Pictures I have found

My mother had tons of pictures for a woman that never owned a camera in the 49 years I knew her. Of course, most of the photos were ones that my dad took and that I have copies of since he insisted on sharing his photos with all of the subjects in them. But she also had pictures of her life before a husband and children, school pictures of us, and pictures she obviously treasured. What I'm going to do with all of these pictures is the next question, but for now I'm just enjoying going through them.

          

The first picture is my grandfather, my mother's father. He died after I was married and living in Florida, but I remember him as the man who always gave us $20 for our birthday, let us have a soda at his store's soda fountain, and let us fill a bag of candy from the candy counter when we visited him at his five and dime store. As I got older, I knew him as the man who caused uncertainty and nervousness in my mother. I can't remember having any meaningful conversations with him, anymore then I did with any of my grandparents, but I'm fascinated with him now that I'm looking at his pictures and going through what little belongings my mother had of his. In this picture I am totally amazed at how much my brother and my nephew look like him.

My mother had a box of pictures of herself that I don't think I've ever seen. Once when I was cleaning out our utility room in Indiana, thinking to making it into an escape room for myself, I discovered a box of her keepsakes and went through a few of the pictures. I remembering finding one of my aunt and taking it to my mom to ask who it was. She wasn't thrilled I was going through her things, but she came downstairs and we looked at some of the photos. Those are here too, but I really don't remember seeing all of these. Of course, as a kid you are fascinated at first, but not really because you can't relate that child or young girl with the woman who is your mother.

There are no dates on most of the pictures nor names. A few of them she wrote on the backs, but most of them are blank so I'm left to guess or to recognize them. The next picture blew me away because at first I thought it was my cousin, and I wondered who the heck the kid was in the picture, and then I realized she was the kid and that the woman was my Aunt Helen. My cousin looked exactly like that at her age!

Then there are the school pictures of my brother and me through the years. She has gobs of those just like I do of my girls. It feels wrong to throw them away, but seriously, how many copies of the same picture does one really need? It isn't like anyone is going to want these pictures for identification purposes. Again there are no dates, but I have my class pictures so I can definitely search those for my age.

Madison had to have her senior pictures taken already for next year. She thought it was silly and didn't understand what the point was of having more pictures, especially since she just finished her junior year. Lucky for her I found our senior pictures and I showed her mine and said, "The point of these pictures is to look back at how hideous you looked at this age and make fun of them."

I hate having my picture taken, and obviously I have always been like this as witnessed in the next pictures. I rarely take a good picture. I'm just happy that my college senior picture was better. I like that one so much I might just start using it for identification. I haven't changed a bit!

Mushrooms and the hunt for them

My mother loved mushroom hunting. For those not sure what that is, it is what it says... hunting for mushrooms. Morel mushrooms to be exact. This is a morel:

Mushroom hunting for morels involves getting out in the woods during the first signs of spring in the Midwest, hunched over at the waist, eyes to the ground in search of the spongy edibles. In Indiana it is another rite of passage along with attending your first basketball game. There was no choice on whether you wanted to go or not in my family, and so I can add mushroom hunting to the list of things I have accomplished.

I vividly remember my hunts; traipsing through the woods near our family farm, one eye on the lookout for snakes and other crawling things, the other eye on the lookout for the fungi. I could have cared less about the whole experience except once involved my competitive nature, as well as my desire to please and fit in with the rest of my family, would kick in, and I would try to get just as many mushrooms as everyone else. I can still remember thinking I was the only one who knew that the mushrooms loved to hide under a may apple plant that had these giant leaves just perfect as a hiding place, and so I would try to spot those leaves first, and the thrill when I would lift that leaf and see a morel. Oh, pure joy.

I didn't go very often once I was a teenager, too much hiking, but my mother went every spring. One of her greatest memories was going to the farm and hunting with my cousin and his two boys. They had secret places that they would hunt and my mother was one of the few they would allow to accompany them. They would be gone all day, just hunting. Once she and the two boys went, just the three of them, and she use to tell us afterwards that she never thought to ask the boys, who were young at the time, if they needed to eat, or drink, or use the bathroom. She said they never complained and never said a word. They just kept hunting for mushrooms.

Once collected the mushrooms are washed and cleaned in the sink to ride them of dirt and small bugs. Then they are soaked in salt water for awhile. From there they are drudged through a mixture of salt, pepper, and flour and fried up in a pan of oil. I can honestly say that while I hate mushrooms of any other kind, I will eat a morel prepared this way. I don't crave them the way my mother did, her mouth would salivate just talking about them, but I enjoyed a few of them as an appetizer or with a meal. Of course as kids we weren't given a choice when it came to food; we just ate it.

When my aunt died a month or so before my mom did and I went back to the farm for the funeral, my cousin talked about the time he took my mom and her friend Jill mushroom hunting. When I told him that it was her wish to hunt mushrooms just one more time he told me that he was determined to get down south to visit her. Unfortunately she died before he could do that so he got into his truck and drove straight from Indiana so that he could be there for her memorial service. He pulled me aside and told me that when he got the news about mom he went out into the woods to mushroom hunt. The first place he walked into there was a large squared area full of large, plump mushrooms, enough to fill a huge bag. Which he brought with him to Florida.

He and my other cousin, who also drove down, fried them up in my kitchen after mom's service and we all ate morels, telling stories of our own hunting trips and stories of mom. My husband and the girls finally got to experience the mushrooms grandma talked about for so long, and we all agreed it was the greatest tribute to a woman who belonged to the Indiana Mycological Society.

Complicated relationships

I always wanted a relationship with my brother when I became an adult. As kids we were siblings, and in my memories, we fought all the time, coming together only when we needed to form a united front against our parents. We played together, but as we moved into our teens we went separate ways in activities. Golf for him. Swimming for me. The two only met when he came up on the tee that sat down the hill from the pool I ran. He was always busy with work, golf, and his girlfriend. He had no interest in being more than what he was with me, but I always craved more.

Him: "Like what? Holding hands and skipping down the street?"

