Make it thru Dec.

At time of this writing,  it's Monday and on top of that it's December and heading toward Christmas, a Christmas without Mom. She was not a big fan of Christmas  when my son was little i did it,  now I wish it would just go away...  This year was one of loss, not just my Mom also 5 people from my blog roll!  

Tioga George, Judy the Bird Lady, Lynn of Winnie Views, David of In the Direction of our Dreams, and McQ Travels.  Not to mention many of the Pets I had grown to love via blog reading and Vlogs.
I hope each of these bloggers families are handling their sorrow in a way that makes it bearable.

We did more clearing out of Mom's personal possessions, we found old letters from our Dad, little things we had made for her when we were children, and the most precious gift, a receipt.  If any of you have read my book Before Life Got Complicated, you know we had little.  At one point we lived in a wonderful old house on the grounds of Bramblewood Plantation.  We all loved it there  horses, dogs, cats, it was just on the outskirts of town and a great place to just be a kid. 

 It was owned by a wealthy lady who kept retired horses there and we kids took care of and rode those horses.  Some of the happiest parts of all our lives were spent there.  Only one issue...it was cold! Mom at this point in life was a widow she made little salary in fact I found one of her check stubs her bring home for that week had been $63.  Imagine having to pay rent, keep up an automobile, and feed 3 children and yourself on that...So anyways most of the time we had NO heat in the house.  An old oil burning radiator system was there but buying the oil was not always possible, so one Christmas my mom bought  3 electric blankets.  She did not buy one for herself,  We slept warm.  Mine was the green of nature, big sis's was sky blue, and little sis's was yellow like banana pudding.
While going thru some old receipts I found one from Sears, and it was for 3 electric blankets, $44.  Almost an entire weeks salary...
I have been extremely sad and fragile since finding that receipt.  

 There is a way now I'm waiting on  the will.  If you don't see blogs from me, you know I didn't find it.  

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Mom Memory for this Post

This was taken in Tennessee on a trip we made back to visit our family there.  I am guessing the year was about 1968.  Mom was 44 yrs old here.  This was the first car she alone purchased and owned it was a 1963 Plymouth Fury.  My Dad had always done the car buying etc.  He passed away in 1967.  It had a push button gear shifter...  She loved this car, we were so proud of her.  

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Resume normal...

This was a really hard week for us, and now the "work" of wrapping up someone's life is either done or a lot of progress has been made.  Mom had a wonderful send off but the weather was not very good...cold and rain battled us.  She was so beautiful in life and in death.  I know death is not something any of us want to talk about but I do encourage you all to have a conversation about it!  

We were so happy when we got word her oldest brother and sister would be attending, they made a heroic drive down with their families so we had 10 family members at her entombment.  One miracle was in searching for some photos we wanted to share at her visitation my sister found a sealed envelope with my Aunt Jeans name on it, mom's sister.  She had written her a special thought and never for some reason given it to her so that was given..and what a sweet message it was.  A treasure forever.  

Mom made a lot of decisions herself, she had purchased her mausoleum space long back and so we had some decisions to make but not a whole lot...also she had enough life insurance to cover her final expenses but not excess amounts, so keep in mind your passing is not about leaving people wealth, its about your funeral and the debts you may be leaving behind.  

I am ok so far but each day leaves that empty feeling of "I really miss Mom", I can't have any more conversations with her, all the remaining wisdom of her lifetime she took with her, now we are completely on our own...she had always been there for each one of us...I don't know how a single child deals with this without my sisters I would have had a complete meltdown.

I hope to resume my normal routine soon, I do believe normal is good...so soon. Today it's raining again so I made time to catch up on your posts and found all has been good in each of your lives.   I haven't taken any photos in 2 weeks or more because I was working on a project for mom when she started to have problems...so for an entire week or more I was busy doing that, unfortunately she only got to use it 3 times...but more on that later.  So I am sharing some old photos of some of my favorite flowers and stems. Saw the first Junco in the yard this fall from the water dripped window, my sis and I had planned to visit the sparrow fields today but that won't happen.  Maybe tomorrow?  

As a tribute to Mom for the remainder of the year I will post of photo of her and explain what we were up to.  Many of you were along with us in real time as had our little adventures...so today it's

July 30, 1998, Yellowstone National Park.  We were into our Great Adventure Road Trip -- you can find the tab on my home page to the journal entry of the entire trip.  Mom was always a little nervous about being close to natural wonders sometimes she saw them as a natural hazard..lol, note the apprehensive look on her face.  She was 74 yrs old in this photo and I think I see one grey hair my hair is solid grey now at 66 she didn't grey till she was in her 90's! 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.