All I Want for Christmas

All I want for Christmas is this:

To be able to hug and talk to my younger sister. Maureen is forever 22 years old. When she died I needed to talk to her and tell her everything was going to be alright. I needed to tell her again i loved her, that we all loved her.  Now I have 50+ year old lady stuff to talk to her about.  I need to tell her that we understand manic depression now, better than we did in 1988.  I need to let her know that just like when we were kids I will punch anyone who bothers her. That I would shock the bus driver from our elementary school ten more times if I could, by chasing a boy all the way to his house for bullying my sister on the bus.

I want to be able to hug and talk to my older brother. Kenny and I ‘got’ each other. He could (and did) call at anytime day or night to tell me a funny thing and knew I would ‘get’ it.  I need him to do this and I need a rewind.  I want to tell him one more time that I love him and nothing else matters but the love of his family.  I want to make him know that the stigma of mental illness doesn’t matter to those that love and care about you.

I want to hug my mom and hold her hand. I want the fogginess of Alzheimer’s to have never inserted itself in her life because I need her to know I was there. I need her to understand that the tragic wreck that killed her should never of happened.  I need to pick her up off her feet in the kitchen like I did to her as a kid, and squeeze her tight. I need to thank her again for all the sacrifices she made for me.

I wish to hug my dad when he is standing and not in a wheelchair. I need to hear his voice and smell his cigars and feel his leather jacket on my cheek. I need to argue with him and laugh with him and cry over the wonder of things with him. I need to watch a football game with him and tell him about work.

I want to hear my grandpa ask Mabel, my grandmother to bring him another cup of coffee. I want to see his latest invention and have him draw it out for me. I need to hear my Grandma call him Gerald and tell him she is making all of us a roast.  I need to see the love in her eyes she had for him and for her family.

I miss my Grandma Ada’s cookies and her fried okra and I want to spend the night with her one more time. I want her to take me to Boston’s Ice cream shop or to Dairy Queen and get me a hot fudge sundae.  I need to look at her hair that remained red her whole life. I need to hear her tell me to turn my lamp out one more time because I’m up too late reading the books she bought me.

 

Happy birthday, Mom

E8088122-EEE7-48E0-A15B-C6B7CAF1AB1ESeptember 10th is my mother’s birthday.

If they have birthdays in heaven I don’t know it. The Bible says in Rev 21:4 (paraphrasing) ‘for the former things have passed away’.   I take this to be ‘no’ because nothing like that is important in heaven, the presence of God and heaven is (more than) enough and earthly things have been left behind.

IF they have birthdays in heaven she is sitting by her beloved parents, my sister and my brother, she is listening to music, singing along whether she knows the words or not, and perhaps drinking a Bloody Mary, her favorite drink.

The rest of us left here will think of her today and every day, we might cry and we might laugh, but we all know who the best mom was.  Happy birthday. Love you. See you, mom, when it’s time.

 

Salon

Cheating on my blog this week. This is a 2016 reprint from a Facebook post. (A true story). 

My Nail Salon Adventure On My Lunch Hour One Time
Today I went to the nail salon to get my eyebrows mow–, uh, er trimmed. When I walked in they say ‘You want?’ So I point to my eyebrows. ‘Ok, she says, lip too?’ (pointing at her upper lip)   Me: ‘no, just these’ (brows)
So I go lay down on the bed of torture and the girl comes in and immediately starts wax application.  Me: ‘Not too thin please’
Torturer/technician: ‘ oh you like thick?’ (Um no). Just not Betty Boop thin …
Then I close eyes for the ripping of the cloth and after its done I open my eyes and two people’s faces are really close to mine and they are talking very rapidly not in English and laughing and looking at my face VERY closely.
Then they both say in English
‘Lip?’ ‘Very hair-y ‘
So I get my hair-Y lip done too and now I am on the walk of shame down the long hall of my office. The end.

ps I KNEW salon was a derivative of ‘saloon’.   I’m headed there now.

Life is Like a Box of Chocolates-Unless your daughters eat them

With two girls, around our house, ‘borrowing’ is the norm. All three of us can wear each other’s shirts, some shoes, but not pants or dresses. Chocolate is another matter…that is the NO zone…

One thing in our household it is NOT OK to borrow/eat/sneak/steal is…chocolate.  Over the years my daughters and I have gone to great lengths to hide/camouflage chocolate from each other. Jenny, knowing Audrey would NEVER look in the closet with the cleaning supplies used to hide hers there. (“Someone” however ‘did’ know to look  in there and did not hesitate to gobble a portion).  This lead to screaming, finger pointing, character assassination and name calling where the ‘someone’ had to admit to being the offender.

Audrey, though she is now a ‘neat freak’ used to hide hers in her room, which no one would dare enter because mysterious ‘rustling’ could be heard under her bed amongst the Chinese takeout containers and candy wrappers.  However, one year her older sister did get her chocolate and it wasn’t pretty. The Easter Bunny somehow mistakenly put the white chocolate bunny (Jenny’s top choice in chocolate) in Audrey’s basket and the milk chocolate one in Jenny’s.  Out of spite they would not exchange. (They were age  9 and 7 forgot that part).  That evening a mysterious thing happened resulting in screams the next morning heard around the worl- uh neighborhood.  Mr White Bunny had his ears and feet bitten off. Even though Audrey was never going to eat him, her sister did the only thing she could do – make a statement.  The only way I could rectify this situation was to take Mr Milk Chocolate Bunny, bite his feet and ears off (and eat them); swap the two earless/footless bunnies out and go in with our day. Everyone got their fave chocolate in their lunchbox that day and everyone was semi-happy.

One thing learned by stealing chocolate is you gain the stealth of a ninja and the military precision of the best operatives. I honed my skills on my younger sisters Halloween candy. She was not a light sleeper and later on Halloween eve when the house was sleeping after blissfully gorging on more candy than anyone could ever need, I belly crawled to her room, swapped out my undesirable candy for her M & M’s, Snickers and Hershey’s and belly crawled like the thief I was back to my lair. (Insert Easter candy/belly crawl, etc here as well as Christmas stocking candy…) I believe both my daughters have the chocolate thievery talent that I unfortunately taught them, as evidenced by the candy box pictured.

I received this box of my favorites as one of my 2016 Mother’s Day gifts.  Their hearts were in the right place, unfortunately,  lust took over and well, even licking each piece did not deter.them.at.all.  My hiding place was always on top of the China cabinet. (It was also my own mothers fave chocolate hiding place…and that’s another chocolate story for another day)

Moral of the story- do not leave your chocolate lying around where this trio can see it.

or find it.  We will find it…

 

 

 

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