Later in the month it will be two years since my fathers passing. I have been doing well for quiet a while now until yesterday. It was my birthday and my mom wrote something really nice on my Facebook wall that included my father. I cried off and on at work the rest of the day. So when I got to my car I listened to the voicemail he left on my birthday in 2019. Not sure why I didn’t answer the phone that year as I was on my sabbatical from work. But it cracked me up, just like it did when he first left it.
We talked about this a lot at Grief Share. How sometimes it just hits when you least expect it. So I embraced it and just cried. Brian gave me orange roses which are gorgeous. Then a bottle of his favorite wine. Like seriously ruin a great gift but I think it’s because he was afraid I’d hate the roses or something. He’s one of the most bizarre gift givers I have ever met.
Allyson gave me my gift today. And bam grief back again. She took ceramics this year in college and made me this.
It’s Isla with her weird non eye and all. It looks so much like her. She went with me to put Isla down last October. I never mentioned it on social media because it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. She was extremely aggressive and most likely had rage syndrome. She had bit both Allyson and Kayla for no reason. As well as attacked Moonie many many times. I have said all my life I would not have a dog that bit people. It’s just too dangerous. So we sent Isla to heaven with a message for my dad if she can talk. The vet tech about flipped out but Dr. Smith told her it was the truth.
So I’m sad all over again today. But I tell myself dogs will be in heaven even though Pastor Kevin told me many moons ago Jesus didn’t die to save dogs. Obviously he’s a dog hater.
Mole Moral ~ I learned a long time ago, you don’t get over death, you just learn to live with it.
My life will always be a comedy of errors and todays post will confirm this.
Yesterday Brian was over at my moms house assessing what needed to be moved and a plan on how to do it. Somehow she managed to trip over a lamp cord and started to fall. He caught her before she totally hit the floor but she managed to bend her foot backwards. This morning when I got a message it still hurt and she thought it could be broken I decided to take her to urgent care. This would confirm no breaks and she could stop worrying.
The nurse practitioner was a little snippy and no lie my mom flipped her off when she left the room. She returned after the X-ray with a total change in attitude and informed us mom had three bones broken in her foot and they needed to consult orthopedics to determine if she needed to be seen now. She comes back a short time later and says she can see them this week but she needs a splint and no weight bearing on that foot. Hopping around on one foot with a walker is not an option. Even I would veto that so I reach out to my sister to see if she has a wheelchair and she does. So mom and I make plans to swing by her apartment storage unit to pick up walker (Brian had just put the stupid thing in there the day before) then to my sisters house for the wheelchair and then back to her house.
She realizes she has no cigs so I agree to stop at gas station. She then smoked one while I’m fetching the walker. I start the car to leave and it will not start. So I have to call Brian who is currently at my moms house. He is busy power washing her siding to get her house ready to sell. Luckily he was just finishing up. So he has to drive to my moms apartment to jump start me. My mom cannot get out of the car because she can’t put any weight on her foot. So my car starts up and he tells me not to turn it off. Yeah duh!
We fetch the wheelchair and make it to her house. Luckily she never took the wheelchair ramp down from when she broke her ankle back in 2010. We barely made it in the door because the wheel got stuck on the entryway. By this time Kayla had arrived to go to the store and pack some things up. So I dropped her off and came home.
Brian backs my car out of the garage and looks at the battery. He then took old one out and bought a new one. I am so thankful he can fix anything.
Sometime back when my mom was still at rehab my sisters engine blew in her car. It’s a known issue with that vehicle but since there is no recall she was basically screwed. It would be a year wait for a new engine or she could spend four thousand dollars for a used one with no guarantee it wouldn’t do the same thing. She had been using my moms car during this time but my mom is ready to drive again so Karen has been looking for a car.
