Remembering

Today would have been my mother’s 92nd birthday. She passed away in 2006 at the age of 84 and I’ve been thinking of her off and on all week. Back in 2006, when she began to go downhill, I booked a flight to California in order to help my sister, Ginny, who was caring for her. My two other sisters also planned to come so that Ginny would have at least one of us there with her for about a month. I ended up staying an extra week, and there were two days that we all overlapped and so there we were, my aging parents and all four of their girls in my sister’s little house in sunny California. I had helped arrange for Hospice to come in as soon as I got there and our mother continued to decline but she surprised me one day when I asked her what was her favorite time in her life? She had raised seven children, had a wonderful marriage, and through the ups and downs, had experienced much happiness in her years. So when she told me that her favorite time was right now, it baffled all of us. I told her I thought it was the morphine that was talking. (We were giving her a very low dose just to control the pain). No, she said, her favorite time was at this moment now. “All my girls are here with me and they are caring for me and I know that they love me”.

Her death brought all of my sisters closer – and we had been close already. We began group e-mailing each other, mainly with the minutia of our lives but often because we just needed to talk. I would often add pictures at the end of my e-mails and it was this reason that I began to blog. I wanted the pictures and the words to look better than they did on a plain e-mail. The blog was open to my sisters only, and eventually I just went public (although I never say anything too private like I would to them of course).

We still e-mail regularly.

 

It’s been freezing cold all week. Sometimes it gets up to about 55 in the afternoons and Tuesday was a total bust with downpours all day long. The buds are finally coming out on the dogwood trees, but only just barely. The azalea bush in the front of the house is still not blooming although it has a profusion of buds ready to burst forth.

 

Someone woke me up really early this morning.

 

I tried to fall back to sleep after letting him out but it was not happening. So I came downstairs and we played fetch until he tired out.

It’s gray and cold this morning.

 

And I think somebody needs a walk soon.

And someone else needs more coffee ~

Hope your weekend is peaceful. Thanks so much for coming by.