Emergency Contact (Jeanne)

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 she was very, very present for 44 of those. I still miss her . . .

And the photo is the actual telephone that used to reside in her kitchen before they got a cordless phone. (Which my dad always called "the walking phone!")

So . . . I'm not sure what happened to this entry. The picture of our actual phone was a broken link. I think I got rid of the actual phone, so this image that I grabbed is from Google. Also, the storytelling . . . I was filling out forms for school. It was the same old, same old start-of-the year paperwork. But my mom was stricken with temporal arteritis in October 2010. That and the prednisone she was given changed our lives.

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Raspberries (Jeanne)

I just picked and ate some raspberries. It reminded me of something my son Alex recently said. I had asked him, what is a memory you have of Grandma Eileen? The first thing that came to mind for him was raspberries. he remembered her offering him some vanilla ice cream with raspberries on top. I thought that was a sweet answer (literally and figuratively!). I grew up with both raspberries and lilacs in plentiful amounts. I remember my mom using her big soup pot with handles to collect the berries. I didn't like how they got squashed in there, though. I preferred to just pick and eat. I also don't like my raspberries chilled . . . fresh off the plant is my preference. But my mother liked to collect them and put them in the fridge. And put them on vanilla ice cream. It makes me happy to remember this. The photo is from our plants at Strawberry Lake. There weren't many red ones left because I'd already picked and eaten so many! Also, the deer f...

Slippers (Ann)

A game we played with Eileen was to take her slippers and run around the dining/living room and kitchen. Once? we put the slipper in the freezer. Fun for us, but for her?

Hair Washing (Jeanne)

I don't remember what brought this to mind recently, but when I was a little kid I hated having my hair washed. I think I was four, five, six years old . . . and my mom would have me lay on the washing machine on my back, hanging my head out over the washtub. She would scrub my scalp with a vengeance. It hurt! In hindsight, I think she was actually getting out some of her frustrations by doing this. I just knew that I didn't like having my hair washed. Being the "oopsy" baby and knowing that my mom was busy with teaching full time, running the household, etc. I think she was less than thrilled by raising a little kid when her others were heading into their teens. I wish I'd thought to ask her about this and see how she remembered this. I don't think she was intentionally being hurtful to me. The past is in the past. I'll put a picture of "little" me here. (I couldn't find a pic of me as a preschooler, so I just grabbed my baby pic.) Most of m...

Eileen and Larry Somers

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