She found a used Nissan Morano which both she and our dad had owned back in the day. It only had 107,000 miles on it and was located in Rolla. Now Rolla is thirty minutes from Salem where our father grew up. I just knew that this was the car. So Brian says I guess you two bimbos need me to come with you. We were planning to go to Salem after to make sure the two hot wheels were still glued onto our grandparents headstone. Once I realized if we bought the car he could drive mine home, I was like yes come with us.
Karen called to make sure it was still there. She swore the person on the phone sounded like Flo from the show Alice (think Mel, kiss my grits). So we all head to Rolla. We pull up and it’s like a mom and pop shop next door to the owners house. The person that answered the phone was a shy timid guy who was super nice. Karen and Brian test drove it and Brian says it’s a good deal. So we talk about how to pay. They got burned by a personal check but the banks are closed for Christmas Holiday so I cannot get one. (Side note, my mom is paying me back and Karen is paying my mom). So my sister says how about if we give you five hundred cash and the rest a check. He has to check with his boss and get car inspected so we go into Rolla for lunch.
The guy calls as we are finishing lunch and agrees to the deal. So I say to Brian how much cash do you have on you. He starts counting out his money. He has exactly 480 and Karen has twenty so we don’t have to deal with ATM. In the meantime this dude is watching the entire scene basically giving him the look of you are paying that much money for two old beaters, they must be really good. Bahahaha
So when we return to sign the deal Karen notices a picture on the wall. It looks almost exactly like my dads first roadster including being red. Then she sees another with four corvettes one of which looks just like my tattoo on my arm. I was like I knew dad lead us to this car. As we were heading over to Salem underneath the sticker that said the year was a date written in white. Karen says what the hell is that. I said probably the date they got the car. Karen look at it. It was 12/21 which is our fathers birthday. He would have been eighty-one this year.
Mole Moral ~ Signs are everywhere. Often we are too busy to notice, slow down and pay attention.
If one has read my previous blog, they know that my mom was in the hospital for thirty-five days and then spent another two weeks at a rehab facility. I should have written this first but the trip home was too much of a comedy not to post first.
Briefly my mom had a big surgery to move her stomach out of her chest back into her abdomen. Leave it to her to experience a complication that occurs one percent of the time. But after five days with out of control pain I forced her to go to the ER. She was running a temp and her heart rate was in the 120’s. The ER did a CT and lab work while out in waiting room. Because I have access to her my chart I saw her WBC was 20 so I knew she was not going home. She got tired of waiting and wanted to leave. I said nope, not happening. Once we got to a room and the ER doc came in looking freaked out about CT results I knew my waiting room assessment was spot on. I just had no idea that the on call surgeon assisted with my moms surgery and said she needed to be transferred to SLUH or St Mary’s because only they had the equipment to do what he needed to do surgically. When she had a bed at SLUH and was in their ER in less than three hours I knew it was life or death. I have never known SLUH to have open icu bed for transfers (at least in my endoscopy world).
My mom had surgery that day and would have another within four or five more days. She and I truly believe the only reason she survived (she’s no spring chicken at 78) is because of the outstanding care she received at SLUH. Her surgeon had just arrived three weeks prior as the new chief of cardio thoracic surgery. Later he would tell me he treated this complication often and people were sent to him from all over the state. So she received excellent care surgery wise. However, it was the above and beyond nursing care she received that was instrumental in her recovery.
She spent the first week in ICU and those nurses were so incredibly kind, smart and attentive it made me want to leave endoscopy and work there. No worries I reminded myself why I left critical care in 2000 and how two months of it at the beginning of Covid was enough for me.
She was then moved to a regular floor. There were times when I know those nurses were working short and yet they never used it as an excuse and continued to act like my mom was their only patient. And no it was not because I was there all the time (I wasn’t) or calling them constantly (I didn’t. I still had access to her my chart so I followed her labs daily without bugging the nurses). It’s just how they are.
