I have seen my name – Ann Catherine Hurley – on a gravestone. In fact, I have seen my name on two gravestones.
Even though I never met my grandmother, “Mama Annie,” or my Aunt Katie, I was named after them. The more I learn about them, the more I realize that their legacies live on inside me.
Loyal, outgoing, strong, caring, independent and creative – these are traits I am honored to share with them.
Mama Annie was not only our family matriarch, but she was also a mother to everybody. Her heart was big; it often extended beyond the confines of her home and the 10 children she provided for. She was always taking in strays: kids invited in from the convenience store across the street, neighbors’ kids and friends of her children. If there was someone who she knew wasn’t being provided for, they had a place in her home.
Like her mother, Katie was protective to the core and loyal to the bone. She put her six sisters before herself and truly believed that they deserved the best in life. If a man Katie was interested in asked her to dinner on a night she had plans with my mom – her much younger baby sister – she said no, every time, without fail. Katie worked as a cocktail waitress with one of her younger sisters, and whenever men would hit on her sister, she shooed them away. These men knew not to mess with or cross Katie. What she said was law. My aunt tells me that Katie was not afraid to speak her mind.
Like Katie, I wear my heart on my sleeve, and like Mama Annie, my heart has always been notably big. Whenever I found someone alone at a lunch table, I befriended them and brought them into my group. I hated seeing anyone alone, especially when I could tell it wasn’t by choice. It is said that Hurleys will give you the shirt off their back. I would give crayons, pencil lead and notebook paper to anyone who needed it. My generosity knew no bounds, but it would quickly get rescinded from those I had given it to if they hurt one of my own. Beyond losing the privilege to share my belongings, they were likely to receive a serious tongue lashing. My family comes first.
Mama Annie not only dedicated her life to taking care of her 10 children, but she also prioritized being a wife to her husband. He would get back from his third job at midnight. Every night at 11 p.m., like clockwork, she would take a bath and ready herself for his arrival. Their romance never ended. Maybe this is where the hopeless romantic in me comes from: a grandmother who literally got up in the middle of the night to do laundry, giving up sleep to spend time with her husband. Maybe this is why my mom gets up hours earlier than she would need so that she can help my dad get out the door on days when he has an hour-long commute and a 6 a.m. start time.
Katie was wonderfully creative. She was able to spin poems as if it were as easy as breathing. She knew how to draw a picture that caught attention, although she did not have the privilege of going to college or having any special training in writing or the arts. Katie struggled to see a life for herself that was as good as the ones she saw for those around her.
I have been an artist since before I can even remember. My mom gave me blank paper instead of coloring sheets, signed me up for art class before kindergarten when she noticed my interest on it and always encouraged me to do what I felt passionate about.
Katie didn’t have that. With nine siblings, there isn’t much money for lessons or after-school activities. There wasn’t even money for kid number three to go to college.
Every advantage that Katie did not have was bestowed upon me. It is as if Katie and Mama Annie are my fairy godmothers, smiling down on me with pixie dust and wands.
I am beyond grateful for the life I have and for the opportunities I have been afforded that the women only one generation before me weren’t. I may be sick of spending my afternoons and evenings painting for my art course, and the fumes from the oil paints may make me slightly dizzy, but I get to be here. I get to be here finishing my last semester of my college education. I get to take a creative writing class where I learn to write about my own life. Not only do I have the freedom to make my own choices, but I also have the agency to speak about them.
Mama Annie drank hot tea out of a plastic tumbler all year long, all day long. Maybe this memory is the reason why my mom started a tradition of drinking tea with me when I was little. My grandmother would sit at the kitchen table between the hours of 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., drinking her tea, at the ready to receive the children who sought her counsel. She would ask, “What’s going on in your young life?” and really care about the answer.
On nights when my mom and I are in the same house, both growing up, we sit on the couch and just talk about anything and everything: work or school, boys and heartbreak, life paths for the future and how much we love each other. Some of my favorite memories are curled up on the couch with my mom, each of us clasping a cup of tea in our once-cold hands, sometimes with a movie that is more of a fountain of tears than an actual movie playing while I cuddle up next to her.
The warmth of these women cannot possibly be conveyed through the confines of the written word. You’d just have to feel it. And I am lucky to say I can feel them with me every day.
It’s not the same as knowing them, and it never will be, but I am grateful for the memories that have been passed down to me. I am the eldest daughter of the youngest of Mama Annie’s 10 children, and I get to know the joy and the pain that was never mine.