He was smarter than I. He got away. He left home for college and formed his own life away from parental guidance and drama. I didn't. I stayed because I knew my parents needed me. Without a mediator they were likely to kill each other and then what? I went to the local college and lived at home. I regret that decision now, but at the time it was what was expected, although not truly spoken aloud. Once he left any hope of a relationship went with him as he began gathering a new persona and making a new family.

We've always had moments. After his daughter died he use to send me emails in the early morning pouring out his feelings. We never talked about it aloud, just the emails. Once when he was visiting we went off together in a car, and in a conversation we had he told me he would always take care of me if I needed him. Dealing with our mother's illness through the years, there were moments he would send a text encouraging me and he was always there when I called for help. But that relationship I so wanted? Not there.

When my Aunt died earlier this year I got up and spoke at her funeral reading something I had written. When we got into the car to drive to the cemetery he told me he knew I could write, but that he had no idea I could speak. I was stunned and hurt. At least my sister, who I had not grown up with and who really doesn't know me all that well, had looked at him during my speech and said, "Well we know where that comes from." I could not believe that he had never heard me make speeches before. My dad taught me how to speak to a group of people long before he educated my brother. He started out by teaching me how to sell anything and it evolved from there. I was the one who sold the geraniums my brother had to sell for his baseball team every year. How could he not remember that? It haunted me for weeks. I've always been able to stand up and speak. I hosted our swim team banquet every year. I made so many speeches in front of civic organizations after being awarded Employee of the Year for the city I worked for that I can still recite the speech I wrote. I hosted a retirement party and roast for the girls' preschool and kindergarten teacher. But as I went through all of that I realized that he was never at any of those events. How would he ever know what I was capable of? It made me sad.

Several weeks later we were together again sitting at our mother's bedside for four days. It was an experience that will always bind us together whether we want it to or not. During one of those days my brother started speaking, pouring out all sorts of things about his life and his feelings, aloud to our aunt who is very good at getting you to do things like that. I sat in a corner and just listened. He spoke of a person that I had never seen, never knew existed. I hadn't know of the things he had accomplished in his life, of the things he was capable of, of the man he had become, and I realized that I didn't really know my brother any more than he knew me. We were that disconnected. It made me even more sad, but I had some hope that maybe this shared experience would change that. Because we have the ability to make changes.

Then my brother left after the memorial service. We have spoken twice by telephone, both times to discuss the estate I'm in charge of settling. I sit alone to go through the mass amount of "goodies" my mother left behind. I feel a responsibility to be the protector, the caregiver. I felt that during her dying, a need to protect my baby brother from what was coming, to make sure he was okay and getting enough to eat. I feel that now as I read journals left behind, sift through emails, and read letters that she kept. And then as I delved further into things I realized that she too had that kind of a relationship with her own sibling. That need to have more, but not knowing how or not having the willingness to not be judgmental. I'm not for sure, but I think her mother had the same issue with her sister and brother. And so I sit and think about that. A family that could not be more to one another then what was. Each sibling feeling a responsibility; one to stay and one to go. Each time the eldest being the one left behind feeling a sense of abandonment and resentment, but secretly proud of the youngest who got away to make his life his own. But then how sad that neither really knew or knows the other.

I still hope for a chance. I'm lucky I still have that chance; to have a relationship beyond the superficial. But I also know that it won't be easy or be reciprocated. Perhaps it can't be. Family dynamics are hard things to break down, but having this experience has made me look at my own children's relationship and my nephew and niece's. Even now I can see that my oldest daughter is the caregiver, wanting to make everything right within the family while the youngest one, although she cares, doesn't think it her responsibility unless asked. Perhaps it age thing, but I'm hoping that they can all break the cycle; to go on with their lives, but also remain close enough to share in each other's lives, to have a relationship. Then maybe I won't be so sad.

Happy Father's Day

I have been remiss, I believe, in writing about my father on father's day and ignoring the father who is still here today...well...fathering.

I could not do it without him. Best Dad around!

Two teen drivers in the house

Darcy turned fifteen last week and immediately began studying for her driver's permit. In Florida teens have to take a four hour drug and alcohol online course and pass the test that accompanies it. Once that is completed teens study the handbook and then take an online test, twenty questions on road signs and twenty question on road rules. When all of that is complete teens receive their learner's permit, and as far as the state is concerned, can drive home with an adult over the age of twenty-one. Never been behind the wheel of a car before? Florida doesn't care.

Driver's education classes are offered each semester in the school system, but unfortunately cannot be worked into the accelerated program my girls are enrolled in. This leaves them with the option of taking the class during the summer; however, to register for that class one must already have a learner's permit in hand. Classes fill up and close in the first two days. This leaves kids like Darcy to wait an entire year after earning a permit before they can take a driver's education class. But Florida doesn't even care if you take that class. It isn't required. Just drive!

Madison had no interest in driving. She turned fifteen and shrugged. She took the drug and alcohol course and test after turning sixteen because we nagged her. She failed the first driver's online test because her father made her take it without studying, something this kid insists she must do. After turning seventeen, she decided she would just wait until eighteen because according to Florida she can then just go and get her license without needing a permit. Florida doesn't care about practicing driving as long as you are a legal adult.

Darcy passed the drug and alcohol course and test and spent the next day studying for the road tests. She interviewed other teens who had already taken the test and instead of reading the entire handbook, studied those chapters that she was told made the cut for the test. She aced the test and the next day I took her to the DMV and Florida handed her a learner's permit.

She wanted to drive immediately, and since Florida allows that, I took her to a church parking lot, where I hoped for divine intervention if necessary, and I began teaching her about driving. It took longer to go through mirror checks and becoming familiar with the pedals since she had only been behind the wheel of a car when horsing around.

She did well. That doesn't mean I wasn't a nervous wreck. I wish I had the brake on the opposite side, the one my driver's education had to use when I took my hands off the wheel to duck down under the steering wheel to search for the turn signal during my first roadway excursion in a snowfall. She is more confident then I ever was and all she wants to do is DRIVE.

