I have been on a cleaning tear over the fall break, gathering things to take to Goodwill. I decided that it was finally time to go through the last two boxes of Heavy D’s things…it’s been a year and three months- I just couldn’t do it for the longest time. I went up to the guest house to retrieve them and put them on the big deck dining table. I knew that this might be a bumpy ride down memory lane, as the boxes contained some of Mom’s favorite and most personal things…things that were just so her.
I loved finding her polka tape and the last list of pies she was making for her friends at The Home for Wayward Seniors. I smiled as I read the familiar names…the Rev, the Veggie Man, Tyrone (the Laughing Man), so many sweet seniors that I grew to know and love. Among the treasures: her curlers (the ones that she’d put in, fall asleep in her chair, and somehow wake up with them stuck all over her fleece jammies), a snowman, her bobble Santa, lots of photos, a never-mailed card to a friend where she talked about how happy she was living at Princeton Towers, and her White Shoulders powder. I inhaled the sweet scent of the powder and smiled. I miss her every day, but am grateful for all of the smiles these things brought to me today. I have no doubt that she’s dancing a mean polka in Heaven. I can just see it…probably mixed with the Big Apple dance she always did. So many joyful memories…I am nothing but grateful.
I have made a decision to make a big batch of cookies and go back to The Home for Wayward Seniors on my Christmas break. I just couldn’t go back there before now, but I have missed my sweet friends. It’s been too long…and I am ready. What a gift.
The View from Here 