What Would Mary Lou Have Been Like at 88?

Today is Mary Lou's birthday, and her daughter, Laurie (also known as my half-sister from my father's first marriage), is here with a guest post.

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Today we celebrate the birth of my mom, Marylou Bowen Sellers James.  She was born October 16, 1938 and would have been 88.

Very recently, I had the opportunity to visit with my cousin Linda.  She is the daughter of my mother’s brother, Bobby.  Bobby was Mom’s only sibling and was ten years older.  He was married to Jean and they had four children, Bobby Jr., Linda, Douglas, and Mark.

My Uncle Bob and Aunt Jean got divorced, then Jean and the kids moved to California, so there was little opportunity to see my cousins in my younger years.  My mother and her brother were not very close.  He passed away at 54, and I only remember a few occasions that we were all together.

My meeting with Linda was significant, as we had not seen each other since we were very young.  I wish I could say we just picked up where we left off, but the truth is we only have snippets of events where we were together.  Regardless, it was enlightening and one of the highlights of our vacation.

We started with cocktail hour and quickly jumped to talking about Marylou and Jean, both of us sharing stories about being raised by pretty strong-willed and maybe just a little bit crazy women.  We filled in some timeline blanks to the best of our ability and made sense of which states we were each in at particular times in our lives.

I particularly enjoyed Linda’s stories about our grandmother, Louise Gaynor Bowen Toppa, and her relationship with my cousins, although some of the stories surprised me.  Apparently my cousins had the young, peppy, and adventurous grandmom and I had the stoic, serious grandmom!

Of course, the grandmom I had was wonderful and loving, taking me on trips to various little towns between New Jersey and Rhode Island.  Grandmom would have me for long periods of time and we would explore Rhode Island with Grandpop Tony.  Then she moved to New Jersey, then to California, where I discovered that she was quite a golfer and she introduced me to shuffleboard.  She taught me about antiques and how to knit, and tried to share her love for postcard collecting.  She let me wear ALL her costume jewelry AT ONCE, so I could sing to her while standing on the ottoman in her living room.  She was a treasure and I’m not complaining, but it sounded like my cousins got the crawling around on the floor playing with toys grandmom, and, I have to admit, I was just a little envious . . . for a blink.

Which brings us back to the birthday girl.  I already knew that Marylou was a handful, often defying her mother.  Marylou shared plenty of those stories with me, adding that Grandmom was kind of strait-laced and always wanted her to "act like a lady", something that my mother definitely was not!

Over the course of the cousin reunion, Linda and I were slowly putting together each of our timelines, where we lived and where our timelines overlapped.  I mentioned that I lived in so many places because my mother had wanderlust and, by my mother’s account, our grandmother ended up living in so many places because she was chasing after my mother.

That’s when I was enlightened!  Linda stopped me in my tracks when she said, "Grandmom wasn’t chasing after Marylou, she was worried about YOU!"

This story is bittersweet.

There are so many versions of a life story.  Sometimes you hear a version that makes sense.

Thank you, Louise Gaynor Bowen Toppa.

Thank you, Marylou Bowen Sellers James.

Thank you, Cousin Linda.