Category: Memories

I was thinking back to the days of my youth. I grew up in Falmouth, Massachusetts, before the rapid growth and over-building. Back when it was a small town and a great place to live and grow up.
The first house I lived in was on Clipper Lane. It was a nice house and I had my own room.

What my childhood home looks like today.

But more often than not I would find myself sleeping in my sister’s bed in the morning. Nightmares and sleepwalking.
I had a brother and a sister. My brother and I weren’t very close. My sister and I were and still are.

My brother was much older then I and I think he just sort of resented this cute little kid running around the house trying to be a part of everything.
My room was over the kitchen and the back door. I could see everyone come in or go out and I could also listen to the voices of my parents talking at the table there. Sometimes good talk, sometimes bad. But I could always know what was happening.
The great thing about my room was the storm windows. They were the old fashioned kind that was fit on for the winter and then taken off and a screen would be put on for the summer.

In the winter I could put up the window and sit with my feet on the radiator and keep them warm while I played with my Barbie dolls. The window sill area was their “loft apartment” with tissue boxes for beds or sofas and thimbles for stools or lamps.

Janet and me!

My cousin Janet and my sister played with me too. We would play for hours and hours. Back in the ’60s when Janet and I played, my dolls would be Paul and Linda McCartney and hers would be Mick and Bianca Jagger. For hours and hours, we escaped into this wonderful world.
We made clothes for the dolls too. Out of scrap material from my mother’s sewing supplies. I remember seeing my Barbie’s looking like a real glamour Queen, even though I am sure the outfits were terribly designed and badly sewn.

But to Janet and me it didn’t matter.

February 4th would have been my Grandma Honey’s 122nd birthday. It’s difficult to imagine her at that age. She passed from this world into the next 36 years ago. She was a very important woman in my life and taught me so much. Even now, I miss her like crazy!

Here she is, Mary Frances Daniell the day she married my Papa, Frederick Carl Prussman.

Here is a picture of Mel and me with our much loved, Grandma Honey, at Goodwill Park.

Grandma Honey and Papa Fred. Theirs was truly an epic love story! They met when they were less than ten years old. Grandma was friends with Papa’s sister, Katchen, and spent a lot of time at the house teaching Katchen to speak English. The family had recently arrived from Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, and aside from the eldest sister, Hedwig, who worked as a Nanny, no one spoke a lot of English.

Anyway, Papa always said he fell in love with her then, and as a teenager, he would chase off any beau that tried to court her. My great grandfather eventually allowed them to become engaged but insisted that Mary finish college before they married.

They were married until Mary eventually passed from this life to the next. He joined her 8 months later.

Today would have been my dearest friend, Candy’s birthday. Last year I sent her a 3 lb wheel of Vermont Cheddar Cheese and New Hampshire Maple Syrup. The year before I sent her a Red Velvet Cake, her favorite.

I sang her happy birthday and all was well. Neither one of us knew that last year would be her very last birthday on this earth.

Just over a month later, Candy was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I will never forget the night she called me. She had just gone to a walk-in clinic for her cough. They x-rayed her lungs and found the masses.

She called me sitting in her car in the parking lot. She knew. I kept trying to explain away what the doctors had found, but Candy being a nurse knew.

How lucky I was to have been her friend all of these years. We could go for a while not talking on the phone and then one of us would call the other and it was like we just talked yesterday. It was always easy to talk to Candy. She understood me in so many ways, that no one else did.

When Candy and her husband visited us back in 2013, they both fell in love with our Greta. So much so that a few months later they got their very own wire-haired dachshund. Aurora went everywhere with Candy and she was the real joy in her life.

Candy was an identical twin. I wrote to her sister Mary and spoke to her last week. Needless to say, she is feeling an unimaginable loss. I knew this would be very hard for her. Firsts are the worst.

I was not only blessed to have been Candy’s friend all these years but during her last days on this earth, I was able to give back to my friend all that she had given me, by caring for her.

Oh, how I miss this wonderful woman. But as I told her the last time I saw her, “Love never dies, Candy. I will see you next in God’s Garden”.

Happy Heavenly Birthday!