Now my mom was a bit of a PIA about her pillows. I swear she had every spare pillow on the floor in her bed. Well they decided my mom was like the princess and the pea. Since she nicknames people all the time they started calling her the pea princess. We all got such a kick out of it. When her chest tube came out and her esophageal stents came out I knew her time at SLUH was coming to an end. So I started thinking about a thank you gift. It is well known I can bake but I thought nurses always get food and it just makes us fat. Flowers are pretty but they die. Then the perfect idea came to me and I ran with it.
Every nurse needs a good black ink pen. And because my mom is snarky and funny, I decided on snarky nurse pens. But because not all of her nurses were snarky, I also did some custom ones that said “thank you from the pea princess”. My mom about started crying when I ran the idea by her. She loved it. I found the picture on the internet and Allyson helped me remove the background. I took it up on a weekend after she was discharged because the weekend charge nurse was phenomenal. Both my mother and sister also really liked her as well.
On the ride home from rehab just one week ago my mom thought she was going to need to buy a wheelchair. I went along with her while in my head thinking she was crazy. Yesterday we went to primary to get her blood pressure straightened out. (Rehab messed with her medicine till she was running 90’s over 50’s and so dizzy she couldn’t hardly walk with walker). The only time she used the walker that day was to see him. She’s all over the house without it. He said no more blood pressure medicine for now. A week without it and she was 120/70. He said she’s lost so much weight she may no longer need it. So my favorite saying “will continue to monitor”.
My mom was convinced no one would remember her. The fact that it’s a rarity to have a patient in the hospital for thirty five days alone is enough. But couple it with the fact she could have easily died and the fact she rarely asked for anything and was so freaking funny she will be remembered by some forever. When she left for rehab her nurse called me to tell me and said she (the nurse) cried when my mom left. A couple days ago someone called to set up home PT and said I never took care of you but I heard all about you. She left an impression on many that she will never know this side of heaven.
Mole Moral ~ So often people focus on the negative and complaining. It’s a choice to recognize the good and amazing. Focus on that and let those know how much you appreciate them.
My mom had surgery to move her stomach out of her chest and back into her abdomen on September 9. Her surgeon is the best for this procedure and I knew she was in good hands. He went over risks which seemed small compared to the benefits. She had lost about fifty pounds and was continuing to lose weight. Did fine overnight and then started with what we thought was gas pain from the CO2. Post op day 5 the pain was so out of control she was suicidal so I made her go to ER. I’m going to condense the next 50 days. She ended up with a huge chest infection where her stomach was. It later turned out one of the stitches in her esophagus ripped out causing a hole in her esophagus. So everything she had eaten and drank leaked out making the infection worse. They ended up placing 2 stents to cover the hole for three weeks. She was on IV food and not allowed to eat. She was on a total of five different IV antibiotics to clear the infection. She spent 35 days at SLU hospital where she received excellent care. She loved all the nurses and they loved her. She was then sent to Mercy rehab for 15 days to recuperate. She is doing better but needs to eat and get her strength back. She lost a total of twenty one pounds during this ordeal. It was one thing after another during this time and why I thought discharge would be smooth is beyond me.
My mom called around 10:45 or so for me to come get her. My sisters engine blew in her car so she has been using my moms car. My mom felt my SUV would be too hard for her to get into so I was driving to my sisters work when I got a text from Kayla. Are you at work? I just blew a tire on highway 40. So I call her to make sure she’s not hurt. We have triple A so I tell her they can put her spare on. She informs the last time she blew a tire (on the way back to Springfield) the tire store threw the spare out because it was dangerous to drive on. Now to say my stress has been off the charts for two months is an understatement so I say let me call your dad because I don’t know what to do. So I call Brian and tell him what happened, he says call triple A and tell them to tow to nearest tire store. I said thanks and call Kayla. Now Kayla was on her way to school and can’t leave the car. So originally I was going to wait with Kayla and then go get my mother. I call her back to update her. Then my sister was like I will wait with Kayla, you go get mom. So I call mom back. I don’t think rehab has ever discharged anyone as fast as they did us. Well as we come upon Kayla and my sister I see my husband has arrived so I drive on by. Then turn around to go back towards home. I tell my sister Brian can wait for tow truck because I know he is not going back to work and I need to get my mom home. So Karen leaves. Brian calls me and says are you coming back to get Kayla I have no room in my work van because his partner rides with him. I’m about to lose my mind so I turn around again and head back to them. Now mind you my mothers back seat is jammed packed with her crap so I ask Kayla if she wants to put it in the trunk. She is as stressed as dance competition days and said no I want to get off the side of the highway now. She shoves all of my moms stuff over to the other side and gets in. Then Brian calls and says he needs her triple A card so she gets back out runs it to him and gets back in the car. She is so shaken up she no longer wants to go to school but wants to go back to her place. She puts her address in and we start down 40 East. All of a sudden she realizes her apartment keys are with her car keys and she cannot get into her apartment. So we end up taking her to school and then I take my mom home. In the meantime Brian had to wait over an hour for the tow truck but followed them to Dobbs and arranged for a new tire.
