Author Archives: Lillian Cooley

I have a name. Lillian Jeanette. You can call me Lillian, or Lilly, or you can call me Jeanette. I am also a mother. I had 5 children. Four of whom I am proud to be called their mother. One son got lost along the way and I am not proud of who he has become.

People who know me know my character and my wayward son does not reflect my lifestyle or the way I raised my children. My four other children,however, are well loved and respected. I ,however am being judged by the one child who did not reflect how I had tried so hard to raise to be the man I could be proud of.

I am so tired of being punished by his offsprings other grandparents and family and friends by keeping my grandchildren from me just because He is who he is. Are they judged by their daughters faults and failures? Apparently not! Their daughters can be drug addicts and women who give up their children because of drugs or other selfish reasons, but yet they have the right to raise these babies. They refuse to get to know me as a person. They refuse to acknowledge I am the one who turned my own son in for abuse and have cut him out of my life. How is any of this fair!?

This rant was brought on by running into the other grandmother and great grandmother of 2 of my grandchildren and looking at me with discust and referring to me as Ryan’s Mother. Yes I am his mother , but I am also Lillian Jeanette who is a loving, caring, good person who just wants to love her grandchildren and be a part of their lives.

It’s Springtime. Time for new beginnings. This time of year also brings back memories of more simple times. Dad getting ready to plant the garden. March 17th, day to plant potatoes. I tagged along after daddy trying to do everything he did. Grandma’s flowering bushes starting to get buds. Momma hanging clothes on the clothesline. Much simpler days indeed. Waiting for the St Pats parade and then Easter.

I think momma loved Easter the best. My sisters and I always had special Easter baskets full of candy and one very special gift. Usually Avon jewelry for Easter church service. We always wore hats and sometimes gloves with our Easter dress. A dress that momma would make special for us. Usually matching. We always new the true reason we celebrated Easter. Not for hiding Easter eggs that we had dyed the night before or for the Easter bunny who hid the eggs and left us baskets, but for celebrating the miracle of Jesus rising from the dead and preparing a place for us in heaven.

Then finally summer vacation. Playing with dogs. Riding my bike to visit people, and spending time with my best friend Dana. We would pick the vegetables from the garden. I would help snap the green beans. All the women in the community canning fresh vegetables and fruit. Much simpler times. Such good memories..

To be continued ….

My Daughter Alissa has blessed me with a beautiful granddaughter Amelia who is One year and nine months old. We were just recently blessed with my grandson Wyatt who is a little over a month old.

Amelia is an energetic, comical little girl. I wish I could see her more often. They live a couple hours drive from me and without economical, reliable transportation I don’t get to go visit like I would like to. Thank God for technology and video chatting. Lately Amelia has been wanting to chat with her Nana. She calls me almost every day now and tells me about her day. I can’t understand her jibber jabber but I pretend I do and I can get pretty much get out of it what she may be telling me. Everytime Alissa tells me Amelia wanted to call Nana my heart fills with joy. Being so far from her sometimes I wonder if she knows how much I love her. This just let’s me know she does and she loves me in return.

It’s not the same as being there and holding her on my lap, not that she sits still for long, but I can still watch her chase the dogs and read her books and see her little temper and her big grin. I cherish each video chat with her.

Amelia isn’t sure about her new baby brother. She seems to be getting used to his presence. Wyatt,though I have only gotten to go see him once, seems to be a little calmer than Amelia. He is a cuddle bug. He is very alert and tries to see everything. He reminds me of Charlie Brown with his little round balding head and expressionless stare. Of course I have to talk to him to so he knows my voice and knows how much he is loved.

I love that they are being raised in a farming life. Alissa is a good mother and let’s Amelia play in the mud and her Daddy takes her to work on the farm. The kids will be raised knowing hard work and good values. Being raised around Great Grandparents and her other Grandparents who instill these qualities make me feel better about not being as close as I would like to be.

Amelia and Wyatt have made my heart grow after I thought it couldn’t get any bigger. They give me something to look forward to. Watching them grow and develope their own personalities. The joy of being a grandparent.

