Missing Mom

I woke up this morning about the time church was starting. Dang it! When am I going to get it together. Once again, I stayed up too late working on a project...drafting plans for a new craft table for my kids and I. I am my own worst critic so when I don't do something that I think is important, such as church, I feel guilty. The guilt comes entirely from within, mind you. Already feeling down-trodden I got into the shower continuing to think about having let myself and my kids down...and my mom. Afterall, it was one of my mother's requests on her deathbed. "Find a church home and get my granddaughter into Sunday School," she said. I followed through a couple of years later when our next child would need to be baptized. Church was a way of life for me growing up. The only acceptable reason to miss it was severe illness or injury. I even remember several communions that nearly made me lose it right there on the alter because I was so hungover. Since we'd moved from Hot Springs I hadn't found a church to attend regularly and it distressed my mother. It was obviously very important to her for her to need to tell me through all the pain she was experiencing. So, my thoughts strayed from having missed church to missing my mother.

Why is it that the best place to break down emotionally is in the shower?! I suppose the water muffles sobs and conceals tears. She's been gone over four years now but there are still moments when I miss her so completely. There have been many times recently when I could have used her maternal advice and it saddens me that my son will know her only from pictures. The only Grandmother he will know on my side is truely not his Grandmother but my father's wife. She would have adored and doted on him. There have been other times that one of her hugs would have chased all the storm clouds away for at least a brief time. Those hugs are what I miss the most...and the random phone calls that began with, "I just needed to hear your voice." She was my best friend.

While thinking about our once frequent phone calls I suddenly realized to my horror that I couldn't remember what her voice sounded like...or her laugh. Had the memory of my mother's sweet soothing voice been pushed out of my mind by some random piece of crap information or could I just not, in my heightened sense of anxiety, recall it now? Disheartened I climbed out of the shower and proceeded with my day brooding.

It's funny; while I was pregnant with my son I often hoped that, for one reason or another, I would feel or see my mother in the delivery room. I guess that I hoped I would lapse into some drug-induced trancelike state and see her. When there wasn't time for any drugs I hoped for a pain-induced trancelike state. It never happened and to be honest, I was disappointed.

I suppose that there have been plenty of other times that I've felt she was near me. Not necessarily in a physical sense but in an obscure emotional sense...in that she is part of me. Whenever I see a cardinal (my grandmother's favorite bird) or a blue bird (my mother's) I feel the warmth of her with me. In the same token, by teaching my children about the different birds I am passing on a piece of her to them. And that stupid dimply smile of mine that I hate...until I see a picture of mom and realize that it is her beautiful dimply smile...then I embrace it.

I remember shortly after my Grandmother had died she told me of a dream she'd had. She walked down the isles of a church and found her mother sitting in a pew waiting for her. She sat down and she had a long conversation with her. She said when she woke up she was saddened because there had been so many other things she'd wanted to talk to her about. She told me she couldn't wait to see her mother again because she missed her. At the time I couldn't understand it. I had nothing to relate her feelings too until I lost her. It brought me solace when she passed, that she was finally getting to finish that talk with her mother. I guess it doesn't matter what age you are when you lose a parent. There is always a little piece of you waiting impatiently until you can feel that hug and hear that voice saying, "I've missed you so."

The Ongoing Joys of an Aged Home

Home ownership, I've found, can be much like parenthood; something blissfull one moment and a bane the next. One can go from quietly enjoying what you have worked so intently on for years to cursing the day you were given the keys.

When "home shopping" we knew that we were going to have to look on the lower end of the spectrum financially but weren't willing to forego certain "amenities" such as a nice yard, three or four bedrooms and a garage. I love the character of older homes (though I've often joked that I wish I could build a new home to look and feel like a Victorian) and they easily fell in our price range. From the first look at this house I felt at home, comfortable. I knew that, since it had been built in 1910, there were updates that would have to be taken care of....such as the circa 1940 furnace that was the size of a VW bug and running at 70% efficiency. After our first $400 winter utility bill, a new heat pump and furnace were our first big improvement.

Of course there were "smaller" items to take care of as well...like the contact paper (yes, I said contact paper...you know, the sticky vinyl stuff you use to line your cabinets with) that adorned the dining room walls floor to ceiling. I learned some valuable lessons right off the bat with that project....some adhesives NEVER come off, primer is your friend and Dutch Boy flat paint is NOT. I have peeled off more layers of wall paper than I care to admit to. Wall paper on top of wall paper; wall paper that has had the vinyl peeled off and the paper painted over; wall paper that has been secured to a corner with chewing gum (no lie). When someone even mentions putting wall paper in their houses I cringe and scream, "WHYYYYY?!?!?!! Are you insane?!"

I have vacuumed up sewage out of the basement and liberally disinfected EVERYTHING with bleach (It's only a miracle that I didn't blow the whole place up with all the fumes) thanks to the gargantuan maple tree just outside my front door that worries me everytime the wind blows and plagues me with mountains of seeds in the spring and drifts of leaves in the fall. And I believe that everyone who has ever owned or lived in an older home would agree that nothing is straight, square or plumb. Not that workmanship isn't present, just that the ravages of time take their toll on a home. My father and I even fixed a screen door carefully squaring everything up only to attempt to hang it and find that we would have to un-square it to get it to fit properly. These are the things I think of tonight, as my children are restlessly trying to get to sleep on the living room floor on makeshift beds.

I've known for a very long time that the electrical would have to be updated and I've wanted to do it for peace of mind. Though we have a breaker box in the basement that houses most of the major appliances and furnace/heat pump and most of the main floor outlets; there is a fuse box on the second floor that powers the entire upstairs and all of the ceiling lights and some kitchen outlets on the main floor. That fuse box is my bane and I curse it regularly. I hate changing fuses with a burning passion (maybe "burning" is a poor choice of words here). I'll replace garage door springs anyday rather than have to change one puny fuse. They scare me plain and simple. So, today after blowing through three fuses, I decided that it was time to call the friendly neighborhood electrician (at 7 PM of course) who agreed to come tomorrow morning and look at my problem, hopefully fix it then hand me a bill that will probably make my heart stop. This is why we are all camping in the living room. "It's an adventure!" I keep saying..probably to convince myself more than my kids (who think it is GREAT!) It's lifes way of forcing my hand, "encouraging" me not so gently to take care of an issue that most likely needs to be taken care of. After all, I'd much rather get that bill than to lose everything in a fire.

That is why I am thankful that we are sleeping in the living room tonight, having an adventure and laughing about it for years to come (hopefully). It's just one of life's pigtail curves that gets us to where we are meant to be...that's what I'm telling myself anyway. Good night all...the sofa is calling me.