I seriously cannot make this stuff up. It is very comical and before we pulled off I said to mom this is like who’s on first. She looks at me like I’m nuts and says what. I said you know who’s in first, what’s on second, I don’t know is on third. She then starts laughing and says we have a gift of being able to laugh through trying times. I said who did that routine. She says Abbot & Costello. I said oh yeah all I could think of was the Hardy Boys. She informs me they were detectives. Yes I know I read their books.
So Kayla is safely home. I got my mom all set up in her house. She looked at Facebook briefly and then fired up the switch to check in with her villagers on Animal Crossings. She was suppose to take a nap when I left but instead started checking email. She needs to eat eat eat to get her strength back and put on a little weight. She got around very well with her wheeled walker and in the words of Dr. Heavey “I think she’ll do just fine”.
Mole Moral ~ Everyday is an adventure. It’s a choice of how you tackle it. The moles choose turning it into a comedy!!
Brian and I moved into our house in 1990. I cannot remember if we planted the rose bush that year or the next. Anyway I picked yellow at my moms suggestion as it was her dads favorite. I never really took great care of it which really annoyed my mom because it was amazing. A few years back Brian and I started saying when it died we were getting divorced. He would also say he peed on it every night and it just wouldn’t die.
At the end of last summer my rose bush looked dead so I cut it back super short and contacted a lawyer. Just kidding. This spring it has not come back. I looked up average life span of rose bushes and it said 30-35 years. So I certainly did something right.
My dad died almost a year ago so I started thinking about what color rosebush I would replace this one with. Maybe because my house is burnt orange and my brick has some black in it, I thought about black. With the internet it makes it easy to find. So I researched them and found two really cool ones. Of course no plants are available until next year but seeds are. So I decided I will grow from seeds. I researched how to do this and after planting the seeds they go in refrigerator for 6-8 weeks for stratification. After that they need grow lights for warmth. So I ordered the seeds today. I have enlisted Brians help because after he took over the Christmas cactus from his moms plant, it made a bloom. Of course he moved it to a different window with better light but I need his help.
So it looks like the rosebush is dead but our marriage lives on. Who knows maybe my next career will be growing rosebushes and selling them.
Mole Moral ~ Death is inevitable but from it new life springs!
Only my sister and I could turn what should be a sad day into a comedy of chaos.
Our dad would have turned eighty today on the shortest day of the year. He always commented on how he hated winter between the cold and dark and being born on winter solace. He had shared his wishes that he be cremated and have his ashes spread between his brothers. About six years ago my dad took Emily and I down to Salem to visit the cemetery, the farm he grew up on, his parents house they moved too after they retired from cattle farming and his brothers house.
My father was cremated but Brenda expressed she couldn’t part with his ashes. We were fine with that. My creepy sister wanted a necklace with some of his ashes so the funeral home gave us some in a small bag. I almost forgot to grab them this morning. We decided we would spread these.
