Eileen and Larry Somers

This is a sad story. I'm not 100% what year it was (2011-2013?) but I had to fill out the same old paperwork for work. Every year, the same stuff! Phone number, address, blah blah blah. (I was super tempted to write "Nothing's changed.")  But on the section where it asked for a secondary contact in case of emergency, I paused. And cried.   Louie is always my first contact. But my mom had always been that second one, just in case. And it must have been the fall of 2011, because I remember the struggle I felt knowing she wouldn't have the mental acuity to take an emergency call on my behalf. The realization that her role in my life had changed and I needed to be strong for her . . . rather than me being able to lean on her . . . that was hard.   I asked Morgan if I could put his name and number down in case of an emergency if they couldn't reach his dad. Of course, he said yes.    I am incredibly blessed that I had my mom around for 48 years of my life and that ...

I'm not sure why this became our "thing," but my mom wanted to have a cloth calendar to hang on the wall in her kitchen each year and buying it for her became my goal. I used to find them in stores like Pier I, but as the years went by it got harder and harder. Then online shopping made it a breeze, though I had to order it for her birthday so she wouldn't get worried about not having one for the next year. When dad died and Louise inherited the house and everything in it, she went through the cloth calendars and wrote down all the years' worth (see pic at left) and I made a list of the missing years (below). I'm not sure what happened to those . . . but I'm pretty sure Mom originally had them. My mom *always* had the annual cloth calendar up on the wall! I think I had originally planned to complete the set(?) or was just being compulsive about the list. It doesn't really matter, but I thought I'd make a record of it here for posterity. I'm ge...

 Our dad was born in New Brunswick, Canada. He never became a U.S. citizen, relying on his "Resident Alien" status for the majority of his adult life in this country. He talked about becoming a citizen a LOT. Especially the last few years of his life when macular degeneration had pretty much wiped out his eyesight. He'd listen to audiobooks and think about things. He would often start a conversation with, "What were the thirteen original colonies?" "I'm not sure, dad. New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, . . . Why?" Apparently, he was practicing the information he thought he needed to know to pass the citizenship test. Sigh. While going through his papers after his death, I came across an envelope with some old paperwok. It contained citizenship application papers. It was most recently revised in 1959! I'm not sure why he talked about it, thought about it, and even had relevant paperwork for five DECADES and never actually worked toward ...

There was a lot of swearing in our household, but there were definite limits. The F-bomb was not allowed. "Sheeshtamatchi" was the made-up swearword to replace the real thing when an effort to NOT swear was happening. Eileen could not tolerate the word "piss" and wasn't too fond of "pee," either. "Just say you have to void!" She would make us laugh so hard with this.

 Larry loved beating Frank (former priest) in saying the Our Father in Latin.  Ann still brought Eileen to St. Joan of Ark when she had dementia.  One time I told Frank what Eileen said towards the end of mass "Get me the hell out of here!"  He laughed.

 When I was a kid, a highlight of the long winter was the weekend in Jan, Feb, or March when my parents paid for a hotel room on a Friday night. We would pack up our stuff (especially swimsuits!) and drive the five or so miles to Burnsville to stay at the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge. It had a SWIMMING POOL! We were in Heaven! We put on our swimsuits and spent hours on Friday night and more time on Saturday morning swimming, splashing, and warming up in the hot tub. We called it "Ho Jo's Mo Lo" for short. Great memories! If/when I come across a photo from that era, I'll add it.

I had artwork in a show and kept asking my sisters to attend the opening, because I figured I had to bug them to get them to come.  When I was leaving the house I asked them "aren't you coming?"  They said no, that they had not been invited.  I inadvertently hurt their feelings because I assumed they would always be there.