There have been some rough moments over the last day. I expected returning to Mama and Daddy's house without Mama to be hard and it was. But it was also a comfort. And I expected that pouring through her belongings would be hard. But we instinctively, and with an almost savage fury, began digging through papers and photos. My father, my niece, and I laughed and cried until very late into the night.
I slept fairly well beside my niece. We have clung to each other for days. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I woke up with pain so agonizing that I ran to the den, flung myself on the floor and wailed. I finally pulled myself together enough to know with clarity that my goal is to flush the haunting memories and to capture the good ones for eternity. And so I wrote my previous post about Mama's birth.
After everyone had woken up, we all went back to our furious digging and I found the note shown below. It was written in the early seventies when we had two cats, Gweneviere and Twinkle. My oldest brother, Wade, was entering his nasty teen years. Clay, the middle child, possessed then (and maintains to this day) the biggest heart on earth. My relationship with Mama was ever in flux!
Needless to say she eventually made it to the top of the list. (And then got demoted by my girls, Eleanor and Hazel.)
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But you can't beat my grandboy Aidan on my list. And he likes to kiss our kitty boys.
( I found in my mother's house recently something I made in elementary school for a Mother's Day or something: A Book About Me it was called. Toward the back were headings and full colored stick figures of "Here is my dad, counting his money," and "Here is my mom, eating rolls." Gawd, can you imagine being known for eating rolls?)
Keep on truckin.' You're doing good.
Needless to say, when my older brother (who was about 11) initiated a contest to draw the funniest picture of our Mother, I thought Mom was an easy target. I was only about four years old, but had sufficient talent to clearly depict rollers and a big green butt. My Mom somehow found my drawing and the subject was obvious (the entries drawn by my older brothers mysteriously disappeared). The picture went up on the fridge, and Mom refuse to talk or look at me for days. I was devastated. I begged and pleaded for forgiveness, drew alternative pictures that were flattering (my Mom was beautiful so pretty much anything without the rollers was flattering), but to no avail. After a couple weeks or so, which seemed like an eternity to me, she forgot about it. I feel badly to this day, but she never wore those damn rollers again.