Leaving to Return: A Woman's Way Home
“Most of us learned to normalize the incredible.” ~Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir
"If you have a deep scar, that is a door,
if you have an old, old story, that is a door.
If you love the sky and the water, so much,
you almost cannot bear it — that is a door.
If you’re yearning for a deeper life, a fuller life, a Sane Life — that is a door."
~ Clarissa Pinkola Esté
Welcome. I’m happy you are here. ✨ Thank you for reading. With the joy of spring in the air, may daffodils, tulips, and snowdrops brighten your days. 🌷
In the fall of 2013, the golden leaves were letting go. My mother wasn’t.
She was tending, adapting, normalizing—raking and gathering auburn leaves, as she did every autumn—until the abdominal pain she’d been hiding finally buckled her to the ground.
Camille was 83 years old at the time.
I remember the wellspring of love that flowed through her life, her quiet strength—carrying and caring for more than she ever spoke of, like a gentle stream.
Early on, I was fiercely attached to her apron strings, imitating her elegant multitasking. At about age three, when I could climb rickety stairs without a handrail, I followed her strawberry-blond bun into the chilly basement. She fed wet laundry through two rollers on our electric washing machine; I stood tall on a milk crate and pulled them out the other side, handing her clothespins to hang them on the line.
In the kitchen, I climbed up on a footstool to mix eggs, milk, butter, sugar, and flour for cakes and loaves of bread. At age five, I baked vanilla or chocolate cakes in my Easy-Bake Oven for my brothers, but nothing felt sweeter than sifting flour and sugar at her side, singing along to Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog, Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven, or Little Richard’s Good Golly Miss Molly.
I only remember living at #373, the three-story house with five bedrooms and one bathroom—not counting the free-standing toilet in the cellar. Mom sold the old grey house in the late seventies after most of us were out of high school. Little Max, my baby brother, came to live with me after a bad LSD trip. Tracy, the youngest, stayed with my oldest sister Pamela until she graduated—for good reasons.
It was my brother Joe, a year older than me, who was living with Mom when he rushed her to the emergency room.
Her body was on fire, ready to explode. The lump inside her intestines had grown to the size of a cantaloupe—but it wasn’t soft and juicy; it was hard, like clay left out in the sun too long.
As kids, Joe sat next to me on Sundays at Saint John the Baptist Church, a block beyond Grandma G’s house, who was sure to watch that we kept the Lord’s Day holy. We lined up according to age in hand-me-down skirts or suits and piled all ten of us into our 1965 Ford Country Squire. I was the fifth child, with Joe on one side and Barbara on the other, burping or whispering to stir up a raucous.
My mom seemed intent on outshining her sister’s tidy family of nine—who, one by one, turned their heads from the front pew to gawk at our late arrival. Sometimes after mass, she’d take us to visit their immaculate hillside home—a shiny new station wagon in the driveway, a miniature golf course and swimming pool in the backyard, and a roast in the oven.
We kids drank lemonade while the adults drank Genesee beer. And without fail, on the drive home, after her two beers, my mom would say,
“I can’t believe she irons her sheets. How does she find the time to polish the silver?”
Then she’d wink at me with a half-smile.
“My sister’s chocolate cake will never top my sweet, buttery Pineapple Upside-Down Cake.”
My mom was a natural creative. In winter, she transformed our backyard into an ice-skating rink with trails that led to snow caves. In summer, she marked four bases and a pitcher’s mound for kickball or strung up a net for volleyball, reserving space for vegetables and rhubarb for pie.
In the kitchen, she crafted casseroles from her lush harvest or friendly exchanges with neighbors. When the family purse dwindled, she busied herself catering weddings, parties, and summer camps—tending to what was needed to keep us afloat.
My father sank into a darkness that came with phone calls from jails to post bail—sometimes for him, sometimes for one of my brothers who followed in his wake. Or worse, hospitals ringing to announce someone in critical condition.
I was eleven or twelve when I thought we were all going to hell in a boot.
My father’s addiction to booze and gambling spiraled into crippling gout, shady jobs, and monstrous blame for his demise—too many kids, he said. My oldest brother bore the worst of it. My father sent him off to Berkshire Farms for Bad Boys like an incurable disease.
Mom stopped saving dinner, but he didn’t stop yelling, “Camille, where’s my supper?” at three in the morning after the bars closed. Bruised and weary, she did what was needed to feed the children and our dogs.