Two days later I was back at the DMV with Madison. It is amazing what sibling pressure can do apparently. As soon as Darcy passed her online test Madison was studying to take hers. Three hours later she had a perfect score. Unfortunately for her, she also had two days of planned activities that kept her from getting her permit the day Darcy got hers.

I drove with Madison around the neighborhood. She was more like me; cautious and slow. I felt more comfortable with her in the speed department, but definitely see that Darcy is more confident. Madison is going to think this whole driving thing through and approach it like she does her studies. Darcy is more like her Aunt Sharon and she is going to just go out and get it done and get it done correctly.

I am not going to make it through this phase. I dread the, "Can I drive?" because no, no I don't want them to drive. I have spent way too many years knocking obstacles out of their way to protect them and now I'm just suppose to sit next to them hopeless while they navigate a two ton piece of machine on the roads with the elderly and crazy non driver's educated teens and adults?

Yes. Yes that is what I am suppose to do, and I'm trying. I really am, but it ain't easy. Tom has taken up the slack, coming home earlier than normal to drive them around the neighborhood. Last night they went out and stayed out after dark to get that experience. Madison actually got to drive on the "road" as Darcy calls anything outside of a neighborhood or parking lot.

I have tried to find other driving courses, but the costs are astronomical, which is why Tom is arriving home earlier. I'm all for throwing money at someone else who has a brake on the passenger side, but he thinks that silly. "They just need experience," he says. My friend has offered to teach them so they don't end up driving "like an old lady like your mother", and she and Darcy were scheduled for a lesson yesterday, but it fell through after Darcy's mouth appliance broke and warranted an unplanned trip to the orthodontist. It has been rescheduled for Monday.

In the meantime I drive with them through the neighborhood, trying to stay calm, trying to be pleasant. I tried to opt out, naming all of the other things I taught them. "Like what?" Darcy asked. "Like how not to poop in your pants!" I replied. But since I'm with them 24/7 now that school is out I have to bite the bullet and help with this life lesson too. Lord help me.

5 things to start the week

1. I bought bagels last week as an "end of school-welcome to summer" treat for the family. We have a Panera Bread within, as Tom would tell us all, walking distance, but I stopped there on my way back from the gym. Which meant that it was after the breakfast rush and the choices in bagels were limited. I ended up getting half a dozen bagels, four of them in a cinnamon crunch, which was the kind I always bought my mother who loved them. My family, not so much. The problem is that the top of the bagel is full of a sugary, cinnamon crunchy goodness that, while delicious, is a pain in the toaster. It burns or it falls off in the toaster making a mess. To counteract that I only toasted the bottom half of the bagel, but when I went to take it out of the toaster with my fingers (something I rarely do because my fingers are heat sensitive) a piece of the sugary goodness was on the back of the bagel and it ended up on the end of my pointer finger. Where it burned the shit out of my finger. I dropped the bagel and when the pain did not stop I realized the sugar substance was attached to my finger, and I admit it, but I was so taken by surprise at the fact that this small piece of sugary goodness could hurt this much that I just stood there. By the time my brain registered, GET THIS OFF AND GET UNDER WATER, I had a second degree burn and a nice white blister. This has turned into a brownish, black, hardened piece of skin like a callous, and because it is on the end of my right index finger makes my life a bit difficult. My phone does not register the hardened thing on my finger thus no touch id and no texting. Typing on a keyboard feels strange since I have little sensation. Trying to peel off sticky substances such as tape is impossible. And to top if off the thing scares me when my eyes land on it because it is small like a spider. It is almost to the point where I can pull it off. I figure about two more days. I can  hardly wait.
2. My computer has started acting up when idle. For some strange reason that my electronic guru husband can't figure out, it does a restart and stalls at the point where it registers the mouse. Only it can't register the mouse. It can't even find the mouse. I put new batteries in the mouse and I put new batteries in the keyboard and still it shuts off after about 15 minutes. I have to restart it manually at which point it does read the mouse and turns my computer back on with no problem. It is driving me nuts. This morning my husband informed me that the computer is old and outdated and, as soon as he begins a sentence with those words, I cringe because I know what this means. This means he is going to do something with my computer that is going to lose vital information and he is going to install a new system on my computer that will infuriate me because I won't know how to use the damn thing. He has parts of computers and the innards of computers hidden in various spaces throughout the inside and outside of our house. He is a whiz when it comes to rebuilding computers, but it takes FOREVER and frankly the man does not have that kind of time for computer work that doesn't pay a monetary value. So I suppose I should start looking at some other options.
3. My picture organizing is still ongoing. I have the stack of pictures that everyone pulled randomly from my organized boxes for the memorial service. I have photos from The Condo. I have photos that I found inside boxes of my mother's belongings that I hauled home. I have the realization in going through said photos that my children will one day have to do the same and will they be like I am, interested, yet overwhelmed? This led me to a re-organization project which has not gone the way I was hoping. I bought a large file box/container hoping all of my pictures would work in there instead of in the seven boxes I have them in now. It didn't work with a filing system. It didn't work with two boxes side by side. Currently I have them stacked in rows on the bottom and then cardboard on top of that so that I can stack more pictures on top of those. Not ideal if I need to get to the pictures on the bottom. The worst thing about the whole project is the mess in my Steelers room, the dining room, and the closet. It is all frustrating and the more frustrated I get the less I want to work at it. Which doesn't help in getting anything tidy or clean. I wish I were creative enough to design an answer to my problem that would then make me rich.
4. Since the girls have been out of school I have been more of a chauffeur then I was before school let out. I did not think that was possible. The worst thing is how they just expect it. Demand it. "Oh, hey, mom, Boyfriend and I are going to meet for lunch. Is that okay? I have to be there in half an hour." or "So and so can't come now to the baking day and she was our ride to the grocery so can you take us? And we want to get Thai food before we go to the grocery." or "I signed up for Boot Camp and need to be there by 8:00 am." I was getting annoyed at all of this running hither and yon, some of which requires me to sit in the car and wait, until both girls went off to work this morning and I was left in the quiet house to finish eating alone. I didn't much care for that scenario either.
5. After researching a Facebook friend's Jamberry Nails site I bought some cheap brand at Walmart to try. Holy this could be the answer to my nail biting! I actually have nails now. Quite exciting.

