Family – theCauseCoach

Sixty Weeks to 60: Mom – the Last Part

April 15, 2025April 11, 2025thecausecoach

(4 weeks)

In the first year without my dad, I called her every single day without fail. Because she liked to take long walks, I bought her a cell phone and added her to my plan. I probably should have done a better job teaching her how to use it.

“Mom, where were you? I tried calling a few times.”

“I was out for a walk.”

“I bought you a cell phone, so you could take it with you.”

“But it’s not plugged in.”

I made sure she had lots of fun experiences with her daughter and granddaughter, planning lots of activities that first fall. She came trick or treating with us. I brought her to Philadelphia for Homecoming and a La Salle University football game (at the tail end of the school’s decade long revival of the football team that had been dormant since the start of WWII). I think that was her first time back on campus since my graduation weekend.

I took her to lunch at one of my favorite spots on her 80^th birthday, and in June that year she came to watch her granddaughter while I ran a 5k to distract her from it being my dad’s birthday, the first we couldn’t celebrate without him.

When I realized that it might be better to keep her closer, I moved her in with us. It became clear her memory was fading, although, while forgetting more recent history, she dug up memories I had never heard about before.

Left: Mom at 22. Atop my dad’s Plymouth. Elmhurst, Queens. 1949. Right: Mom at 40. With me in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. 1967.

She played hide and seek with her granddaughter. She put a ridiculous amount of money under the kid’s pillow when playing tooth fairy. She’d walk to daily mass. On the way home she’d stop at the library to read the New York Post cover to cover. Then on the final leg home, she’d stop at Brady’s at the Station on Main Street for a late lunch.

That part of our lives was short-lived. I realized we were over our head in providing her with the care she needed. Sometimes she’d wander off and I’d get a call at work. The difficult decision was made to move her to an assisted living residence. Among my regrets is that I couldn’t do more for her and keep her with us. But the dynamic between me, my mom, and my husband was complicated.

After the move, the church never called to see what happened to the elderly women who sat in a pew every morning for close to nine months. The library must not have noticed her there reading each day and didn’t seem to wonder why some books were overdue. The waitress at Brady’s missed her though. She came by the house one day looking for her saying how much she had enjoyed her company and stories and how she had often given her a ride home at the end of her lunch shift.

Left: Mom at 73. With me and my daughter. Mother’s Day. 2000. Right: Mom at 82. First Christmas in memory care assisted living. 2009.

She lasted a year in her first assisted living before she needed more care than they could provide. That was followed by close to two years in a memory care facility. Then a doctor suggested hospice. We found a lovely place where she could live out her days. Except days turned onto months.

She came up on the top of the waitlist for a bed at the Veterans Home. That’s where we spent her last birthday together. April 17, 2012. She was 85. I saw her last on Father’s Day that year. When I visited, she was alert and happy, more lucid than she’d been in months. She seemed excited saying that my dad would be stopping by to pick her up and take her home.

She was gone before dawn on Tuesday.

Please help me support Mercy Home for Boys & Girls with my 60th Birthday Fundraiser. I will be running the United Airlines NYC Half on March 16th. This will be Half Marathon #54. My goal is to reach Half Marathon #60 before the end of the year. Please help me stay motivated, and make sure the children of Mercy Home are provided the care they need. To learn more about Mercy Home and my why, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you.

Sixty Weeks to 60: Truths

April 8, 2025April 7, 2025thecausecoach

(5 Weeks)

A right of passage to adulthood is realizing that you are starting to sound like your parents. You may resist it at first, but usually by the time you become a parent yourself, you fully embrace it. Sometimes, mom’s or dad’s words are the only right words for a given situation.

I have become infamous for starting a sentence with “like my mom always used to say” before sharing a “Maureen-ism.” I am quite certain that my mom got a lot of her sayings from her own Mom. Much of it perhaps coming from Irish folklore passed down for many generations.

If I itched my nose, my mom would say that was a sign of a fight. “Anyone mad at you?” she might ask. Irish folklore claims that an itchy nose is a sign of impending conflict. This could be an argument with someone or even a physical fight. The itchier your nose is, the worse the conflict will likely be.

My mom also insisted that an itchy palm is a sign you’re going to come into money, although I am still waiting on that. Maybe my mom had it wrong. My research suggests that the Irish keep it a bit complicated when it comes to the itching palms and the superstitions related to them. As they say, left to receive, right to give.

I’ve lived my life via my mom’s axioms.

Waste not, want not coupled with her stories of the Great Depression made me very conscious of wasting anything and probably why I have huge collections of little things that I made be able use again.

It takes two to tango was a nice way of her telling me that I was at least partially to blame for whatever trouble I had gotten myself into. Takes one to know one was implied to be the ultimate comeback when someone called me a name. To each his own gave me the understanding of different perspectives and the right for others to see and do things their way.

