Mother's Day - Late Again

We were able to have a pleasant Mother's Day this year. All of the kids either called or came over for a BBQ. My mom and Janene's mom were here, and while it was a little crazy with all the grandkids (and even one great-grandchild -Wow! can you believe that Doug is a grandpa?), we all had a fun time and were able to catch up on each other's lives. Chelane sent a card from her trip to Spain, France, Italy, and Tunisia. Shon called from his job in Hawaii. Steve called from Mexico - he still has not had a sip of soda this year, and Lisseth came over the day before so she could be with Glen at the hospital.

I am pretty darn lucky to have my mom still with us and able to be involved with our family. She has had a pretty rough year, but she is too tough to give up. I was reminded of one of my favorite memories with my mom - and there are a lot of those. We were getting ready to go to church at our house on Colorado Street, and I was told to polish my shoes. We had a flight of stairs going down to the basement with painted wooden treads and I was sitting on the stairs with the bottle of shoe polish. It was the old type of shoe polish with the little dauber inside the bottle. I pulled the dauber out.... and shoe polish went all over me and down those white painted stairs. We were late and my mom yelled at me "Can't you do anything right?" I thought I was going to shrivel up and die. She sat down next to me, grabbed the bottle, and said "Here is how you do it!", and proceeded to flip shoe polish all over me, her, and the nicely painted stairs. I didn't know what to think. Surely there were going to be some swear words out of this, but no - my mom burst out laughing! We both sat on those stairs laughing until we cried. My mom has had to deal with a lot of serious stuff over the course of her life, but she has never forgotten how to laugh.

One of my favorite memories of Janene's mom was something that she always did when Janene and I were dating. You could always tell when Marie was in the house because she would be singing. She sang old songs from the 40's, Primary songs and hymns. Her rendition of Happy Birthday is a family classic.

Today, she can't remember who we are. She always wants to know if her mother knows where she is, and she often asks where Blaine is. If you ask her who Blaine is, she can't remember why he's important to her, but if you start singing an old song, she chimes in with the harmony part remembering all the old words. The other day, she woke up early at about 4:00 in the morning and I could hear her lying in her bed in the other room, singing one of those old melodies. When I poked my head in to check on her, she was sound asleep, still singing. When I get to heaven, I expect she will be singing when I come in the door. (provided I make it.)

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!