Cleaning or cleansing?

Finding and going through my mother's pictures has motivated me to better organize my own photos. Well, especially now that I have to add all of mom's pictures into the midst. The thing that I think when I sift through these pictures is that while they are interesting, what the hell am I going to do with them? Most of the people are relatives I never met or really don't know and after I'm dead what the hell are my girls going to do with these pictures?

Mom and I talked a lot about her stuff and what would happen to all of it. She went through this with her own mother and with our Indiana house after my dad died. She knew the feeling of WTH? I would point out objects that meant something special to me and she would discuss belongings that were special to her. The rest of the stuff we would just sit and stare at, both of us at a loss as to what to do with it. One accumulates tons of nonsense in one's life which is important at that time, but which one realizes is not important later down the road.

I was left with The Condo and the contents when everyone returned to their lives. I suppose I could have just changed the locks and left it all sitting there, but I didn't. First of all, the place was cluttered. It drove me crazy when mom was alive and I finally felt like I could fix that. Secondly, my brother insisted I take everything of value when the pineapple theft happened and I was so crazed by then that I did a quick sweep through the place dumping contents into bags that sat on the floor in my dining room until recently. Once I did those things it just felt natural to keep going. I also think I was searching for something, unsure of what that was, but knowing I would know when I found it.

I emptied the refrigerator and freezer, leaving items I thought people would use if they stayed there such as ketchup and mustard and jelly. I think I thought that the people would be my brother, and now every time I open that refrigerator and stare at those items I think how silly it is that I left those inside. I cleaned out the cabinets and tossed expired items of which she had bags full. I left coffee, spices, and canned goods for the "people" in case they wanted to whip up a pot of spaghetti or black beans and rice. I folded her clothes and donated them to Hospice, wanting to thank them for what they did for all of us. I kept sports T'shirts and a few items because I just did. I cleaned out the books she had bought in the last few years that I had read and had no interest in owning and donated them to the city library. I took a piece of furniture and a few things I wanted. I cleaned out the medicines and turned them over the local police department who dispose of them in mysterious ways so as not to harm the water supply, or the wildlife, or the drug addicts who rummage through garbage. I donated an old printer and an old red lamp that I didn't remember ever seeing before until this week when discussing it with someone and suddenly remembered we used it for putting together the Christmas puzzle. I got rid of various back and neck massagers and shoes that I didn't want or didn't fit me or my girls. The rest of the donated items consisted of small items like wallets my dad always insisted on giving her for Christmas that she never used, picture frames with broken glass, and bags and purses and odds and ends. By the time I got to the outside closet and dug into those boxes I was pretty much over it all. She had one Rubbermaid container, a large one mind you, full of nothing but seashells she had collected over her lifetime. Seashells. Another box had driftwood. Driftwood. What am I suppose to do with that? I closed up the boxes and put them back into the closet to deal with six months from now or whenever I feel the need to purge. How cool would it be to take the seashells one night or early morning to the beach and walk up and down the shore dropping them for others to find?

I quit last week. I called her friend, the cleaning lady who had also been her evening caregiver for the last three and a half years, and asked her to do a final cleaning. She knew the place as well as I did, if not better, and she was highly impressed and complimentary with all the work I had done.  Which was the exact opposite of my older daughter who promptly burst into tears when she saw The Condo because "It doesn't look like Grandma lives here anymore." I had a heavy heart for a day after that because I knew that feeling, have experienced it myself after the death of my aunt and my father. But one thing I have also learned from these experiences with my mother these last five years is that no one should judge one's ways until one has gone through it for oneself. 

My husband has said for years that we have too much stuff. He use to tell me that he only kept enough stuff to put in a box that he could carry with him. He has been surprisingly quiet about the stuff that has been slowly added to our house and the stuff piled high in our dining room and Steelers room. Some days I get overwhelmed by all of it and just wish I had my own closet to stuff it all in. Sometimes I wonder why I brought it home, but then I think what if The Condo had a fire? I ignore the fact that could happen at my own house too.

My brother hasn't been back since our mom died. He hasn't checked in with me on what I'm doing, and now that I'm done and have witnessed my daughter's reactions I worry about him. He didn't want much after my dad died; no pictures, no movies, no slides. I suppose I figured he would feel the same this time too, but now I worry he might have wanted that red desk lamp. My aunt I think is just waiting for us to grieve through it all before she speaks up on what she may want. .

It would have been nice to have spent the time going through everything with family, but realistically that wasn't possible.  I am responsible for settling her estate and there is much involved with that and I had to search for paperwork and documents and doing that led me to my OCD of cleaning. So I trudge on, digging through the boxes and files I brought home and every once in awhile I come across a little gem. And that little gem cleanses me and motivates me to find more. Because I still think I'm searching...

Out of the mouths of my babes

Today is officially our first day of summer. School is out. Of course, for my kids, school was done last week despite the extra three days tacked on by the school board. I told my girls they had to go because I was told by the administration that missing those three days would be unexcused. WHAT? My Connie-ism kicked in. Darcy arranged to have her friends and boyfriend throw a party for her on Monday, and although they grumbled about going to school, they all went. Maddy managed to avoid going by wearing me down with her "lawyer" arguments and points, much to Darcy's dismay.

Darcy: "You couldn't have started the trial earlier, Maddy, before I arranged a party? Jeez, thanks."

On Tuesday both kids went in later with me. I had a booster organization board meeting. Darcy had to meet with one of her teachers regarding a paper and the grading scale. (See? Turns out mom was right about going to school as she went from a B to an A on her paper and thus in the class) Madison had labs she had to complete and a CAS meeting. Wednesday Darcy skipped and Madison went only to drop off a paper. Today we are done.