She also taught me that the peacemakers will see God and maybe that’s why I often saw it as my role to solve conflict among others. Now I believe more along the lines of no good deed goes unpunished and have learned as an older adult it’s best to M.Y.O.B. (mind your own business), which is also something she reminded me of in numerous situations.

I remember a dinner at my friend’s when I dared to challenge her very-religious mother’s stand on abortion. “You can’t expect someone to have a baby they don’t want and can’t afford,” I told her. “God will provide,” was he response. “God helps those who help themselves is what my mother always says.” I shot back.

The one “Maureen-ism” that slips from my lips, fairly unconsciously, almost on a daily basis is six of one; half dozen of the other. Which is often now a polite way of saying something more along the lines of “make a freaking decision, this is not that difficult. It literally does not make a difference.”

My mom was also big on etiquette. I’m not sure if she just read Miss Manners or wrote it. As adult I appreciate knowing the proper way to set a table, which fork to use, how to dress or behave. She taught me to always introduce myself at social gatherings, even if you think the person knows who you are. She gave me confidence in social situations on my own. Although she believed ladies should never drink beer from the bottle, and I may have disappointed her in that regard, she also taught me to never be photographed with a drink in hand. This is a good one and I’ve shared that with colleagues.

My dad wasn’t without his own maxims. His seemed made for the moment, and yet I have often reflected on them as parallels for situations much larger.

Practice makes perfect and keep your eye on the ball, were perfect advice on the softball diamond or basketball court but were good analogies for making it in business.

If you can read, you can cook seemed like an odd thing to say when I wanted to try my hand at cooking a favorite dish, but now – especially with Google at our fingertips – the truth is reading is powerful and opens the door for us to achieve almost anything.

When tucking me into bed after a particularly difficult day, Dad would always remind me, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life. And he was right, each new day is an opportunity to try again, start over. And now I know at almost 60, we are never too old to reinvent ourselves.

And if all else fails, grin and bear it.

Sixty Weeks to 60: My Baby is (almost) 25!

April 1, 2025March 29, 2025thecausecoach

(6 Weeks)

I wasn’t due for another month, but the Monday after the baby shower on April 1^st, I headed over to Baby’s ‘R’ Us to get the balance of the needed items still on the registry – including diapers. Chris thought I was nuts. But it was mother’s intuition already kicking in. Our daughter was born less than a week later, a full four weeks early.

Work was busy as I was putting the final touches on an event that was supposed to take place a day after her due date in May. I figured I’d miss the event but had every intention of working right up until the last moment. We were also doing some renovations in the house and in my big, clumsy state trying to navigate around everything, spilled a can of soda on the TV remote, rendering it useless.

I was given strict orders not to return home after work the next day without first stopping at the cable company to pick up a new one. After feeling uncomfortable all day at work (“boy these Braxton Hicks contractions are horrible; they’re not going to happen the entire last month, are they?”), I headed over to Cablevision securing a new remote, but nothing for dinner. So, we went to the mall for a bite to eat and likely walked over a mile.

My water broke at about 2 a.m. and our daughter was born a little after 8:30 a.m.

Thankfully we worked out the “name issue” already. Back in December, we were convinced she was going to be a he and had the perfect boy’s name picked out. The sonogram set us back. I knew I wanted her to have a more unique name than I had, or her dad had. But we couldn’t agree. With time running out, I suggested we both go make a list of 10 names we liked and then compare. Surely there would be a few overlaps we could discuss!

Neither of us were able to come up with 10 names. Each list contained only five names. And only one name (with the same Gaelic spelling) appeared on both our lists. So that was the name we chose. I thought it sounded lovely, the Gaelic spelling was cool and honored my heritage, and it passed Chris’ “bully test” meaning he couldn’t find any way her name could be used against her on the playground at some point in her future.

Then one day when she was a few months old, I took her to Hillside, New Jersey where Sister John was visiting her brother’s family and would have this opportunity to meet the baby of the baby for whom she had cared. Upon arrival I introduced her to Jimmy Scully, who in his thick brogue, said “What kind of a name is that for a girl? [That] is a boy’s name.”

Although the Gaelic names website we both consulted said it was unisex, it’s way more popular as a boy’s name in Ireland. Have you ever Googled yourself? When she was old enough to do that, all she found was a bunch of Irish boys. For most of her childhood she was mad at me for that and often threatened to change her name.

I still love her name, and I think after 25 years, she’s okay with it now too (I think). I love her no matter what and we’ve been through a lot together. I survived her terrible twos and teen years, watched her overcome challenges and witnessed her growing into a responsible adult, and a beautiful caring human being. I have learned a lot from her.

Ready for the Yankees-Mets Subway Series

My favorite moments are when I go to a concert at one of the venues at which she works in operations. It is so incredible seeing her with all this responsibility, in her element, respected by co-workers and supervisors at all levels.