So we head out at 6:30 swearing Salem was a three hour drive but instead was a short two hours. We drove to house first since we went there a lot when we were young. The carport had been turned into a garage. The back of the house had a sliding glass door and a deck. However the propane tank still in the backyard and I could still envision the trellis that was up that had the climbing roses on them. I could also still see grandmas close line and garden.
We then headed over to Uncle Bobs house. I was one number off of the address and I swear the house didn’t look the same as it did five years ago and the yard seemed much smaller than when I was a kid. The senior apartment center my grandma lived in next was right next door. We drove around trying to remember which was hers and which was our Aunt Gracie’s. I had an address and I was like oh it’s her apartment number. When we drove to the recreation building I was like oh yeah I looked it up on the internet.
Then it was time to go to the cemetery. I mean how big can the place be. Karen had found on a gravesite locator website they were in section B. We couldn’t even find section B so we asked a worker who was clueless. He gave us the number to the county clerk. We finally find section B and are wandering all over the section. I finally say call that lady we are never going to find it. So she calls and the lady takes her number so she can go look it up. As we are walking to the car to warm up I’m like stop, look it’s right there. If we would have only parked in front of the B sign we would have seen it right then.
Karen brought some stuff to leave and I was so distracted I almost forgot the entire reason for the trip. I notice the order of graves is Uncle Tom, Aunt Margie, Aunt Ruth and then Uncle Bob. Now how exactly was I suppose to spread them between his brothers when the wives were in the way. Thanks dad for not thinking this through. Bahahaha. So I spread a little over his two brothers and then his parents.
In the meantime Karen has her crafting glue out and is making a very nice display to add to the grave marker. She was annoyed she only had one memorial card but decided to glue the words side out. She also picked up a hot wheel Camaro that was half blue and half green to represent both his cameros. After she gets it all glued I say too bad we didn’t laminate it because the rain will ruin the memorial card. So she gets all finished and screams happy birthday John Carty and gets in the car.
All of a sudden she remembers she has her laminator in the car. She also has an electrical outlet in the car so we go to the gas station to use the restroom while she also finds laminator sheets. We get back to the gravesite and she now has to carefully peel his memorial card off that she stuck on with gorilla glue. She plugs in the laminator and it’s too much voltage and blows the circuit. So not to be deterred she slides the card in the pouch and cuts it down to size with her straight edge paper cutter. I said it was a good thing she had that as our dad could draw a straight line without a ruler and always had picture edges perfectly straight. She did a perfect job and glued it back to the headstone and it’s now safe in the rain. I wish I could say the rest of the day was uneventful but we were off to find the farm.
There is no written address for the farm. Back in 1962 the address was The Carty’s Doss Missouri. Luckily at some point I think my grandparents saved the newspaper clipping that announced the farm had been sold (it was in the Carty family for almost one hundred years) and said it was located on a highway next to a bridge. (I knew which highway and the name of the bridge but the entire world does not need this information). So off we go. We come to a bridge and I see the house but I’m like I thought it was white so we keep driving. Now I did take pictures of it five years ago which are uploaded to Walgreens. The actual farmhouse burned to the ground sometime in the seventies I think. I remember Aunt Ruth Uncle Bob and grandma talking about it and we even drove out there at that time. So I’m like wait maybe that’s the house and I’m thinking of the white farmhouse. I’m like I’ll look on Walgreens except we are in middle of nowhere with no cell service. So my sister says why didn’t you screen shot the picture. Thanks genius. We go back and I’m like that has to be it except the barn is now gone as it was near collapse six years ago. So my fathers entire family is gone, his childhood home and the barn he did homework all gone. So I snapped a picture, did not see a for sale sign, and we decided to drive over to licking to see the house my uncle grew up in.
