More memories ....

I am spending this week at my brother, Tim's, home. For about 4-1/2 years, it was just him and me! And we were quite content after I finally decided I could accept another child into the family. I'm afraid I was quite the spoiled little girl and was not about ready to relinquish that place!! However, the time came that I not only accepted the little brother but finally decided that he was quite humorous. So, he would entertain -- I would laugh at him. The more he entertained, the more I laughed!

Tim had a very special place in my mother's heart. While she loved us all, he was her firstborn son. Money was very scarce during that time and the story she tells is that they really couldn't afford to buy meat products. As Tim grew up, it seemed that he craved meat (we can tell you all kinds of stories about that) and my mother attributed it to that.

During the last month of my mother's life, a good portion of it was spent in a semi-coma. Tim told me about the day he visited her and she was basically unresponsive to the events around her. He began to sing "Amazing Grace" and twice during the song, she reached her arms to hug him -- evidence that she was aware her oldest son was nearby.

It was not that she loved any of us any less -- each of us had special relationships and the boys (especially Mark) loved to tease her by doing things that he knew would annoy her at least a little. Like sitting down at the piano when he walked in the house or apartment and playing some song she thought might be too worldly! Let me assure you that it was not an act of disobedience but you would usually hear, "Oh, Mark!!"

We laughed together after she passed away (I know that sounds a little odd but we were remembering things that made her special) and we talked about her calls from the laundry room. If she needed to discuss something with us she felt was private (perhaps pertaining to concerns about my dad's health or finances), she would call us from the laundry room. There were times when these were serious calls and others when she needed one of us to give her perspective on whatever was going on that day.

As our parents got older, they decided that they could appear 'normal' in their marriage. They always wanted us to believe (and we did and still do) that theirs was a marriage made in heaven and solid as a rock. I believe it was but they are as human as the rest of us. Thank goodness!! They could disagree and it was usually when my dad interrupted (or my mother thought he did) and she lost her train of thought (which could happen frequently.) He thought she was done -- she had just stopped to think for a minute. Oh my ... what fun that could produce especially when you were a child looking on ... I was relieved to know that they were as human as the rest of us!!

My mother is of Swedish heritage -- and I believe she and her mother (oh, and Aunt Wanda, too) invented the cliche', "Stubborn Swede". (None of us inherited that trait -- ha!!!) There was just so far you could push her ... and her first response to a request was often 'No'. We always knew we could persuade our dad more easily although he always started the answer with, "What did your mother say?" Aw, shucks!! However, many times the two of them went into another to discuss our request and sometimes the answer was 'yes' and sometimes 'no'.