Summer

Long lazy summer days, cool beautiful nights, beaches, breezes, stars, golden tans, good books, late parties, but most of all love. 1

These were the things I had imagined when I pictured myself moving in with my mother. 2

I had even written them down in my planner nearly forty times. Because at the time I had truly believed I would have the best summer of my life. Maybe because I would be with her once again…3

My parent’s got a divorce when I very little. It was the last time I saw my mother too. Though every birthday she wrote me a letter, and sent me a pretty dress straight out of a Saks magazine. The last time I saw her smiling face, and dancing green eyes was when I was three. Dad doesn’t keep any pictures of her in the house. Not because he hates her, or because it would be weird, but because he’s still in love with her despite being remarried. Even at the small age of four I knew this, by the pained expression he4

Grew from the mention of her name. Sandra. So why did they get divorce you may ask? For one simple reason…you can’t live off of love. At least that’s what Dad tells me. Long ago before he was a rich businessman. He and my mother were nothing but dreamers, starving artist, that thought love would carry them through life. Back when the ‘mama’s and papa’s’ were the biggest thing on the radio, and when it didn’t matter if you hadn’t finished high school, there was always a job waiting for you at a factory. 5

Never living in one place, always moving, never knowing how they would get food for the next day, or where they would make there money, never worrying about it though. That was there life from what dad tells me, and from the Diary entry my mother accidentally left in her drawer. Before she left. 6

August 13, 1966 7

MY PLAN FOR TODAY8

Eat some apples from Kimmy’s tree 9

Paint a little in the afternoon 10

Walk to the market and try to sell some paintings11

Wait for Eric, and ask him to read to me. 12

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard him read to me. Long time since I’ve seen him read anything. With any luck I will sell my paintings, and we will be able to move on from Kimmy’s.13

Love and peace 14

Sandra Lyn Ferro15

This was my Mom’s life. My father was a little more realistic, but still a dreamer just likes her, and I firmly believe if it hadn’t been for my birth they would still be here together. As gypsies, artists, lovers. 16

My father thinks different. He believes it would have eventually ended anyway. The baby just ended it a lot quicker. My father was ready for me, but my mother was still a child herself. The idea of me was crazy. As childish as she was she knew that if she couldn’t take care of herself, she definitely couldn’t take care of a baby. She stayed with me, and my father for three years though, all three of us cramped in a one-room apartment. Kimmy (Mom’s sister) took care of me during that time. While Dad worked various jobs, and Mom tried to sell her paintings at weekend art markets. 17

For a while it seemed like we would make it too. Dad was making okay money working as bar tender for a small restaurant his friend own, and Mom was selling her paintings, along with dresses Kimmy made out of shirts. 18

It seemed the better off we got the more we seemed to be driving away from mom’s dream though. I’m not sure exactly how they parted my mom and my dad, but Kimmy once told me that they couldn’t even look at each other. Fearing they wouldn’t be able to let go. My father still can’t. I’m not sure if my mom feels the same way she never mentions him in her letters, but I guess I will soon find out. 19

My sixteenth birthday has just passed, and in a recent letter I have just been invited to stay the summer with her. My half sister Becky asks me why I would want to go live with someone who abandoned me? But did Sandra abandon me? 20

Or was it that we both just knew she wouldn’t be able to take care of me. She could’ve left and never spoken to me again. She could’ve written me out of her life. But she continued to write to me every year on June 27th. You bet I’m going to take this chance, to finally see those dancing green eyes again. 21