crying shame," she said, "and if Grandma was here today, she'd be livid. Positively livid!" I wanted to tell her that I think Grandma already knows and is a little more than livid about the situation, enough to do rolls in her grave in fact, but I decided I didn't want to explain how I knew that. Dad and Aunt Bobby then had a conversation about Pap-Pap, to which Dad began to cry at the table (thankfully for him, no one was looking or even noticed except Aunt Bobby, Mom, and me), "All my life I never really had a talk with him or got to know him, and only with that last conversation on the telephone shortly before he breathed his last breath did I begin to understand." I haven't shed one tear over my grandparents since their funerals, and here is my father, the man who's responsibility is to be the rock of the clan, weeping like a child. I wanted to pity him, but I couldn't help but feel as if he'd lost his nerve. Maybe I simply don't understand because I view death differently; in short, I don't fear it in the slightest bit, especially not lately. And here my father was, trying to tell me that my brother and I are going to be "on the front line" after he and Aunt Bobby are gone, as if life was nothing more than a battle from the American Revolution. "You see," he said to me, quite evident at this point that he was reaching his alcohol limit, "you're beginning to experience things that you had no inkling of when you were younger. Now that you're older, there are new things and aspects of life that need to be considered." "Like...?" I asked patiently. I hoped he wasn't going to give me another enlightening lecture on death; in my view, there couldn't be a topic more people wasted their time on than that. I tried to be patient, but he just doesn't realize that I observe things that others at my age don't see often, and I credit that to being an artist and having to observe. But suffice to say, Dad didn't really answer my question. My sixth sense told me that he wanted to say "marriage and death," but didn't quite know how to word it. Only Dad could remind me that I was nineteen years old and my life might as well be over. *** The next morning, we rose early and went to Saline Street, aka "The Run," a site of so many brighter memories. So much and so very little has changed in that neighborhood, located in Hazelwood, Pittsburgh. Claudine took us through Grandma and Pap-Pap's old house, showing how they remodeled it. The house seemed to generate the same look of the neighborhood, with the old shell structure still the same as ever with only modern touches here and there. For instance, they have a new refrigerator, but it's located in the same place the other one had been for over 40 years. The last stair to the second floor is still much too tall for the rest of the staircase, even with the new carpet padding. And the push-button light switch to the third floor still does not have an outer casing. My new cousin Hannah is absolutely adorable. She has a thing for Elmo and sucking her thumb while pulling on an ear-- and the ear doesn't have to be her own either. We didn't stay long at the house because we wanted to get started for home early. But before we left, I convinced Dad to take me up to Calvary Cemetery for a short hunt for some relatives. I found my great-grandparents on top of a green hill, but I couldn't find my other elusive relative, my great-grandfather David Francis Reno. I am absolutely convinced that he is somewhere in that cemetery though. Sometime this summer, I want to see if I can convince Mom to let me go to Pittsburgh on my own and conduct some serious research. I would only need a weekend to make some great leaps. Maybe I can stay with Claudine, since she's so centrally located to everywhere I need to be. I hope she doesn't sell that house; if she does, I hope she sells it when I'm old enough to buy it. That house spans four or five generations, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a relic and a museum. *** And it's haunted. I only had to walk into that house to realize what a strong presence my grandparents were. No wonder they didn't spend so much time at my house in Cincinnati; they were busy looking after Hannah, Claudine, and Marc, not to mention the other relatives on Saline Street. Grandma's job was never done, of that I can assure you, and it seems she's taken to her old ways even in death. My readings for them were particularly strong in Hannah's bedroom, which used to be their old bedroom. In their minds, I think, they still live in that house, and it doesn't seem as though they're going to leave for a long time, if at all. But that's the thing about Pittsburgh: there are so many lonely, restless spirits wandering the streets. It's a city of blue collar history through and through. The difference between the other ghosts on Saline Street and my grandparents, however, is that they know how to move on and will do so if they so choose, but they're sticking around because they still consider themselves active members of the family. I think they're going to help me find those graves at Calvary, too. One of these days, I'm going to work up the nerve to ask Claudine to stay at her house for a weekend. The posse would have a field day in that city, that's for sure. One of these days, I'm also going to work up the courage to tell Dad the truth about his parents: that they are still very much around, if just not in Cincinnati all the time. I just don't know if it would be any comfort to him; it might be best if I simply kept something he may not understand to myself. A few things are for certain though: 1) Grandma IS livid about my own parents' separation, and 2) she's kind of wondering why I don't have the courage to go down to the bar and bring Dad home, since she did it with her own father all through her life up until the day he died. Well, all I can say in my defense is that I have a lot to learn before I consider taking her place as the rock of the clan.
A Bit of History ~ And Onward! L'Amour Toujours! - August 08, 2005 |
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