Mom Passed Last Week

My mom died last week at age 90.  She was healthy right up until the last few months.

 She and I had been estranged. Are we still? Does she know what I am doing and thinking?  Is she in a place where she can reach out to me in ways she couldn’t when she was living here on this plain? I think I would like that.

Mom grew up during the “great depression” and firmly believed in “waste not, want not.”  She learned stoicism, and not to show her feelings.  She was a caring person who didn’t “waste” time or energy on feeling and expressing her feelings, especially uncomfortable ones.  (She was appalled and indignant when my cousins put their arms around each other and cried at their father’s funeral.) 

Could it be that the real "waste" was the not feeling and expressing her feelings?

I wish Mom the happiest, most joyous, heavenly existence possible from this day forward, and I am believing that, now, she can take time to feel the joy and happiness that is there for her.

Ask For What You Want

About six weeks ago I was in a college book store looking for something for a friend of mine to remind her of her college days.  Most everything had the college name and logo on it and that wasn’t what I wanted, because she had attended a different college.  Then I came across a table of half price items. There were some soft, colorful “throws’ there (small blankets to snuggle in while studying) and I decided to buy one for my friend; they were colors she likes and were oh-so-soft.

As I was picking up the throw to check out one of the store employees (I’ll call her Kathy) said: “oh, are you buying that? I love those! Is it for yourself or someone else?”  I said I was going to get it and it was for a friend of mine.  She said: “I wish somebody would buy one for me.”  I went to the checkout and as I put it down on the counter, I said, “I’m going to do something outrageous.” I went back to the table and got a second blanket. I bought both of them and told the checkout girl to give the second one to the employee I had been talking to.

The checkout girl couldn’t believe I was doing that and asked me to wait until Kathy returned from the restroom so I could give it to her myself.  When she got back I gave it to her and at first she didn’t believe me that it was for her and then she was overjoyed!  We chatted a little and exchanged names and phone numbers. 

As I was leaving the college I thought, there is a wonderful lesson here: “Ask for what you want.”  If she hadn’t said she wished someone would buy her one of the blankets, I wouldn’t have thought of getting it for her.

About two weeks later, Kathy called me and asked if we could have lunch together some day.  We set up a date and she bought me lunch in the college cafeteria.  She told me that when she called her parents and told them about the blanket they reminded her that it was exactly one and one half years before that day, that her grandmother had died. She missed her grandmother very much and it seemed to her and her family that Grandma had somehow reached out to her by having this older lady give her a soft cuddly blanket for comfort.

 I would like to believe that was the reason I did something impetuous that day in the college book store.