In Memoriam

I never had much opportunity to get to know my dear friend Margaret's mother terribly well.  Despite that, shortly after Viola was born- a little pink sweater, hand-knit, arrived in the mail from Marg's mom.  Viola will finger the yarn of that tiny sweater someday when she goes through the box of memories I've saved from her baby years and know that someone made that for her. 

My grandmother, when she was in the hospital in her 80's said "I miss my mother.  No matter how old I get, I still miss her." 

Yes, I wish that people didn't have to miss their mothers, ever.

A letter from my friend today:

Dear Amigos,

Today is a muy muy (mal) importante day for me and mine....Today is the cinco anniversary of my mother's death.  The fifth anniversary of the worst day of my life...so far...

My mother was a great woman.  She was great before she was my mother and will always be the Great Kathleen Margaret.  She was 80 when she passed, but she was/will always be forever 35 to me.  She was 35 when she gave birth to me, relatively old for the 1960's, but she was always ahead of her time.

Gramma Kay had hooked up her new(new to her, from her daughter-in-law, Steph) computer and gone to her senior stretch class and played on the floor with my girls, just the month before her death.  She was witty, she was limber(tied her shoes bending over at the waist with one hand), she was smart as a whip(was 2 credits away from her doctorate{but she was at the top of her pay scale, so who needs a paper saying blah blah blah just to put another diploma in her underwear drawer), she was so many things...

Cinco De Mayo is so fitting of day for her to pass, as we all know she loved the Southwest, and she loved a Margarita...' Ma'am are you finished?  Oh, I'm not from Phoenix, my cousin, here, is from Scottsdale, but I am from Las Vegas.'  To this day, if anyone asks a member of our family if we are:  'finished,' we reply, no we're not from Phoenix, we're from Las Vegas...' tehetehe...The Irish in her made her laugh and cry easily, (and just a little hopping mad..)...

My mother was the 'consummate' teacher, everything and everywhere she took the opportunity to teach, she loved words and the English language and she loved the proper use of any, no wait...she appreciated the proper use of the English language.(period)  The 'English' in her made her appreciate things and words done properly,(if she was alive, she would own a Dyson vacuum, no doubt, it would join her 1950's Singer sewing machine and her Rowenta iron, she loved a well operating appliance, but never ever never ever ever a crock-pot)...

Unfortunately, it was the teacher in her, how I mostly broke her heart...When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I said, 'why can't you just be my mom first instead of always my teacher..?'  Well, she sent my sassy butt to a tutor guy friend of hers for a year after that statement.  He was a nice guy, a great teacher, and as my dad said, 'a bit light in the loafers,' but I swear he tutored me not so much in reading, writing and arithmetic, as in what a FABulous mother I had.  Be careful what you wish for, I mean really how can a mother not be a teacher?  My mother has been dead for five years and she teaches me something new everyday.

I love you, mom.  I love you, my teacher! 'I can't do me own self,'
Hail all teachers,
Hail all earthly mothers,
Hail all heavenly mothers,
Hail Mary! Pray for us!

Love,
Margaret Elsie
(Elsie, my mother's aunt, who at 18 paid for my mother(who was 8 and had lost her mother) to have dance lessons and other goodies, I mean who helps a motherless 8 year old at 18?  A great woman, a great aunt, a great aunt Elsie, a great TEACHER!

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[meg]

Great brunettes unite