Janet Ma'ly:  

Life I've lived in Chicago all my life, but it's been anything but mundane. In the 60's while attending North Park Academy, some may remember I met a Cuban boy (the Cubans came in droves to Chicago during those years as refugees after Castro turned Communist) and I promptly learned Spanish to communicate with them all. I took four years of French in high school but who do you speak French with in Chicago? I relearned my French (admittedly poorly) more recently on the internet with some very patient French-speaking people on IM. I began college at Northeastern but ended up going to live in Miami, where my Cuban boyfriend had moved, for about 4 months. I came back, took another trimester of college and then decided it was more relevant to help the Cuban refugees than to study anthropology (ugg!). I translated for them, took them to job interviews or the public aid office, and I taught them English in their homes. In 1970 I began to work at the telephone company as an operator but by March of 1971, I left to have my first son. For me being a mom was my most important job and continued to be until my children were all in school full time. In 1973 I married my first husband, a Mexican man, and in 1975 we had our first son together (my second) and then in 1980, I had my daughter. I worked with the PTA and the Bilingual Council at my children's school. I even was flown down to Springfield to speak before the powers that be there to request that funding for the bilingual programs be continued. We bought our first home in the Northcenter area on the north side of Chicago in 1986. By 1993, after 20 years of marriage, I was divorced. My husband, at 50 years of age, had become a cocaine addict and we finally separated and then divorced. I was alone raising my children for 10 years, working providing child care in private homes on the north shore and working nights at an Osco Drug Store as a photo technician in the one-hour photo department (3/05 disability, 9/05: S.S.;3/06: officially retired). In 2000 with two of my children each with a son (yeah, I'm a grandma!) and living on their own I finally felt I needed to find someone with whom to share the rest of my life. I had begun to use the internet. I enjoyed traveling to meet some of the people I met online, in the US and one family in Montreal, Canada. I flew to Paris to meet a Turkish man I fell in love with online, but he had forgotten to tell me he is still legally married. I came home despondent but a month later met (again online, but fortunately already here in Chicago) the man I would marry, a Palestinian man from Jordan. We were together just 5 years when sadly he asked for a divorce; we were both unhappy as our expectations of marriage were very different; we remain friends. I now live just south outside Chicago in Summit, IL with my godson for whom I am legal guardian now. He's 16 and being a "mom" again of a teenager at the ripe old age of 60 was not in "my" plans but it seems it was in God's for me. I call on Him a lot to help me cope and pray that together we will get this young man on the right track into adulthood. I also live with my little rescued Scottish terrier Pippen, my daughter's little "teddy bear" dog, Lego, and my lineolated parakeet, Iri, who talks. And I enjoy my five grandchildren (Ismael 12/06 and brother Joaquín 2/00) and Joshua 4/02 and sister Arianna 12/05 and brother Noah 5/08) when they come to visit. I am blessed that all my children and their families are still living in Chicago. My life has had many ups and downs, joys and heartaches. But through it all, one thing has remained constant. My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever. He holds me up when I am weak, He brings me joy even in the difficult times, and He is ever faithful to all His promises to me. All that I am and have I owe to Him, and without Him I am nothing. I guess I am entering the sunset of my life, but knowing Who waits for me on the other side gives me peace. All my immediate birth family are gone now. Both my brothers died way too young, my father also, and my mother, my dear sweet mother who taught me most of all how to love God first above all things, has gone on to be with the Lord as well. Ah, but knowing that we will meet again someday..beyond the sunset, as they say..has made our sad parting but a temporary thing for we will spend eternity together in the presence of our loving God. School At Hawthorne, I remember playing some sort of snake game on the playground. And what fun at Halloween when we'd parade around the block/neighborhood in our costumes. I remember at Hibbard, with the majority of students being Jewish, we'd...Expand for more