The house was as I remembered once we looked at the address correctly. I don’t remember houses being in the back of them. I did remember if you turn left out of driveway a short distance on right was a gravel road or you could keep going straight. Throughout my life I would dream I would turn down the road and it went on and on to a scary place. Guess what I learned it’s just a short distance to a main road. We also went straight and that road goes on forever. So hopefully those stupid dreams are gone forever. The roads seemed much scarier when I was a kid. We drove over to the high school and said I wonder where moms house was that was close to Judy Ellis. She will probably say that was the house but I don’t think so. However I have zero sense of direction so who knows.
We finished our day by stopping into our cousins cafe in Sullivan. Both of our cousins were there so we got to see them for a bit and had a wonderful lunch. It was an ending to a very nice day.
Mole Moral ~ Only a mole could walk all over a graveyard stomping on people when the grave was literally right next to the road. Rest assured I dropped a pin on my map app to be able to find the grave easier the next time.
About a month ago I was talking about this trip at work during a case. The CRNA student is from Utah and said if you go to Zion you must do Angel’s landing. He told me that towards the end there are chains to hold onto so you don’t crash one thousand feet down. My high fall risk self vetoed that immediately. And then we arrived at Zion.
First of all, I was not impressed with Zion. It is way too crowded and parking is ridiculous. Our first day we wandered in at ten and there were zero parking places. So we went out of the park to Springdale where they charge forty bucks a spot. Every spot was taken so we parked in the lot for the hotel and risked being towed. The next day we arrived at seven-thirty and the parking lot was two-thirds full. So if you are going to go to Zion get there early.
On our second day I was peer pressured by Brian to do angels landing. When we reached this sign he said I could wait for him.
There was no way he was calling me a chicken for life so we trudged along. The climb up to the point of the chains was intense to say the least but we made it and I didn’t die.
Brian tried to tell me this was wider than five feet. I said sure crackhead and looked straight ahead and at my feet. No way was I looking down.
We made it to the top. The scenery was breathtaking but it was so crowded we didn’t stay long. We feared we’d get shoved off the edge so we headed back down. Going down all that was way scarier than up.
You can see the chains in this photo. This section super narrow and not five feet wide.
This last photo is the switchbacks. Going down was easy, coming up was a workout.
So the question I know everyone is asking, did she fall? And the answer is of course I did. It was at the very end of coming down the chain section. I was literally ten feet from a no fall climb and thinking about the text I was going to send to Dr. Heavey about not falling (he loves to keep track of how many times a trip over stuff )when I hit sand and went sliding lost my balance and fell backwards landing hard on the left side of my butt. My poor left side looks like Brian beat me when in fact I’m just a clumsy bull in a China cabinet.
The reason this hike is so risky is because of the massive amount of people going up and down at the same time. Many get impatient and rock jump and shove around slow people. The crna student told me the park is going to make it a permit only hike which I think is a great idea for safety. They were all set to do it and then guess what? Covid of course.
Mole Moral ~ Amazing things happen when you step out of your comfort zone as the next two blogs will show.
It was thirty-nine years ago this week that I first met Gary Lindsay. You see I was a sophomore in high school and our band director Mr. Butler sent a note home stating Fox High School would be hosting an all boy marching band from Johannesburg South Africa and he was looking for host families. Of course I immediately asked my mother if we could host one and she said yes. I knew this would be one of those once in a life time moments but I had no idea at the time how much this one moment would change the course of my life.
I remember telling my mother I hope we get a drummer. The boys either played trumpet or drums. I’m not sure why I wanted a drummer but we got a trumpet player named Gary. If I remember correctly their flight was late getting in so by the time they arrived at the school it was ten at night. Gary was assigned to the Carty girls and I swear we didn’t even make it home before we started fighting like brother and sister.
They were with us for two weeks and it really was an incredible time. Their band was amazing and for the longest time we had a recording of them and also of our band on a vcr tape. Someone broke into our house and stole it with some other stuff. I’m sure they thought it was a sex tape and attempted to watch it and were sorely disappointed. By the time they had left some of the American parents had gotten together and wanted the Fox marching band to go to South Africa. So plans were made and fundraising began and I went to South Africa the following August. I spent the first half of that trip with Gary and his family and the second half with Anton and his family.