In addition to a Lollapalooza four-day pass, her birthday present will be something amazingly unique. It started as a Christmas gift from my parents in 1999 before she was born. Everyone important in her life at the time added something to it throughout her first year. It’s made the move from a couple houses, across several states, sat in a storage area here for a few years with marking that say, “don’t open until…” She will get to open it next week.

Happy 25^th Birthday to my one and only baby. You will always be my baby, and I am immensely proud of the adult you are and are still becoming.

Sixty Weeks to 60: Brian

March 11, 2025March 9, 2025thecausecoach

(9 Weeks)

After that summer, we barely spoke of him. If I had anything to say about him, my parents typically changed the subject rather quickly. Although all the family photos that include him are still in my possession. I have proof that he existed. For close to three years, I had called him my brother.

Towards the end of the summer of 1970, as I was getting excited about starting kindergarten, my parents received a phone call from Catholic Charities in Newark. They were looking for foster parents for a 9-year-old boy, who, like me, had been born in Ireland and wound up in New Jersey because of an adoption. Unlike me, for some reason, his adoption didn’t work out.

My parents agreed to take him into our home for a long weekend to see if it was a good fit. I remember the car ride to the Catholic Charities office in Newark. I was so excited about the prospect of having a brother. I don’t believe my parents had been back there since my adoption had been finalized. Catholic Charities was the agency that sponsored my parents on the U.S. side for my adoption and did the necessary background checks and home study.

The weekend visit went really well. Brian was on his best behavior and he and I hit it off. I was so elated about having a big brother and couldn’t wait for him to come back for good. I do think it was my parents’ intention for this to be the road to adoption, imagining that this boy would round out their family nicely.

Brian was back a few weeks later and would be starting 3^rd grade at M.B.S. as “Brian Sheehy” the same day I was starting kindergarten. I didn’t do the math at the time to understand that at 9, he should have been starting 4^th grade. He was already starting school in a difficult place – a year older than most of his classmates.

The “Brian years” were not ones my parents looked upon fondly, and I guess I recognized that things in the house changed as well. Brian, it seemed, was always in trouble for something. A fowl mouth, not doing his homework, being someplace he wasn’t supposed to be, stealing money off my dad’s dresser, then feeling guilty that he put in all in the collection basket at mass. When I looked back on it later in life it all seemed like typical “boy-stuff”. My parents were in over their heads though. Our house went from a tranquil place to a home where there was a lot of anger and yelling.

I learned that Brian had – by age 9! – been in seven foster homes before he landed in ours. After my mom found him smoking in the attic and was convinced he was going to burn the house down, she threw in the towel. Brian would be headed off to foster home #9 after his 12^th birthday that summer.

Continuing to look back on the experience from the perspective of a parent many years later, judging my parents isn’t something I am willing to do. We all try our best. Although there were a lot of actions on their part I still don’t understand. These events are only through the eyes of the child that I was, the child that knew and appreciated Brian as my brother.

The Christmas they put coal in his stocking, “Santa” had given us each a set of pencils with our names on them. Both the “Mary” and “Brian” pencils wound up in the stocking that said “Mary.” When he was having trouble getting his homework done, I – the little “sister” four years his junior – was instructed to go to his teacher at the end of the day to get the assignments and bring them home to my parents.

About once a week we took Brian for counseling at a place in the basement of the Bergen Mall. This was long before the days that people were even talking about getting assistance for mental health issues. My mom would usually be the one who waited – or maybe she went in with him, I don’t know. I just remember the quality time I got to spend with my dad wandering around the mall for an hour.

As the 1972-73 school year was winding down, my parents surprised me saying that I was going to be going to day camp at the local YMCA. They also told me that Brian was going to be going to an overnight camp in upstate New York for the entire summer. They told me he wouldn’t be coming back. I was also told not to tell him that. I was 8.

Of course I told him. But not until July when my dad and I went to visit him at camp for his birthday. And only because he asked. He said he didn’t care. But I could tell he cared. That would be the last time I would see him.

After first connecting with much of my biological family 30 years ago, I reached out to Catholic Charities to see if I could find him. Brian Finn, born in Ireland on July 9, 1961. That’s all I know. It feels weird to be in the possession of all these imagines of his childhood. If only I could at least give them to him. All Catholic Charities could share was that he had aged out at 18 (which would have been 1979), and they had nothing more.

I know from my work in child welfare – adoption, foster care, juvenile justice, and now Mercy Home for Boys & Girls – that kids with difficult upbringings do somehow survive. I hope he is still out there somewhere and looking forward to celebrating his 64^th birthday in July.

Sixty Weeks to 60: Aging Parents

July 30, 2024August 31, 2024thecausecoach

(41 Weeks)

The most challenging – frustrating, sad, overwhelming, disorienting – time in my life was when parents were aging, and my daughter was very young. They had retired and moved to the East End of Long Island in 1988 when I was 23. They were fiercely independent and never asked much of me. They were also very good at taking care of each other.