family

Lorraine’s Sunshine

Photo courtesy of Kerri Liss

Photo courtesy of Kerri Liss

By Kerri Liss

You are my sunshine

Hi, pumpkin! You are so beautiful. You are the prettiest girl in that picture. Do you want to see a funny picture of when I was a cheerleader at St. Mary's? Oh those nuns were just awful! They used to make girls sit in the boys’ room if you did anything wrong. I used to walk to school every day up Mount Vernon Street, you know Mount Vernon Street, with the big hill? I'd walk up every day with my curlers in my hair bouncing up and down, up and down, and then I'd go straight to the locker room and set my hair with the pins and everyone used to say, “Oh Lorraine! You have beautiful hair.” Really they did! You wouldn't believe it now. Jeez, I'm lucky if I can even get a clump big enough to put one pin on my head! You must take after me, beautiful.

My only sunshine

You see we were poor growing up and we just didn't have what you people have. You don't know how lucky you are.

You make me happy

Remember that time that you fell down in the snow when you were hiding the Easter eggs in the backyard? Ha, we'll never forget it. I remember you looked back laughing at yourself and it was beautiful. You kind of gave away the hiding place though, Gram. Or what about those times I would dress up in your fur coat and heels, or better yet, dress the boys up in your coats and dresses! We laughed so hard. I know you thought I was so clever. I was though! On Saturday nights when you all were watching television in the den, I was busy at your round kitchen table memorizing the alphabet backwards just for fun. Then you would brag to everyone how smart I was. We'd soon end up getting everyone involved and then busting out Connect Four. You loved games and loved to have fun. Almost as much as you loved me. And shopping.

When skies are grey

That night we got the call. I just knew things weren't good. What do you mean she gave it all away? Well, how much? All of it? Well isn't there anything you can do?

You'll never know, Dear

I never saw the way he looked at you, but I know he loved you and I know you loved his blue eyes. I didn't know him, but you told me he was the sweetest, most kind man. He would work all day and then study his engineering at night in the den. And he would drive to Boston every day! He would leave at four in the morning! He was a great man. I sometimes wish now that we could have talked more about him. I think we would have gotten along really well. I can't wait to meet him.

How much I love you

Hi, princess! Do you know how much I love you? Grammy loves you so much! And don't you ever forget it! I know everything you did, every worry you had, every thought, idea, phone call, and intention was only for love of us. I love you too. I think you're marvelous and I think you did your very best. You were a strong woman and I wish you didn't try to convince yourself so.

Please don't take

It was hard to see you leave your house of 50 years. Though I couldn't wait to take that wallpaper down. It was hard to hear you say that you didn't think we cared for you. It was hard to hear you talk like that. But the hardest was when you forgot. The day you didn't know who I was. Your best friend. Or when you couldn't be at my graduation. Not because you didn't want to. Just because you couldn't and it isn't your fault. I wanted you to meet my kids someday and you would love them even more than you loved me! Can you believe it? And you would be proud of me, of course, you were always proud of me. And maybe, just maybe, you would be proud of yourself for being a single mother for many of your parenting years. You raised a good man, the first man I ever loved and ever will love.

My

You showered us with gifts every December. You didn't just give us what we wanted, you gave us more. You showed me how great His gifts are and will be. You showed me a glimpse of heaven with every Christmas. I know it isn't about the gifts they say, but it actually was. Because you were there and you are a gift to me. And then we would wake up and have a birthday breakfast just to do it all over again! Your love was as close to infinite as humanly possible.

Sun

I knew it was about to happen, I could hear it in mother's voice. That's why I drove up that night to see you. Can I just have a few minutes with her? Hail Mary. When I looked at you, you seemed so peaceful and I remembered our song. Do I see a smile? Can you hear me? I only hear my voice this time. It's nothing like that voice of yours.

Shine

Hand squeeze.

Away

Release.

For more essays, check out our full archive. 

From Protestors to Yuppies: How the Hippy Generation Sold Out and is Now Candy Crushing Our Country

From this to "corporations are people too!"

From this to "corporations are people too!"

By Daniel Ford and Dave Pezza

I didn’t mean to poke the bear.

I usually get people going consciously. I’ve been in the mood to read/listen to something really rant-y and sassy all week, but I didn’t knowingly cause Dave Pezza to type so fast and angrily that his keyboard cracked from the pressure on Thursday morning. It started innocently enough. We were trading jokes back and forth about a variety of topics—free trade, the GM bailout, our generation—when I sent this reply:

“My father’s generation protested their brains out. We’ve got Occupy Wall Street.”

Well.

That’s really all Dave needed to get fired up.

I more or less sat back and watched as Dave proceeded to melt my computer screen. By the time you read this, he may or may not be protesting somewhere. You’ve been warned.

Dave Pezza Unleashed

Your father’s generation had something to give a shit about, we don’t.

However, they took all that away from us and then became the very people they were fighting against. Our generation has to fight a war of abstracts, not policy. And we don’t have the means to do so, mainly because we have been convinced that we are not capable of thinking and contributing unless we are 25, have had at least four years of college education, and have amassed enough debt to keep the banks happy. Last time I checked, an 18-year-old was a legal adult. Maybe we should spend less time protecting our “children” and more time culminating our young adults.

If you really consider the modern college system, it’s basically a system of generating money and a way to keep a generation of young adults financially dependent on the banking system. All the while, our ideas and experiences are degraded to juvenile notions when most of our parents’ generation was married with budding careers and children by the age of an average college senior.

(Daniel: “Um, is your keyboard on fire?” Dave: “Quite possibly.”)

I have a very strong and pissed off opinion about our parent’s generation. They have screwed up royally and refuse to admit to it. Don’t get me wrong, every generation has had hardships. But at least past generations recognized the impediments in their way. Ours is too distracted by bullshit like social media and inane, paltry complaints like Occupy Wall Street.

Just food for thought: The yuppies that our parent’s generation became are just now screwing us. Just one example is that we can’t own homes because they illegally decided that they were going to destroy the housing market. After working with a real-estate attorney for nine months and taking Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and US Bank to court for very obvious, but legally vague, widespread fraud, I have little to no respect for the opinions of older people who call my generation lazy. They could not have uttered a more ignorant statement in regards to the present economic conditions, and they are doing a grave injustice to the ideas that should have been passed down to them from their parents, who were one of the greatest generations of Americans in our short history.

(Daniel: “This is the best part of my day…and the saddest. My editor mind: ‘How can I compile this into a rant post?’” Dave: “Haha well I’m full of this shit, so if you need more, just poke the bear.” Daniel (to himself): “I’m willfully poking Dave with a stick at this point.”)

Point in case: NPR is running a profile on Candy Crush right now. There is a “gaming expert” literally explaining what Candy Crush is.

Holy damn.

I think, ultimately, people from the prior generation realized that getting money and improving their lives through the economic boom of the 1990s was far easier and more convenient than sticking to their ideals. Essentially, they got lazy. It just became way easier for them to stop giving a shit and ride out the system they thought they created. Little did they know that their whole "system" was just poising the country for the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. They all just sat back and thought, "Wow look how right and justified we were."

Wrong.

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