All these years moms guided me with a quiet optimism.
Just do it, she says.
But don’t do it carelessly.
Be cautious, but do it.
Husbands come and go, and mom remains.
A quiet stoicism remains.
“I lost my grandmother Beaula Mayer, or Mamie in 1958,” she
says to me,
recalling four dark years that informed her like few others.
“My grandfather Illges, Papa, 1958.
Mother and Daddy, 1959,
Uncle Bill, 1961.
All the people that I looked up to and had guided me were
gone.”
If there is any one life event that formed who mom is, this
succession
of losses was it.
We talk about them frequently and then a few years go by and
those
losses
become quiet.
And then they come back.
These days, we try to enjoy the garden, as her grandfather
taught
her.
We look at the lake and talk about grandkids.
Chat about her favorite art, the Northern Masters, the
For nearly two decades, we had weekly dinners after she was
done
with class.
These days, I visit her more, usually every week.
Sunday, we dug through some old scrapbooks, pursuing snap
shots,
decade
by decade.
It's a lot to explore, lots and lots of pics and memories, the five
elders who
passed,
pictures of cousins, siblings, and a Columbus GA childhood.
Her mom’s big trip abroad in the 1930’s before she came along.
Her first trip to Berlin in 1958, where we are going next week.
The camellias in her grandfather’s garden, on and on.
Chatting about her life as a teacher and explorer herself, the cities
she saw,
ever
a part
of it all, places she still plans to go.
Maybe another Berlin or New Orleans trip?
A lifetime of memories, decades later, still enjoying the view of
the garden.
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