My Mom!

I don't really know what angle to write this story from, should I tell in "general" or tell "details"??
With details this could be very lengthy, there's so much to say about my Mom. So, I'm just gonna begin and see where this goes.

There was never a day that you'd walk into my Mom's house and not smell wonderful food cooking.
She was a round, jolly, wonderful cook, that was never too busy to sit and laugh and talk with whoever came into her home. Her house always had people coming and going. She welcomed people so whole heartily they returned just to hear her laughter, and eat her good food.
When you were in my Mom's presence she made you feel good about who you were.

In the years of me being a teenager, Mom smoked skinny brown cigarettes and cussed like a sailor. Always with a rip-roaring laughter to back it all up! Always up for a practical joke, she was just a person people liked!

We always had extra people for every holiday or just on any day...people she'd met that had no where to go for the holiday she'd invite them to eat with us. How may Christmas's we'd find us running to the store last minute to get some extra socks to wrap or books or something for Mom's friends she'd invited in. Mom got mail and visits, from people for years that had lived in one of her rent houses that she'd helped through tough times.

Mom had a teenage girl through the 1950's, another teenage girl through the 1960's, then me as a teenage girl in the 1970's... she saw times change a lot. She just rolled with the changes...
She never talked of the past. I asked her questions of things and she'd answer my questions but always said, "I don't' like old stuff, antiques are just old stuff, I like new stuff. Let's not talk of the old times let's look to the new times."
When I'd fuss at her about something, and she didn't agree, her famous saying was"BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS"HAHAHA Even in writing this, I want to laugh out loud!

Mom was my biggest cheerleader! Any time I needed to feel loved, she was my safe place.
My kids called her "Mimi" and she loved them as much as I do. She was always ready to brag about them to anyone that would listen, wherever she was!

Mom and I were very different, yet very alike. She had many challenging things in her life that formed her into such an interesting character. Her resilience was amazing!

Four years ago this month, Mom died.
A part of me died too. The part that was so intertwined with her laugh, her hands, her smell.

I'll always...always, love my mom.

Fever...

I'm sitting at the desk at the computer, and I get chilled to the bone.
Perhaps I have the thermostat turned too low.
I change it and go back to the computer.
A few moments pass and I begin to shake, and my teeth start chattering.
OK, this is not normal, I get my winter robe and put it on and get under the warmest blanket I can find.
I continue to shake. While shaking and teeth chattering, I notice the aching shoulders, and back. Uh-oh.
I got the thermometer out of the cabinet and took my temp, 101.
Throughout the night, the fitful sleep, the shaking, the teeth chattering, plus a sick stomach.
I switch the TV on periodically to have noise to distract me from the aches.

Swine flu all over the TV. People wearing masks.
I turn the TV off.

Things worsen, but then turn around. I take my temp, 100.
Thermometers are so good to show you that you are getting better.
I feel somewhat better. Another hour goes by and I take my temp again, 99.5.
Going down.
Finally, another hour or so, temp 98.6!
Yea! For thermometers!

I have found out over the years, I'm not one that likes being alone when sick. When I was young my mom always made me a bed on the couch when I was sick, in the middle of everything going on. She would let me lay in her lap and I'd smell Jergens lotion, and onions(she was always cooking and chopped onions for everything she cooked).
Right now I can close my eyes and see her loving hands.

So, just another sick day, a wasted 24 hours.
What a wasted day.
A whole 24 hours I'll never get back.
No smiles in 24 hours.

But, only 24 hours...
Tomorrow will have to be double happy, double fun!