A place where I can share interesting ideas and maybe get a few things off my chest

Posts tagged ‘memoir’

A Birthday Visit with Mom

Mom and I were in a department store, looking at clothes in the Ladies’ section, my daughter and granddaughters looking at clothes on the other side of the wall display. I encouraged her to try on the coat she was looking at – a full-length tweed with a fitted bodice, A-line skirt, and an attached hood and capelet.

She admired herself in the mirror as I reached up to flip over one of the collar buttons and smooth out the lapel. She stood a little taller than me in her heels, with her perfect posture and her perfectly coiffed, slightly bouffant hair straight out of the 1980’s. The coat fit her just as perfectly, and I suggested we go around the corner to show the girls how nice it looked on her. She smiled, took a step towards me, and my alarm went off, rudely waking me from this most pleasant dream.

Today is Mom’s birthday. She would be 96 years old today, if she hadn’t passed in 2022, just a couple of months before her 93rd birthday. I was thinking about her all day yesterday, and how much I missed her, and how much I missed having stronger memories of her from before she moved in with me, before her dementia set in with a vengeance. After a decade of caring for her at home, and another five years of visiting her at the memory care center, most of the pictures in my head are of her as she was the last few times I saw her: slightly slumped in her wheelchair; waving at the people-shaped shadows she could just detect when staff walked past; gradually losing interest in her food during meals, even dessert. And finally, the images seared into my memory of her lying on her hospice bed, shrunken, curled up, non-responsive, as I sat with her, holding her hand and talking to her, sleeping on a cot in her room, counting the seconds between each inhalation and exhalation until there were none left to count.

I truly believe that vivid dreams of loved ones who have passed are literal visits from the Great Beyond, whatever that might be. I guess Mom felt me thinking about her and decided to drop in. It was really nice to see her again as she is in my best memories of her – standing tall, beautiful, and radiating the loving energy that helped me and all of her descendants feel like our best selves.

Thanks for stopping by, Mom. I needed to see you. Please visit again real soon.

Category:

Uncategorized

Tagged with:

I’m Looking At….*

Original photo by author, 12.28.25

I’m looking at the double shepherd’s crook out my home office window. On one side is the seed feeder that I just refilled. It has been empty for several days, so I may not see any birds as I’m sitting here, but I know the chickadees will be back by tomorrow morning. On the other side hangs a tray feeder holding a handful of peanuts that have been languishing there for over a week, since the last time I filled the seed hopper.

In my Florida backyard, I had blue jays, cardinals, woodpeckers, and tufted titmice all vying for the peanuts I put out every couple of days, along with a bevy of Carolina chickadees and the occasional young crow or two or three. As the squirrel baffle attached to the shepherd’s hook was quite successful in baffling the squirrels, my Florida backyard also had a platform feeder tall enough to baffle the dogs, but give the squirrels a chance at a few peanuts, too. I hope the new owners (whomever they might turn out to be) appreciate the big picture window (the only thing I truly miss about Florida) and the platform feeder too firmly planted in the ground to move with us to Texas.

I have seen nary a blue jay at the feeders since our move to our new home in a small, rural Texas town, nor a mockingbird, and only a few cardinals. There are some very wary crows who frequent the yard for acorns, but they are shyer and much more skittish than their suburban Florida counterparts, and do not approach the feeders at all. I’m still scoping out areas in the yard for the hummingbird feeder, which won’t go back out until March, and the bird bath that is still waiting patiently with the potted plants pulled from our Florida landscape, now wintering over in the sheltered space of the garage.

*This brief essay is a result of the first writing prompt in Natalie Goldberg’s “Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir”

Category:

Uncategorized

Tagged with: