My mother’s day was made over the weekend by a visit from an old friend of my brother’s and his wife. While my brother hasn’t seen this friend in decades, my mom had seen the couple off and on through the years about town – or stopping by in her car to say ‘hello’ if she saw either of them in their yard. She thought the world of them but didn’t necessarily expect they felt even remotely the same. When Christmas rolled around this past December, and they didn’t receive a card from my mom, it made them consider the…
Mom.Writer.Serial Volunteer
Tagged memories
What We Never Leave Behind
This past weekend, we did the final cleanout of my parents’ house – my childhood home – and while I knew it would be emotional, I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I would be. What was toughest to deal with was seeing my dad’s garage empty, devoid of personal items. Funny, it’s been 16 years that he’s been gone, but I still think of the garage as his – and for a man of few words, someone rather hard to know actually, that garage provided a glimpse into who he was and what mattered to him. And as my…
My Family is My Home
Over the past decade, I’ve become increasingly detached from my home, particularly more so in recent years. I’ve found this curious, given that I’ve lived there for 30 years now. When I moved in, as a young woman in her mid-20s, with a three-year-old son and ready to give birth to my second child, a daughter, in the month ahead, I saw this home as nothing more than space for us all – albeit temporary. We had the makings of a beautiful yard, in a great neighborhood in a small town we loved. The house itself though was an end…
Indisputable Proof
I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning and reorganizing lately, some of it because I have a little bit of extra time on my hands and even more, because it’s way overdue. It’s easy to get in a rut maintaining a household, not making too many changes and yet as time goes by, there’s so much less that I need. What’s most amazing is no matter how much I clean and discard, there is still so much more to deal with – it’s incredible how much one accumulates over 30+ years with a family. As part of the process, I’ve…
Fourteen Years Gone
My father passed away fourteen years ago today, and it strikes me that he has now been gone more than a quarter of my life. Something about that is beyond bizarre to me, and yet his influence is felt every single day. I feel him in my attitude, the way I talk, and the manner…
That Crooked Little Finger
It was his pinkie finger that took my breath away. I literally gasped when I saw it. The man himself was fairly nondescript, on TV talking about something—I have no idea what—wearing a billed cap and casual outdoorsy clothes. He was a middle-aged man that I noticed out of the corner of my eye while…
Remembering a Day
My father would have been 86 years old today, and to be honest, I can’t imagine what he would have been like at that advanced age. This is kind of funny given that my mom is 85 and pretty kick-ass in spite of her elder status—or maybe because of it. She has more energy than…
Weaving Memorable Threads
Family is often a complicated matter, and even when we’re at our very best; it can be a delicate dance to keep us in that condition. Sometimes though, the stars align and there’s no extra effort at all and a day or two (or even more) just sparkles in ways that make the time extra…
