An anniversary

Today, the 19th of June, is the 14 year anniversary of Mom dying. 

In some ways, the time has just flown by. I can still remember some of the stuff that made her "her"...like watching her wave the Nintendo paddle around as Mario went plunging to his doom over and over and over...and laughing because we had never seen anyone kill Mario in the demo before.

Or the way at Christmas the house would be filled with the smell of that awesome fudge she made...or the peanut brittle, some of it being peanut brittle without peanuts because I do not like peanuts and she was that way. The sugar cookies...oh, what a great aroma!

Or the stories she would tell about traveling with Dad and Uncle Ben, including telling stories on herself like the time she was riding in a pick-up with them. Dad was (probably) driving and Ben had the other window, so Mom was in the middle. Dad and Ben, being Dad and Ben, were cracking jokes, making wise-cracks, and just generally making comment after comment designed to draw a laugh. Finally, Mom good-naturedly said, "Ben, Hubert, you two don't have a brain between you"....which, of course, was where she was sitting. Between them. She never did live that down.

Sadly, I had to watch as her personality changed under the weight of 15 years of illnesses. I think it really hit home after Grandma Alda died when Mom and an ex-Aunt got in a yelling fight over something they each thought should be theirs. They were actually both holding it and pulling it. That was so not like Mom...until she got sick.

I saw her deal with my older sister in ways that were anathema to her prior to the illnesses. Her character was indelibly changed by the damage done physically and mentally. It just wore her down.

There were still flashes of the "real" Paralee, but they got fewer and further between.

For me, that was not such a big problem but for my younger brothers and sisters who saw only the "new" Mom, it was a tragedy.

To this day, I have not been to her grave site. At the risk of sounding like a cold-hearted, uncaring weasel, I just don't care. Her body might be there I suppose...if I knew where "there" was...but that wasn't Mom. I always thought she was honored more by the dinners we used to have.

Every year on or about the 18th or 19th, we would get together her closest friends and family as a sort of memorial/anniversary (I was married to my first wife in a private ceremony at Mom's bedside so she could see us get married a month and change before our "real" anniversary. The dinners died with the marriage, just one more casualty.)

I prefer to think of her playing the piano or singing with the Gloryland Way or making peanut brittle without peanuts or doing her tole painting or whatever than to stand on some grassy knoll sighting in my gu...err, talking to someone who has just their body there. No guns were on the grassy knoll when I was there.

50 years is not a long time, but the mark she left will go on for a couple generations. One of my nieces is named for her, stories are passed on. 

I have been blessed in my life with a fantastic Dad, great brothers, a couple great sisters and one not-so-great sister, and I also had a great Mom. 

I don't regret her passing, I don't regret her illnesses...good things have come from those. My only regret is the kids did not get to see her the way I did.