I celebrated by waking up the girls at 10:00. I told them that they needed to be up by this time during the week and that their beds needed to be made, teeth brushed, and breakfast eaten. I also informed them that if they wanted me to drive them to various fun activities that I would require some housework in exchange. I clapped my hands for emphasis and said, "Chop! Chop! Summer is here."

Darcy: (hiding under the covers) "I don't like this summer mom!"

The wedding

It has been fun to look at the old pictures my mother had in a bin inside one of her closets. I found a huge stack of old black and white photos of family, most of them unknown to me, and several of them of my grandparents at a young age. The best find was a small stack of slides in an envelope that turned out to be my parents' wedding photos. I have never seen my parents' wedding photos. There was no book of pictures like our neighbor had that we would look at and laugh at, and when I would ask my mother if she had a book she would always say that there was one somewhere. It wasn't until I was in my late twenties that I realized she was lying about that. She and my dad married almost two years after I was born because he was married to someone else. Oops. When I was told this information it was done as if it were some huge secret that had long been hidden and could cause dire consequences once spoken. I just remember feeling relieved because I was worried they were going to tell me I had another father. I remember looking at them and saying, "Uh, yeah, so?" But then things I had felt and seen began to make sense and I realized that back in the 60's this would have been scandalous and a big deal, and I'm sure it was a huge deal to my two sisters who lived through what had to be a horror for them.

I asked once about the wedding pictures after learning the truth and I was told there were pictures, but I never saw them. Until now. For some reason I never pushed the issue of seeing the pictures with my mother. It felt, well, it felt strange as if I had no right to see them or that it was something my mother didn't want to share. Now I wish I had pushed it because I have questions. Why did they get married in a church? Who were the two people that stood up for them? Why is my mother wearing two different outfits? Which one did she wear to get married? Where are the 5X7 pictures that my dad ordered off of these slides?

Of course they are on slides and I no longer have the slide scanner. I have a slide viewer and I look at the pictures and wonder. Since discovering all of these old photos I have decided that an easier way of converting pictures to my computer is by photographing them on my phone and transferring them. Madison things the quality isn't as good, but I think they are just as good especially since my husband doesn't want me to scan pictures at a high resolution because it takes up too much space on the computer. I'm not sure how much space this new way is taking up, but it is certainly easier than scanning them one at a time. But this won't work for the slide pictures despite my trying really hard. I took a picture of it through the slide viewer and then tried to crop and enlarge, and while that worked the quality did not transfer.

I suppose I can ask my mother-in-law for her slide scanner again or perhaps take them somewhere to have prints made, but right now I just keep them on my desk and peer at my parents, strangers in a way to me in these slides.

5 things to start the weekend

1. I had to walk the dog one morning this week as Tom went in to work early. We walked the girls to the bus stop in the dark and continued on around the block. We stopped to chat with a neighbor who I haven't seen in a while. Don and I use to be on the homeowner's association together for years, but now he and Tom spend the weekend mornings chewing the fat while the two dogs play. Our conversation turned to ill mothers and caring for them and he told me I was too nice, and I quote, "You are way nicer than I am, kind, and you don't curse..." Uh...nice to know I have one neighbor fooled.
2. Last Sunday Maddy and I brought home the last of mom's pineapple plants. This one was the biggest one and we had to work together to carry it and one of its leaves stuck out the back of my van like a tail. When we got to my house we took the plant out and carried it across the lawn to an area in front of my bedroom window where I have two more of her pineapples. Just as we got within two steps of setting it down I tripped, in the dark, over Elliot's dog stake which was hidden under a newly planted palm tree. I stumbled one step, two steps, and thought I was going to correct my balance, but it wasn't happening and suddenly I was face down in the dirt. Literally. I landed heavily with the left side of my body and my hip immediately was the first thing that registered pain. That of course led me to think my hip was broken, because that is what happens to old people, and I sat in the dirt, covered in mulch, crying and saying over and over, "I don't want to get old. I don't want to get old." Maddy just hugged me and patted me and eventually the two of us started laughing. I had mulch inside my shirt and down my bra and all over my face. My hip hurt because I had my phone in that pocket and landed on it. The phone and hip were both fine. I stood up and dusted myself off. My left leg was bleeding a tiny bit, my right knee was bruised and needed ice, and I had a nice dent in my left ankle where I had hit the stake. I felt pretty good considering. "You didn't put out your arms to stop your fall, did you," my husband asked pulling mulch out of my hair. "It's better to just take the fall." Of course I had put out my left arm instinctively, but I wasn't too concerned as the arm wasn't bothering me. It was the next morning. I couldn't even lift the arm and the pain was all around the shoulder area, sharp at times. For two days I had to walk around with my arm dangling, driving with one arm. I pretty much decided I had torn my rotator cuff and was collecting names of orthopedic doctors when the fourth day came and I barely noticed pain and I was suddenly using the arm for things. It is still sore, but now it is a soreness like I overused the muscles. It has gone a long way toward making me feel younger as in: I can fall hard and still get up and walk away with hardly a scratch.
3. Going back to my conversation with neighbor Don...Once when a car came around the corner Elliot jumped up to chase it and I did my best Russ imitation and said, "Don't you even think about it. No!" And Elliot, who did think about it, but didn't act, sat back down. Don whistled. "Now he doesn't do that with Tom. He would have been off and running had Tom been on the other end of that leash. He listens to you." I told Don that I had tried to teach all my family members to say NO in a commanding voice, but that no one listens to me anymore than they do when I tell them the dog needs to go outside to potty. Later I was relaying the story to Tom by starting off with we walked the girls to the bus stop and then stopped to chat with a neighbor. When I was finished he said, "What neighbor? Benedict Don?" 
4. School ends next week, June 4th, but for some reason the high schools scheduled finals for the week prior to that. Which means that the students were done, finished, yesterday. I asked our assistant principal during a meeting I had with him if the girls needed to show up next week and he said, "Officially I have to tell you that it will be an un-excused absence if they aren't there." WTH? Really? To make it worse, our school is being demolished in two weeks and being rebuilt. Portables have been delivered to the campus and the teachers have informed the students not to show up next week because they will be moving into the portables and don't want to have to worry about a classroom. I told my girls they had to go to school. It is in honor of my mother.
5. The jacaranda trees that I write about each year in April did not bloom until later this year because of the colder weather we had. They are the most beautiful purple trees and I love, love them. I noticed before my mom died that some of the trees were trying to bloom. A few would have little purple blotches in small areas, but the rest of the leaves were green or missing on the branches. Suddenly May came and the trees began popping out in color and then the trees that I didn't think were even going to bloom this year began turning lavender. This is the longest I can remember the jacaranda trees lasting. Usually they bloom, hang around two weeks, and begin dropping the petals to cover yards in carpets of purple, one of the reasons why my husband will not plant one. But the trees just make me so happy and so I feel like I've been happier longer this season while driving.