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Lilly’s FEELS

Grandma Cooley

I was looking through some old papers I found from my old trunk. Many fond memories of when I was young. Notes from my High-school best friend Patti. Pictures of classmates who have passed away . Old drawings my dad had saved. Some of my dad's things from his Land survey days. The best treasure in this pile of memories was a letter written to me from my Grandma Cooley when I went to my sisters for a few weeks during the summer. 
I think growing up, my Grandma Cooley was my best friend. Momma and Daddy worked long hours.  Grandma just lived across the yard from us. I spent much of my time with her and my Aunt Hope who lived with her.  So many good memories. She was an amazing woman. Very loving and evey thing you associate with the word Grandmother she was just that.  Her beautiful white hair and fair skin and rosie cheeks. Her laugh and smile would brighten any gloomy day. She baked the best bread. Her Molasses bread was amazing!  I actually found that recipe in my Irish cookbook along with some other foods she used to make..  Her hot cocoa was amazing. She introduced me to Sassafras tea. Said "it cures what ails ya".  She would buy rocks from me that I had found that I thought was very useful for doorstops and such. One time my dad had brought home some walkie talkies from work. I showed Grandma how to use it and I would go outside and talk to her  her handle was Granny Grunt. I can't remember mine but she had a good time with it ,or at least she acted Iike she did.  She worked in our garden until she physically couldn't any more. So much I could tell you about her but it would be to much for a blog. 
My fondest memory was our tea parties . She had this little China tea set and we would fix our tea and she would sit in her chair and I on the floor beside her and she would tell me of when she was growing up and about her siblings. I wish i would have written it all down, but when you are 7 or 8 years old you don't think about things like that.  I learned a few years ago about that tea set from my cousin. Her mother had asked Grandma if she would like her to get this little tea set she had found and she said yes so she and I could have tea parties. She made sure before she pasted away that I got that tea set. I cherish it as I do many other memories of her. 
I know she is still around me. Watching over me. She sends me signs. My Grandma Cooley will forever be in my heart and thought of in my fondest memories of my childhood. 
When she wrote this letter she was legally blind. Her eyesight was fading. . In this letter she speaks of her cousin Ruth.  Another woman I loved dearly ,but maybe more about her in another blog let me know if you would like to hear about her

My heart has been broken so many times I'm not sure how much of it is left. 
I'm not talking about broken by a crush or disappointments. I am talking about my Dad. Watching him die and nothing I could do to help him. Watch the strongest most loving father and grandfather suffer until his body shut down and he left us. I know he went to heaven. I saw the smile on his face when he took his last breath. But doesn't make the heart ache for my daddy's presence in my and my kids life any less. 
 The heartache of your baby girl loosing her daddy that left her  at a year old and then her Poppy and seeing the fear everytime I would leave to run to the store or to work because I'm sure in her thoughts was, is mommy going to come back.
The heartache of learning you brought a monster into your kids lives who took their childhood and innocence away and you have watched them suffer for that every day of their lives. 
Then. There is the heartache of loosing a child. Not to death but to drugs,demons,who knows what it was. But the little boy who was funny and loving and so small and fragile became a teenager I didn't know and then an adult who scared me and did such evil things I can't wrap my mind around. To watch your sweet boy who you love hurt his own sweet innocent babies and realize my love as a mother as hard as I tried, did nothing to change him back to that sweet boy he once was. The heartache of having to just let him go as if he has died. 
 
And yet the Hearaches continue...

Sad how other people in your past still control how you feel. Deep down I know they are the damaged ones. The ones who aren’t happy with themselves so they use your happiness up and decide it isn’t working for them and move on to the next. But still makes you feel not good enough for anyone else and the fear it will happen again. So you stay guarded and tell yourself you are happy and better off alone and just make the person who would love you unconditionally a dream.

It’s Christmas time once again. Let’s hope 2021 is better than 2020. Last year with the pandemic and family and relationship problems made for a horrible holiday. 

My best friend Dana had reminded me of how it was when we were kids. Christmas really was a special time back then. We had our Sunday school program. Of course always the major scene but each year it meant something to each one in the community. Then we would have a night of Christmas caroling. We would go out in our community which was very spread out, and sing Christmas carols and usually they would have popcorn balls or a welcoming  and grateful smile. We would pick an ending point at someone’s house and have hot chocolate and cookies and then go home feeling very blessed and in the Christmas spirit.

 At home it was nights watching Christmas specials and waiting impatiently for Christmas morning.  Daddy would wait until Christmas eve to do his shopping. Probably a good idea because I usually snooped

and found the presents momma had gotten.  

Back then we usually got a lot of snow unlike now. I would build snow men. And play in the snow.  There was one year it snowed so much I thought we would never get back to school because of all the snow days we had after our Christmas break.  Of course I didn’t mind. 

Grandma Cooley would make her molasses bread and we would fix hot chocolate. Not the hot chocolate out of the box. With real milk ,cocoa and sugar.  Dad would always cut her a small christmas tree and I would help decorate it. She would always have hard ribbon candy and was usually sewing or making quilt blocks. Aunt Hope would get Christmas tea towels and make them into pillows to decorate the couch. 

Life was so much simpler then and the true meaning of Christmas always was a happy time sharing love of family and friends and the true meaning of Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus who was born so we can have eternal life in heaven

Merry Christmas and peace to all this holiday season.