After that trip we kept in touch with letters that would take close to three weeks to arrive once sent. Oh the horrors as I can post this blog and within seconds everyone in South Africa could read it. Gary graduated from hotel school having studied hotel management but then joined Covenant Players which is a missionary based theater company that has troops in thirty countries. I believe this is where he met Heidi who eventually became his wife. They then came to America with Covenant Players where they worked on the east coast. However headquarters was located on the West Coast so every summer they had to drive across the entire United States and back. They spent their first Christmas in America with my family. Gary and Heidi were also in town when I gave birth to Kayla. It was always such an exciting time when Gary and Heidi were coming.
They eventually settled down out on the east coast and Gary started working in children’s ministry. They had a couple of kids and have lived in Texas, California and Washington. When Emily took her first travel job as a brand new physical therapist she was close to where Gary and Heidi were living and spent her first Christmas away from home with them. So Christmas came full circle.
Gary and Heidi are two of the most amazing, fun, and free spirited people I’m close with. Brian and I wanted them to raise our kids if we both should die. I can’t tell you how many times they asked if we would just die so they could live with Gary and Heidi. With Allyson being twenty now they escaped the nightmare of life with moles except on vacation.
Im pretty sure I started calling Gary a dork that first night we met. I spent the past four days with him and forgot to say it so I decided a special blog was in order. What a wonderful friend. I’m so thankful the school that was suppose to host them all those years ago backed out and that the band teacher and my mom said yes. Such a life long blessing.
It’s been a month since my dad died. It’s not been easy most days but I remind myself he is in heaven with his parents. My Grandma and Grandpa Carty were 45 and 50 when he was born. His two brothers were twenty years older than he so he was quite the surprise. I was always worried I’d end up pregnant like my grandma but luckily that did not happen.
My grandma always said she didn’t have long to live. She was convinced she would die before my dad ever graduated from high school. That certainly did not happen. The very first time my mom met her she was barely out of the car before she said I’m John’s mom and I don’t have long to live. I am not sure why she thought this because she ended up living until the age of ninety one. She lived to me see graduate from nursing school and my sister graduate from high school. Maybe if she didn’t think she was going to die all of her life she would have lived past one hundred.
My parents divorced when I was five so my dad would take my sister and I to see our grandparents for the weekend every few months. They lived in Salem and we enjoyed going. There was no better nap than when the grown ups were talking. After my grandpa died, my grandma moved to like a senior citizen apartment and my aunt and uncle built a house in Salem close by to keep an eye on her. Her apartment was one bedroom so we would sleep on the pull out couch. We always slept under this pink quilt she had made. I loved it but had totally forgotten all about it.
After my dads service Brenda gave my sister and I a bunch of his stuff she thought we would enjoy. I cannot begin to describe the joy that overcame me when I opened a box and there was the quilt. I had no idea my dad had even had it. It was like finding a long lost treasure chest worth more than all the money in the world. My sister said she will never forget the look on my face and she immediately told me it was mine. I swear it still smells like my grandma.
Brenda told my sister a couple weeks later my dad slept under it until a couple months ago. His legs had gotten so weak (he had polio as a child which is another blog) that he couldn’t move his legs because of the weight. I slept under it for the first week but then put it on the side of my bed. It has to be at least eighty years old and I’m not sure how many more times it can be washed. Brenda said she was getting nervous to wash it because she didn’t want it to fall apart.
I knew that some of my sewing ability came from my moms grandma. She quilted and made things all her life. I had totally forgotten about Grandm Carty. She made my parents a wedding ring quilt by hand that was fantastic. Sadly we used it too much and it fell apart from rough housing with our dog. It would be worth major bucks in this day and age. It certainly is a lost art. There is no way I would have the patience to make one of those so if my girls ever get married I will have to come up with something else.
Mole moral ~ Brightest joy will come from out of darkest night. (Betsy Bircher)
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