For the first 50 years of my life, my perfectionist self mistakenly believed it was all about knowing more, getting it right, planning, attempting to prevent bad things from happening, and keeping all of my chicks in a row. It took me this long to discover that the JOURNEY is all that matters. This quote from Gilda Radner sums it all up:

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
"


Monday, May 13, 2013

A Doubly Nice Day


Mother's Day 2013.  When I awoke I lay in bed and remembered my own mother who passed away almost exactly 6 years ago.   She was my role model for motherhood.  Here I am at a young age learning how to be a mother to my doll.


   Mother's Day 2013 happened to coincide with my 54th birthday, so today was doubly special.  I asked my daughter, Annie, to document this day for me and handed over my camera to her.


I got online during breakfast to check emails and look at Facebook.

 
 The first thing I saw was a note from my sister, Lori along with an old picture of the two of us.
My eyes flooded with tears.

As I got dressed for church, I wore one of my mother's bracelets to remind me of her.
Then I went downstairs to go through old photo albums to find a picture of me and my mom for Facebook.  It made me sad to realize that I don't have very many pictures of the two of us. I made a mental note to take more pictures with my kids.


Off to church.  On Mother's Day in our church, it is tradition for all children to give a flower to their moms, and Annie picked a yellow carnation for me.  During a quiet moment of the service, I heard a familiar sound that again reminded me of my mom - the sound of someone breathing with an oxygen machine.


  When we got home, Vance took pictures of Annie and me on the front step.
 When we went inside, Kerry was awake and she gave me a big hug!  

 I put my flower in water.



Then I was wished a Happy Mother's Day by the dogs...
 and one of the cats. (Momo doesn't get friendly until the evening)

 My good friend and neighbor, Linda stopped by to chat for a few minutes.

 My neighbor, Cindy, gave Kerry a bunch of her old scrubs and Kerry tried them on for us!



Then we went outside to take some pictures on my new red bench that Vance got me for Mother's Day. 



Then we were off in the car to DSW to look for prom shoes for Annie.
Before we left, Kerry posed for this lovely photo with her face pressed against the car window!




At DSW, she had to try on a pair of sandals she would never buy and pretend to model them.



If you want to see the entire show, you can watch this short clip:



As Vance was getting dinner ready, Adam called and asked us to Skype.
His exams begin this week and he couldn't make it home.


I opened my cards and gifts so he could be there with us.





My mother-in-law came over for dinner (lasagna) and we had my favorite cake for dessert - angel food cake with whipped cream and raspberries.







Alice's birthday is two days after mine, so we celebrated it all!


After dinner, my sister, Lori called and I settled on the couch for what I knew would be a long phone call.  (Kerry likes to imitate her mother!)

I put the phone on speaker so everyone could join in the conversation. 

Then Momo got into her nightly position on my lap and wished me a Happy Mother's Day too!

It was a really nice day!







1 comment:

  1. What a great day, Gayle!! And Annie is quite the photographer! I think she is following in her mom's footsteps!
    Happy Birthday, again :)

    ReplyDelete