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| ... a little lace and a cameo ... |
If she were alive, Wyona and I would take her out for a long lunch at a restaurant where we could dine away the afternoon, using real linen napkins and multiples of silverware -- a dessert fork, a relish fork, a salad fork, a dinner fork, a cold cuts fork, a serving fork, and a carving fork at the very least. All for her.
She died when I was 28.
If she had lived she would be 98 today -- doable, but just barely.
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| ... a serviceable coat and a lovely smile ... |
She didn't have the joy of watching her grandchildren grow up, nor the pleasure of spending retirement years with Doral.
I think she would have been thrilled with the speed of a food processor and filled with awe at the ease of making bread with a Bosch.
I can't imagine what she would have thought about having a long distance telephone plan where she could talk for 1,000 minutes for $20 a month. Or even better, Skype.
I always remember my dad saying that he was glad she went first, that he wouldn't have wanted her to know the terrible loneliness that he felt for her. I used to like that description of how much he loved being in her company.
Tomorrow I will do something in honour of the joy of having known her.
Arta
thanks for this great post.... i can't believe you only had 28 years with her... i have had 48 with you so far. Talk about lucky!
ReplyDeleteAbout my mother? Wyora died at 55. So ... today, for our big plans to celebrate her "being" in the world, I got dressed in evening wear -- my black pearls, put on my new black going-out-to-dinner lace jacket that I bought for the next cruise, and waited for Wyona to call and tell me where lunch would be.
ReplyDeleteShe couldn't get reservations at SAIT.
So I went over to her house and we feasted out of her fridge and were joined at their dining room table by Greg and Charise. I don't think Wyora would have been any happier if we had gone to Calgary's finest restaurant for the occasion.
Now THAT is what is lucky!
Arta
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI woke up this morning, thinking one more thing about my mother -- I was trying to capture in one word, why it is that so many people loved her. My dad had charisma. But I haven't got a word, just one, that captures who she was. She was kind to everyone -- she was the person who looked you in the eye and you knew she really cared about you -- and you got that feeling from the first meeting. I can capture that kindness by telling this story. For some reason a woman was going before a judge, she needed a place for her toddler to stay while she went to court, and she didn't have a friend, not one who could care for the child while she was there. My mother had that little thing for the day -- and if I remember, that little thing was blind. My brother, Glen, was old enough to know and be able to sing all of the songs in a music book. Glen was not old enough to read, but he knew which song was which by the illustration on the bottom of the page. ie There was a landscape with a cowboy riding over the hill which clued Glen in that this song was Home on the Range. I can remember standing at the door of my mother's bedroom, seeing Glen on the bed, singing songs to that little child to entertain the baby, and not just singing one song but going through the whole book, from page one to the end -- there had to be 80 to 100 songs in that book.
So ... back to my mother. What is the one word about her, that even with 8 children of her own, limited resources, and worries of her own, that she could make this contact strangers who passed through her life, if only for a day.
How about that fabulous hair! Did it go grey? Were those curls natural? Did her hair look perfect every day as I have always imagined since my main image of her is photos like these?
ReplyDelete