Gerri’s Blog

After four straight days over 100 degrees….we are wilting! For those of you who I teased with our early spring weather when you were still getting snowed on…please forgive me! While our mild winters and warm springs are an envy to some, I’m not sure the very long, hot summer is worth it!

We have a guest blogger today. Please welcome Mo! Let’s get to know her a little better.

Good morning GGG’s and Gerri.  Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you.

I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1952 to Irish Catholic parents.  I am one of 7 surviving children, and the oldest girl.  As such I took on the caretaker role, especially in later years when the alcoholism that both parents exhibited really began to escalate.  I knew nothing different and therefore did not feel neglected or abused.  I rejoiced with each new baby my mother gave birth to!  Despite the dysfunctional state of our family, we all received a quality Catholic education up through high school and me through college.  My father, who was the assistant fire chief for the city of Cincinnati, also worked 1 or 2 extra jobs to make that happen.   

All through my childhood I knew I was different than my friends.  They would make comments about liking this boy or that, and I just did not understand what they were feeling!  In high school (all girls) I kept myself busy with the orchestra, school plays and babysitting so I would not be pressured to attend dances or answer questions as to why I wasn’t dating.     

From high school I entered the convent of the Sisters of St. Francis of Oldenburg, Indiana, probably more to escape home at this point than to answer a calling.  During my years there I was busy with college courses and working in the baby nursery at the Muscatatuck State Hospital for the mentally disabled.  (Thank goodness those types of facilities are nonexistent today!)  While a nun I finally faced the fact that I was really attracted to women!  I fell in love for the first time with another postulant.  We were inseparable when possible, and were lectured often on “no particular friendships”.  We both left the convent before final vows, and went our separate paths.  Maddie is living happily on a farm in Indiana with her partner of over 30 years.

I experienced some lonely years of turmoil after coming back home, and felt as if I had no place in this world.  I will not expound on those misfortunate years here.  

In the late 1970’s I started working in the county schools in their early intervention program with severely mentally/physically challenged children as a special education para educator.  One of our programs was located in a private catholic home for these children, which is where I started.  I was also doing all the photography for the home’s brochures.  It was here in 1980, through our speech therapist, that I met Katie’s dad Sung.  He was a visiting professor of engineering from Korea teaching at the University of Cincinnati.  He wanted someone to show him around the area so he could take scenic photos to send back home.  I did that, and we became friends.  At the age of 28 I decided this might be my only opportunity to become pregnant, and I wanted a child very much!  So…that’s how Katie came about!  Sung felt very betrayed and tricked when I told him I was pregnant, and we parted thinking he would go back to Korea never to see his child when she was born.  We wrote back and forth, and when Katie was a few weeks old he came back to the US to meet her.  He has been a very important part of her life since.  He now lives in California with his wife and Katie’s 2 brothers and a sister.

When Katie was 6 years old I started foster parenting, and eventually adopted 2 other children.  It was very fulfilling, but I was still lonely!  Children did not meet all my needs as they had for years.  I knew I wanted a partner and decided it was time to come out of the closet and be good to myself.  I met Pat when Andrew was a baby, Kathy a little girl, and Katie a young teen.  At that time I was a live-in caretaker for a middle-aged man with Down syndrome and his house was mine as long as I stayed with him, and after.  It was a wonderful arrangement with his brother, who did not live there, and we were all happy!  Pat moved in with us and we endured a year of abuse.  I did not realize at the time how heavily she drank.  She assured me that if I moved to her home in Melrose, Massachusetts things would get better.  I quit my caretaker job, loaded up my 3 children, and we moved to the Boston area.  While there my middle adopted daughter, Kathy lived at the Learning Center for the Deaf in their behavior unit.  Pat’s alcoholism became evident as she no longer hid the drinking.  I was blind to the abuse my children and I endured until the day I was choked in front of them.  We left and lived in our car for 2 nights before getting our own apartment. 

I became a licensed foster parent for the state of Massachusetts in order to save the money to move back home.  I fostered a pair of adorable sisters and a screaming toddler with FAS (FAS is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome), like my daughter Kathy.  We were quite a bunch, me and 6 kids in a small apartment in Malden, Massachusetts.  I loved them all, and was just so relieved to be out of the abusive relationship I had gotten us into.

I was leery of trusting again, but I started looking for women online, in the old dial up Prodigy days.  Paula, then in Florida, and I found each other in a chat room I had set up, and messaged, emailed and called each other for 6 months before we met.  We often fell asleep with phones to our ears, both accruing extravagant long distance bills.  We fell in love before any physical attraction ever came to play.  On Paula’s first visit with us Andrew, then a toddler, dumped a can of Pepsi on a sleeping Paula’s face!  He lived to tell the tale, so she passed the test!  About 6 months from that first unforgettable visit Paula, I, and my 3 kids moved together to Fairfield, Ohio.  Paula is so special, and loved not only me, but Katie, Kathy and Andrew unconditionally!  Katie was an angry teen at the time and rightfully so.  Kathy had her multitude of behavior problems and was severely hearing impaired.  Andrew was a handful with his autism spectrum disorder, OCD, and assorted other labels he has been given throughout the years.    

Katie left home to attend the University of Kentucky after high school, and has been in Lexington ever since, where she now resides with her husband and there soon-to-be-born baby son!  We have only Andrew left at home now.  He is 16 years old and like most teens is struggling to find his niche in the world.  He knows he is always welcome to live with us as an adult, but we hope and pray he finds the strength within to one day live on his own.     

We have gone through much together these past 13 years, including the death of Paula’s father, a serious accident she endured when she fell off a “U-Haul” while helping a friend of ours move, and issues with my daughter Kathy who is no longer a part of our lives.  We always come out stronger as a couple. 

We are very different people, yet we compliment each other so beautifully!  I am a morning person and she is not, so I get up early with her each morn, wearing a grin (that she perceives as irritating) and help her get her act together so she can get out the door on time for work.  I have no ear for music (I played the cello for years, much to my family’s chagrin) and Paula can listen to any song and know the singer and name of the song, therefore she is the one who plays Guitar Hero with Andrew and discusses the latest music.  I love to grocery shop and cook, whereas Paula would rather eat pizza every night and be done with it, so I am the house chef.  If I am gone for the evening, Paula and Andrew bach it with a pizza!  Paula is definitely the designated driver (no, neither of us drink) because I hate driving the highways, much preferring the country roads, and I refuse to drive across the bridge leading into Ohio, which is where most of my family lives.  Paula is an artist and I an artist wannabe who settles for little crafts like painting a bird feeder and putting together scrapbooks.  We both love the outdoors and all it entails, from walking, to sitting in the backyard or camping. 

I think the most important thing I have learned in life is that loving someone is a process…it is never stagnant.  Our relationship is always evolving into the next phase and along the way, if love is truly present, there is lots of compromise to smooth the passage.  I’ve also learned that sometimes we might feel more “in love” than others, but that strong foundation is always there to help us feel loved, even when we might not feel too lovable.  I have had those times when I have felt like I did not deserve Paula’s love, and yet it’s always there!  She is my soul mate, my lover, my friend, and my life partner.  She is the gift I waited most of my life to receive.  I have never felt so loved and treasured and I feel the same for her!      

Thanks very much, Mo! Very good…

Have a great day!