Finding and remembering

I always found it odd that people would jump right into cleaning out belongings after a death. After my father died my mother went nuts cleaning out the house, putting things up for auction, and selling the property. There was little time to sort through keepsakes and take things we cherished. I was determined not to let that happen when she died, and fortunately circumstances have allowed us to be able to take our time, yet I feel the need to de-clutter.

I actually felt that way prior to her dying when I would go to The Condo during one of her many hospitalizations to pick up belongings, water plants, and oversee the bills. The Condo is darker since her remodeling that included deeper paint colors then the fish motif she once had, and with her hospitalized it seemed lonelier and more depressing then usual. I thought then how I would like to brighten up the place and get rid of nonsense she had strewn about and packed into various bookcases and entertainment center crannies. For someone who rid herself of a a huge Indiana house full of belongings, she sure didn't learn anything about keeping things small and simple.

Two days after she died her sister, my friend Kelly, and I swept The Condo to rid it of anything medical. The whole place just felt icky with oxygen tanks sitting in corners, medicine bottles on counter tops, and boxes of bandages and ointments lying around. This task led us into bathroom drawers and cabinets that were also full of hotel and hospital soaps and shampoos, a habit leftover from my father's traveling days and her childhood of nothing wasted, hair equipment that hadn't been used in years, and handfuls of expired ointments, oils, and lotions that grossed us all out. We rearranged furniture in the living room to make it more accessible for all the people that were coming in for the memorial service and we tossed out a desk that she had been wanting to get rid of for awhile. By the time we stopped for the day I was more motivated then ever to clean the place up.

Everyone left eventually days after her service and I was left with The Condo and the responsibility of it. What that entailed beside paying bills became clearer as phone calls started coming in from the condo association, the fire marshal, and various medical companies requesting pick-up of equipment. I needed to locate paperwork and equipment and that led me to the filing cabinet, to the bedroom closet, to the desk, and under the bed. Suddenly I understood why people had to jump into cleaning out belongings. I was having to thin out things just to locate the important things I needed immediately. As I did that, making piles for Goodwill, for Hospice, for a Food Bank, and for trash little found items would lead me to look for other things like pictures, writings, and items from my childhood. Little did I know but my mother kept more things from our house in Indiana.

It has been a sort of grieving and healing process going through her things. A favorite shirt can make me cry. A picture and note can get me intrigued. But my favorite is finding something that I remember from my childhood, from my days at 8200 in Indiana, because it reminds me of good times and my mother and father.

Whenever this little teapot came out of the cabinet it meant Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwiches for dinner with Indiana corn on the cob and Iced Sweet Tea. It is the only time I remember my mother making iced tea. And she never put enough sugar in it for us, but it was a treat nonetheless.

These glasses were in our cabinet, but we were not allowed to use them. I think my parents used them for cocktails with company, but the only memory I have of these glasses is that every year my Aunt Marilyn made our traditional Christmas Eve egg nog she put it in these glasses and passed them out. I thought we were oh, so fancy when we used them and I always felt grown up. Which I had to be since she spiked the nog with tons of dark rum.

This was one of those pieces that I dusted all the time, but never really knew what it was for. It is a box and I think it once held two decks of cards. It sat on the round, wooden table in our living room along with pieces of glass from the glass factory that my grandmother helped back financially.

This is all that is left of the Central Soya paper products that we had all over our house. I think I have a small pad in the box of stuff of my dad's, but this is all Connie had left. She kept it in a desk that the girls played in and I remember when I discovered what paper they were drawing on I was horrified. It is a collector's item! (In my mind)

This is the wooden salad bowl set from my childhood. I hated this set because it was not allowed in the dishwasher and had to be washed by hand. It is a beautiful set and we have already eaten a salad out of it. And I got to remind my girls that it had to be washed by hand!

I had no idea that my mother had these boxes (full of photos) tucked in a bin in the closet out on her porch. I had found three of these boxes in my Aunt Lorene's basement last summer and I told my cousin at my mom's memorial service that I wanted those boxes if he was going to toss them. My dad smoked these cigars his entire life and these boxes were all over our house storing odds and ends.

My dad worked in agriculture for Central Soya and the pig was one of the mascots used by the company. We had Master Mix pigs all over our house and then people started buying pig things for my dad so our house literally became a pig sty. This little gem was a napkin holder on our table for as long as I can remember. My mom had this on her computer desk holding paper so after using it as a napkin holder for a few days on my kitchen table I've moved it to my own desk.

Out of the mouths of my babes

Madison, Darcy and I are all lying on the bed talking.  Madison sneezes and then blows her nose which sounds quite full.

Me:  "Maddy has a nose full of nickels.  She thought it was candy, but it's snot."

Darcy: (laughs)

Me:  "Thank you for laughing, Darcy.  That's something my dad use to say to us.  We would blow our nose and he would say we had a nose full of nickels.  And then when we would tell him that made no sense and that we didn't have nickels in our nose he would say, "You thought it was candy, but it's snot."  And we would laugh and laugh like that was the funniest thing in the world."

Darcy:  "It is funny."

Me:  "It is.  He was funny.  But really...what an odd thing to say.  No one has candy in their nose."

Darcy:  "Kelly does!"

