death of a parent Archives - Paolina Milana - author and writer for hire

Divine Intervention and Faith

October 22, 2017 By Paolina Milana Leave a Comment

My mother never thought the story of her life was all that special. She actually never gave it much thought at all. In truth, neither did I.

Until one terrible stormy night, in my attempt to help calm her fear of thunder, I sat her down and asked her to share her memories while I took notes.

I asked my mother about her favorite fun things to do when she was a child.

She told me about the days she spent as a little girl in Sicily during WWII, hiding in the basement of her war-torn home while sounds of planes flying overhead were followed by too-close-for-comfort explosions of the bombs they were dropping. My mother’s eyes welled up with tears as she acknowledged that she didn’t get to have a very happy childhood.

I never knew.

I then asked mom if she had ever been rebellious as a teenager.

She immediately lit up like a firefly reminiscing about her 16-year old self in the 1940s, walking on cobblestone streets, teetering on her high heels from exhaustion, hurrying to get home in time to help make dinner after a long day working as a seamstress’ apprentice.

[Read more…]

Death of My Father: Recamaterna

June 24, 2016 By Paolina Milana Leave a Comment

Sixteen years ago today, my father died. It was a Sunday, just after Father’s Day. I wasn’t supposed to be home that day, but I had gotten sick the night before. That morning, I still lay in bed. Papà came to check in on me, promising me a dinner of my favorite pastina, guaranteed to brighten my spirits.

That’s who my father was at his core: a realistic, but always optimistic. He could find the proper perspective, the wonder in the everyday, and the humor in the absurd. He was one of those people who brightened a room when he entered it.

On the day he left us, my world darkened. [Read more…]

Mental Illness and Mamma

May 4, 2016 By Paolina Milana Leave a Comment

Mother’s Day is hard for me. The fact that it falls in the very same time frame as Mental Health Awareness month makes it even harder.

As fresh-off-the-boat Sicilians, my parents practiced their own form of Cosa Nostra, and we were taught that what happened within the family, stayed inside the family. It was “Our Thing” and nobody else’s business. As a result, I became a master at keeping secrets, making it all the way to the 8th grade before anyone discovered ours.

Then came Christmas morning 1979.

Like all good Catholics, my father, my siblings and I were racing to leave the house and get to our local church for ten a.m. mass. The church was notorious for being “standing room only” on this one day of the year. Mamma hadn’t joined us for years, so when she appeared at the top of our staircase, dressed from head to toe in Scarlet O’Hara red (the very color she never wore and didn’t approve of her girls wearing), I knew we were in trouble. My father, on the other hand, chose to believe it was a Christmas miracle, gifted to him by God after years of prayer, asking for an end to the demons that tormented his wife.

Mamma spent her nights sitting in the dark on the sofa, screaming profanities in Italian, swearing that she would murder us all, plotting and pleading with voices only she could hear. She stashed sharp kitchen knives and my brother’s wooden baseball bats under the bed she shared with Papá, promising to use them if he dared to close his eyes or step one foot into the bedroom. Papá ignored the potential danger, always choosing to sleep in their bed, while I rarely did in mine, trying to stay awake and keep vigil for fear of Mamma following through on her threats. [Read more…]

In Celebration of My Own Patron Saint Papà

March 19, 2016 By Paolina Milana Leave a Comment

Today is my father’s birthday. March 19. He was born on St. Joseph’s Day, a big celebration for Italians, especially Sicilians. As a kid, year after year, our entire family would dress up, pile into our white Pontiac Catalina, and drive to some church or somebody’s home for a “feast of fishes” – a gorgeous display of food, similar to a cruise ship’s midnight buffet, but set up on an altar paying homage to the patron saint of fathers, families, and workers.
It’s fitting that my Papà and St. Joseph would share their day. Fathers, families, and workers: that pretty much sums up what my dad Antonino Milana represented, at least during my lifetime and from my perspective. (That’s me as a baby in his arms; my siblings were flower girl and ring bearer at my aunt’s wedding.)

My mother once told me “Che pense? Papà non ha mai cambiato i pannolini finché mi sono ammalato.”

[Read more…]

New Year’s Resolutions? How about “Revelations”?

January 10, 2016 By Paolina Milana Leave a Comment

A lot has happened to me in my 50-years on this planet. I’m certain that could be said of every other individual who shares the same air I breathe. The “a lot” that has happened has been both positive and, well, maybe not so positive. Births. Deaths. Celebrations. Rejections. Again, I know I’m not alone. Plain and simple, it’s all a part of life. Like an etch-a-sketch, sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, sometimes you’re status quo or flatline (depending on your perspective).

Today, I put together my annual vision board. What is it, you ask…? According to Make A Vision Board, “a vision board is a tool used to help clarify, concentrate and maintain focus on a specific life goal. Literally, a vision board is any sort of board on which you display images that represent whatever you want to be, do or have in your life.” Here’s mine for this year…

It has dawned on me, today, while working on this, that for years, my vision boards have been quite similar in dreams and desires. And slowly, in baby step fashion, much of what I’ve envisioned for myself has, indeed, come into existence for me. But it’s not until this very moment that I have realized that for way too long, I’ve been telling myself a story that needs to change in order to bring about what I really believe I was meant to do. [Read more…]

When Giving Thanks Isn’t Enough

November 26, 2015 By Paolina Milana Leave a Comment

Gratitude; giving thanks; counting our blessings: sometimes it comes with ease and sometimes not so much. This year for me, it’s the latter.

Oh, sure, I know I have so much for which to be grateful, the list including:

a great guy who is always there for me (not to mention my in-laws that luckily came as part of the package);
my two cats who follow and cuddle and fetch better than their canine counterparts;
my Blueberry Hill Cottage that stills my soul;
my memories of our recent “trip of a lifetime” to Africa;
a day job with so much purpose and promise;
great friends, the kind that even if we haven’t chatted in a long while, we pick up as if no time whatsoever has passed;
and so much more…

For all of it, I do, indeed, give thanks.

And, yet, I struggle to understand why I am feeling so lacking (for lack of a better word). [Read more…]

“In Loving Memory”: Thank You, Mamma

June 30, 2015 By Paolina Milana Leave a Comment

Mamma lingered for days on life support. Her final moments had me begging nurses for morphine to end it. “It” being her body convulsing, fighting, rebelling…refusing to give up and let go. “Pulling the plug” is not the serene Lifetime Movie moment where a loved one exhales and serenely slips away.

Mamma’s death mimicked her life. Everything she was, all that she had, she fought for it, she struggled to get it – before and after schizophrenia got her. And yet, even when mental illness took root in her, she fought it, refusing to act on orders from voices no one else could hear. [Read more…]

Why I Hate Mother’s Day

May 10, 2015 By Paolina Milana Leave a Comment

Mom and I, with me wearing the first communion dress she made for me.

Anne Lamott is one of my favorite authors. From the first word I read from her 1995 book “Bird by Bird,” I felt a special bond with this person I had never met. Her recent post on Salon.com wherein she shares her reasons on why she hates Mother’s Day just further underscores why I love her. She writes: “It celebrates the great lie about women: That those with children are more important than those without.”

I must admit that I agree with Anne. I’ve regretted, at times, not having had children, and I’ve felt “less than” other women because of it. But that’s not why I find myself hating Mother’s Day. This year, in particular, I greatly despise it. Maybe it’s because this is the year that my memoir The S Word published. Maybe. Or maybe it’s because on this Mother’s Day, I’m finally allowing myself to feel robbed. My coming of age years, especially, suffered due to my mother’s mental illness. Paranoid schizophrenia did rob me of having a mother. But it’s more than that… [Read more…]