She stopped going to confession and told Father Clancy to go to hell. The YMCA became our church—swimming laps, an act of kindness to reflect, a religion she turned to when the sacraments of the Church denied her the right to divorce, practice birth control, or resources to cope with domestic violence beyond Father Clancy’s advice:
“Say your prayers, dear child. The Good Lord will provide.”
One afternoon, I arrived home and found her standing at the kitchen sink, her head pressed against the windowpane, MacArthur Park blasting over the radio.
"Someone left the cake out in the rain. I don’t think that I can take it, ’cause it took so long to bake it, and I’ll never have that recipe again... oh no..."
Oh no was right. She was done. Soon, she would surprise all of us. She left.
If you’ve ever peeled an onion, you know that one slippery layer reveals another…
I was at her side for two days before she opened her eyes, reminiscing about days gone by. The jobs we had together—at summer camps, the old folks’ home, catering special events, and the Buffalo University commissary. A job she excelled at until retirement—one that strengthened the camaraderie between us and gave me opportunities she never had, like a college education.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but she was teaching me to be a feminist, a breadwinner, a woman who could stand on her legs and thrive. Most of all, a woman who tended to life and loved deeply. She became a confidante to students, serving meals and offering motherly hugs when they were homesick.
I recalled her visits when I ventured into the world—our hike to the top of Mount Chocorua at fifty, swimming across Whitton Pond, sitting on the edge of her seat when I spoke at twelve-step programs, and sharing long conversations over tea in Mrs. Perkins’ kitchen on Beacon Hill.
In the early 1980s, Boston was a key city for grassroots organizing in second-wave feminism: women’s health, bodily autonomy, domestic violence, and sexual assault advocacy.
I asked her, "Why did you leave us?"
“I had to leave so I could return with a stable income, a bank account, and the strength to remove your father,” she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks—perhaps ashamed of the stigma placed on women to endure at all costs.
I remember the day she returned—months later—fortified with judo lessons, set on divorce, ready to take over the house deed and toss my father out.
In her bedroom on East Avenue, her surroundings were simple: hanging plants in the windows, framed photos of her children and grandchildren, stacks of newspapers, TIME magazines, and books like The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, and Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love—with this line highlighted:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
Two days later, as the first light eased through her lace curtains, she opened her eyes.
“Where am I?” she asked. “What happened to me? I can’t lift my legs. What happened?”
She recognized me immediately, but she wasn’t the same wise old woman I spoke with most Sundays.
In those final weeks, I saw her—and met her—as I never had before.
Not as the woman who couldn’t walk or read, but as the woman who loved fiercely, gave endlessly, and taught me what it means to leave, return, and fight for what matters most.
Once her reality sank in, she surrendered to the inevitable with delicate generosity.
I’m still processing how medical professionals get away with overdosing vulnerable patients to the point of disability—or death.
Cherished by many, she welcomed visits from friends and family. Though no longer a practicing Catholic, when my oldest sister arranged for Father Patrick to perform last rites, her smile glowed encircling all eight children around her bed, hands held, heads bowed, praying the Our Father aloud, weeping. Before the priest left, she said,
“Father Clancy, you came.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony.
I stayed at her bedside, bearing witness to her redemption before the curtain closed.
“Where is Hank?” she asked. “I miss him. You know, we had a lot of fun together.”
“Why did my sister and brother always call me baby sis? That’s okay. I love them so much.”
As I listened, I found myself in a liminal space with her—not here or there—intimate and peaceful, without fear.
When my oldest daughter hugged her goodbye, she teared up and said,
“I want to come back as one of your children.”
Autumn smiled. “Grandma, that would be wonderful.”
And yesterday, March 19, was my mother Camille’s 95th birthday. 🎉💫
Dear reader, pause for a quiet moment.
Remember your tender heart—and how loved you are. Slowing down to receive, rest, and relax out of productivity is not a pathology. We are meant to enjoy the fragrance of daffodils, tulips, and snowdrops—as we walk barefoot, tend the land, and give thanks to our great mother.
💜✨ Let’s have a conversation:
Have you ever had to leave—so you could return and reclaim your life?
with love, Prajna
P.S. After my mom’s sudden death, I changed my last name to O’Hara, her maiden name, and dropped ‘Ginty.’ This is one way I remember her, by hearing her name.
Thank you to
for your book that warmed my mother, for shining…#women + feminism #philosophy + spirituality #mothers #health +wellness
So beautiful.
@Jodi Sh. Doff thank you for sharing.