Next in line

When my mother died I felt relief. Relief that her suffering and pain was over.  Relief that my responsibilities to her and her health were over. Then guilt for feeling that way. It is hard to explain what the two of us went through these last five years, but for me it was never more clear then when I exited my house several days after she died and saw an ambulance and a fire truck. I vomited in the bushes. Then I went to my neighbor's house and patted his hand as he told me that taking care of his significant other was just too much for him to continue to do. I understood.

Then there are the days where I feel other emotions; loneliness, sadness, and recently despair. I feel twinges in my chest and worry I'm having a heart attack. I think about how easy it is to be killed driving a vehicle. I can hardly read the newspaper with all of its death and destruction because any day now that will be me. I've always been a worrier, but suddenly I feel my mortality. I tried to analyze the feelings one day this week as I drove the familiar route to The Condo to meet with an electrician, and after I got all the thoughts unscrambled in my brain, it hit me. I was scared because I was next in line.

We always think there is a map to the way things work. We are born. We go to school. We go to college. We find jobs and spouses and have families. Then comes the growing older part which eventually leads to our death and the path ends. We aren't suppose to die before our parents. Our children aren't suppose to die before us. There is a path and each step leads us down that road, and although we know deep down that life isn't that way we still want to believe it is and that that map is the way things work. I've lost my father and now my mother and that leaves...me.

Later in the day while I was going through files and shredding old paperwork, I came across a folder with some of my mother's writing. She had started a blog a year or so after mine and the few entries she had written were printed out and in the folder. The one I chose to read was her first entry on her blog. I cried.

Tuesday, February 8, 2003 - written by Connie Mason on her blog Wise Words

"Light a cigarette for me and put it between my fingers," rasped the emaciated form in the nursing home bed.

"But mother, you know you can't smoke," I countered in surprise.

"Honey, when I see that cigarette burning, I know I'm still alive," she croaked wryly.

I did as she asked and watched as the hand holding the cigarette fell across her deformed chest. She studied the curling smoke for a moment, smiled almost contentedly, and closed her eyes. I rescued the cigarette from her slackened grip and extinguished it in the bedside ashtray. Barely two hours later she was dead. She was 53 years old.

My mother never knew Larry Bird, who was growing up in a town 20 miles west. She never knew Mohammed Ali who was Cassius Clay to her in a city 25 miles southeast. She never knew her only grandson, nor her second granddaughter. Most precious to her were the seventeen months she spent with her first granddaughter. My mother died of cancer when I was thirty-two.

As I turned from her bedside to the rest of my life, I knew we had just played a serious game of Tag and I was IT.

The bug man and my mother....who knew?

After a death, people have to be notified.  I've written countless notes to doctors and nurses and administrators informing them of my mother's death and thanking those I felt went above and beyond the job. I've alerted credit card companies and insurance agencies. I've talked to strangers in estate departments of varies companies. Inevitably I've forgotten someone.

This past week as I worked at my mother's condo, I've taken to referring to it as The Condo as if it is a separate entity placed in a town solely for my own purpose, whatever that may be, the bug man was just learning of her death from the president of the condo board. It had crossed my mind the week before that I should inform the bug man of my mother's death. He has known my mother for over ten years, first while he was with  Terminix, and then when he branched out and formed his own company. My mother was the first customer to go with him to his new company, she the champion of free enterprise, and he never forgot that. Recently, she had helped him score a big contract with her condo association for a major termite infestation and then to a contract to provide monthly service to all 19 condos. He also services my home, and he is forever telling me how wonderful my mother is for helping him out through the years. Thus I did think of alerting him to her death, but calling him went to the back of my mind.

So Monday as I was coming back through the parking lot after dropping off a load of keepsakes to my car there was the bug man, CB. He was shaking his head and his expression was all droopy, and I immediately felt as guilty as I felt after the grocery cashier asked how my mother was and I said, "Well, she died two days ago," and the woman promptly started crying. I felt terrible.

CB:  "I just heard about Connie."

Me:  "Yes, I'm sorry. You're on my list of people to tell."

CB:  "I can't believe it. I can't believe she is gone." More sad shaking of the head. "I'm so sorry."

Me:  "Thank you."

CB:  "I just can't believe it. Ah.  I just... Oh. She was great. I'm just so sad."

This went on in this vein with him not being able to spit out his sorrow, and me not knowing what to say to him and wishing that I had called his secretary on the phone. He is a nice guy and all, and I know he really enjoyed my mom, but I'm uncomfortable with everyone telling me how sorry they are that she is gone. I feel the need to comfort them when they are trying to comfort me and it just makes me well, uncomfortable. Finally he stopped speaking and we stood in silence for a few seconds and then he looked at me.

CB:  "She had a picture..."

At the start of this, I felt a bit of joy. I have asked different people if they want something from my mother's belongings, and other than a few little minor items, most people have turned me down. It has made me sort of sad as if passing on her things would bring joy and remembrance, and I had just expressed this feeling to my aunt on the phone right before coming downstairs to load my car. When CB began with, "She had a picture..." and stopped I immediately felt joy and then thought of all of the pictures on her walls, wondering which one he could possibly want.

Me:  "I hope I haven't tossed it out!"

CB:  "She had a picture....well...I'm not sure why I would even want this, but...it was a picture of your mom swinging, I think an imaginary golf club, under a sprinkler...and she's naked."

And then he looked at me and smiled and said something about how that picture was so Connie and how he just loved it. I'm really not sure how much of what he told me got through to me because seriously, I was so taken back that this guy wanted a naked picture of my mother that I was trying desperately to keep my mouth closed, and I was very grateful for my sunglasses over my bulging eyes.

I did know the picture he was talking about, vaguely. Back in the 90's she had visited her sister in her log cabin in the woods of California where the community swims in the river sans clothing unless visitors are uncomfortable. As I remember the story, the group was discussing this outside my aunt's house and they convinced my mother that it was no big deal to be naked. She stripped down and ran through a sprinkler. I remembered the picture of her as one where she was standing naked, her arms help aloft, as the sprinkler coated her with water. I vaguely remembered another picture of her doing a golf swing. She loved that she had done this, this what-she-would-have-once-described-as-shocking thing, and so she set the picture out in plain view, first on her entertainment center, then on a bookshelf, and then on her desk.

CB:  "I just love that picture. It was so free, and she was so free. It was so your mom, swinging that club under a sprinkle."

Me:  "Well, I can honestly say that I haven't seen that picture in awhile and the only naked picture I've found so far is one of my nephew as a kid that I'm holding on to for blackmail."

CB:  "Well, it was a great picture. I just loved it."

I had no response to that, and thankfully my mother's neighbor came out just then to yell down at the bug man. He thanked him for something CB had done and then he turned to me and asked me if I needed some help, and since I did I waved at CB and practically ran toward the neighbor.  CB headed back to his truck and the neighbor and I went about lugging down bags of trash and bags of give a way items, and I promptly forgot the conversation.

Until I got home that evening and was lying in bed thinking back over the day. Suddenly the whole conversation came back to me and I couldn't stop laughing.  The bug man, a man who is younger then me, wanted a naked photo of my dead mother as a keepsake to remember her by. How hilarious is that?

My brother was horrified, and apparently has never seen the photo. My youngest thought it "weird". My oldest giggled. My friend, Kelly, wondered aloud if the bug man had taken any of my mom's panties as souvenirs during his in-home spraying. My husband was thankful the bug man doesn't enter our home. My mother's cleaning lady, who I called about the location of the picture, declared him a "pervert". I still laugh at the whole thing because I know that my mom would have LOVED it. I can picture her expression and everything. She would have been thrilled that he had asked for that.

So I searched today and found the photo hidden between two books on a bookshelf.
(I've hidden the nudity since it is better left to the bug man)

My Discover discovery

There is a lot to do after someone dies.  Sometimes it can be cleansing; throwing away the expired food items from 2010 that she insisted were fine.  Sometimes it is magical; discovering hidden gems from my childhood.  Sometimes it is sad; pictures.  Mostly it is overwhelming, and at times frustrating.  When my mother first decided she was finished fighting and asked for hospice to be called I immediately did a web search on what to do after someone dies.  I suppose that seems cold and calculating, but with my mother that was regarded as a smart move.  We had talked throughout her last few years off and on about her death and what would be expected.  We had googled this information previously many times.  I suppose, sitting in the hospital, it gave me something to do.

After she died I went back to those sites that I had searched that day and made a list.  That list went with the list from the cremation society and both those lists were added to the list from the lawyer.  Trying to keep tabs on all of the lists, as well as on the mounds of paperwork, has been a chore.  I now carrying a briefcase and a bag and have since purchased a plastic container and a file box.  Each day I try to mark an item off of the list.

One of the items on the list was to call the credit card companies and alert them to the death.  One of the cards was used to pay several monthly bills that made it easier for her to deal with while in and out of hospitals and rehab and nursing facilities.  Our lawyer suggested that we contact the bank of this card, Chase, and explain to them the situation in the hope that we could add our names to the card to keep the status quo.  She figured that it wouldn't be a problem since we would be taking on the responsibility of paying off the current debt.  She could not have been more wrong.

I went into a Chase bank, and while their waiting area is welcoming with baskets of lollipops and an array of coffees, their employees were not.  We saw only three of them; one of them on the phone, one behind the teller counter, and one who sighed as we entered and told us someone would be right with us.  He disappeared for a moment into a door and must have drawn the short straw because he reappeared and asked us into his cubicle.  We should have read the stale lollipops and empty coffee urns as a sign and hightailed it to another branch, but it was raining and we were tired from the entire week, and so we sat down with the gentleman.  Who somewhat angrily told us that my request was absurd, adding a scenario about a dead brother with good credit and another deadbeat brother who had no credit, but was trying to piggyback off his dead brother.  I cut him off in the middle of that tale and explained that I understood what he was saying, that this situation was different, but he wanted no part of it.  He didn't believe me.  In his eyes, without asking if I had a Chase account of my own (I do), or asking me to write a check for the debt right then and there, I was scheming to get a credit card.

He picked up the phone and called corporate for advice.  Corporate moved him to the estate department who asked to speak to me, and suddenly I went from one unkind Chase employee to another.  The woman on the other end of the phone offered her condolences on the loss of my mother, and then immediately went into a dissertation on how she was closing the account, type, type, type, and how Chase would be coming after the estate for payment.  Those were her words, "We will be coming after the estate for payment of this credit card" as if she hadn't heard a word I had been saying about making the payment.  When I tried to explain my situation and that I just wanted to remain in the current situation, paying off the balance each month, she treated me as if I were a thief, despite the legal paperwork I had sitting before the Chase employee who was now tapping his fingers on his desk and staring into space.  By the time the phone conversation was finished I was a criminal in her eyes and she was the law and thank god she was on the job.  "Again," she said, "sorry about your loss.  Have a nice day."

We left the Chase bank and drove less than a mile down the street to Bank of America to tackle my mother's bank account, and by the time we were seated there the Chase phone lady had alerted the bank to the death and a freeze was placed on the account.  My experience at that bank was only slightly better and will make for another blog entry, but I ended up breaking down into tears there.  It was not a good day.

Fast forward to yesterday, a little over a week since the Chase experience.  I was emptying out my mother's purse and wallet and realized after coming across her Discover card that I had never alerted them to her death.  Taking a deep breath, I dialed the number and got Tim.  Tim apologized for my mother's death as if he had something to do with it and transferred me to the estate department and Able, who also was very sorry for my loss. He could not have been more different then the Chase employee.  First he explained to me that my mother was the only name on the card holder and thus the only one responsible for payment.  He said that Discover would not expect payment from the estate for such a small amount.  He went over the last statement with me and again reiterated that I was not responsible for paying the bill.  He was kind and helpful and made me want to send a check to Discover right then and there.  He was exactly what someone who has lost a family member needs when dealing with problems.  When I hung up I wanted to shout from the rooftops, "EVERYONE GO OUT AND GET A DISCOVER CARD BECAUSE THEY CARE!" Guess which bill I'm going to be paying?