A Bad Day at the Falls of the Cuyahoga

My mother loved my books. They are about her grandmothers and she gave me a lot of the information. I also put in things that were family secrets for many years. They helped her put her life in order.

I think I saw my mother for the last time today. She does not eat, drink or take medicine. She is not responsive. She is in a nursing home where the people love her.

If no one else liked my books, they were worth writing if just for her.

Carol

Carol, that is sad about your Mother, and yes the non responsive stage is a tell tale sign, but you had the chance to give her a very great gift. Not many get that opportunity. I know many have enjoyed your books, her most of all, I would surmise.

Carol that is a really touching tribute to your mom, and also a great insight to you as well. Thanks for sharing that.

Abe, your brother sounds a bit like mine. Thick.

There is probaly one in every family like Abe's brother. I often think that intelligence is not equally distributed through siblings. Some families, on the other hand, are loaded with it.

Sorry about your mother, Carol.

My mother died 26 years ago. She was never impressed by my short stories or daily newspaper column. I used to laugh to myself when I told her I was beginning something new because her standard answer was, "Do you think you're good enough?" Just as I knew she would, she said those words when I started driving a cab and even the day I took a job pumping gas at a filling station. To me it was a joke.
My father was just the opposite even though I was a great disappointment to him. I never really cared what anyone said or thought.

Dick Stodghill wrote:

Sorry about your mother, Carol.

My
mother died 26 years ago. She was never impressed by my short stories
or daily newspaper column. I used to laugh to myself when I told her I
was beginning something new because her standard answer was, "Do you
think you're good enough?" Just as I knew she would, she said those
words when I started driving a cab and even the day I took a job
pumping gas at a filling station. To me it was a joke.
My father was
just the opposite even though I was a great disappointment to him. I
never really cared what anyone said or thought.

Well Dick seems have something in common, unfortunately my father had
alzheimers by the time I was born and all my mother's energies were
focused on my elder brother who was 17 when I was born, apart from my
mother's final words to me, which I've mentioned before, like you I
thought to heck with what anyone else thinks, as long as I know the
truth about me, it doesn't matter a damn what anyone else says or thinks about me.

In my case it made me feel like I didn't belong on this planet and it
took the USA to confirm it for me when they issued me with my Official
Alien Number! Thanks USA now it's official - I come In Peace, but
Please Don't Take The Peace!

Noo-Na
Noo-Na from Zwarg, a far flung suburb of Orc! And boy can they fling
far in Orc! In fact we have a manure worthy Chinese take out there
called: Hoo Flung Dung!

My books were written about my mother's grandmother's. She was a great mom but had a mother like Dick's. We lived with my grandparents and my grandmother was a very controlling and possessive woman, even with illness when she had no other way to control her family. She never thought my mother or aunt were capable of any achievements outside the home. She was a woman filled with fear.

But I was hands off her controlling. My mother once said with fire in her eyes, "she wouldn't dare try to control you." My mother gave me the childhood she never had. I road the bicycle all over town. She was never allowed to ride a bike. My father made me very high stilts and a unicycle. (Maybe they had plans for me to join the circus!!) When I was eleven I told my mother I was going to take my confirmation money and take the train from Chicago to California to visit my great-grandmother. She made the arrangements for this trip. Later in life I realize I probably had a companion watching over me, but not that I noticed at the time. I had the time of my life those three days on the train by myself. My mother had never met her grandmother before I went to visit her. Her mother would not have let her take that trip, even somehow stopping her when she was an adult.. She said both my grandmothers were aghast at her blessing this adventure. My parents thought I could do anything which was overwhelming at times, because I was well aware of my weaknesses and flaws.

You have to read my books if you want to know more!! I even put in about my grandfather's affair. Ah, how life weaves stories and tales.

Carol

So sorry about your mother, Carol. Even though I was a grown woman, a grandmother, when my own mother died, I was inconsolable for a long time. Of course I was worn out as well, as I was the only child, so was her caretaker as well. It was a hands-on, every day distress to watch helplessly as she deteriorated a little more each day.

At least I was more fortunate than some here. My mother always encouraged me, always believed that I could accomplish great things.

I'm so sorry that some of you didn't have that.

My mother is in a great nursing home. There is no way I could care for her as she has no use of her arms or legs. They are very loving there.

My only brother died last year and if there is anything I wish my mother had done differently, it would have been to give me a sister!! I am in charge of her medical care and know she wants no drastic measures. It's me and no other person making these decisions and that is not easy.

She is 93 and lived independently until the last four years, even driving to Chicago about five years ago. She was so funny. She left a message on my answering machine, knowing I was not home, and knowing where I was. It was sort of a "Don't try to stop me!" message.

Carol

She sounds like quite a woman. And I bet she was a character in her younger days, or could have been if encouraged.

Dear Carol,
So many, many moments make up the memory we carry around in our brain about days of our lives, relationships with our family. How they were saved in our memory is colored by the small incidents that our mind's eye recorded at the time and our memory looks back upon these moments in full color and animation.

I wish I were a smarter person and a better writer. I am glad that people remember more of the good moments and in more exquisite detail than they do the bad moments. It takes concentration to remember the bad, but the good comes through in a blink of an eye and there you are in that old space and time with the same people you are remembering and the same feeling that came on you and you smile to see them there so close in the memory that you can reach out and touch them.

God bless your mom.

Love,
Betty

Well good heavens, Betty, if I'd known you were close, I would've said hello.

Hi Brenda! I am glad to see you again. I imagine you are famous by now! I am not. But, I am going to write the story of The Stanker's for the anthology. I hope it will be ok. It is about some wild pigs who come to live in the Wooffer's Woods Wildlife Sanctuary. They do not feel that just because they are pigs there is any reason to live like one.
So how are things in California?

Love,
Betty

HOT! And miserable.

And no, I'm not rich and famous. Wish I were. If I were, I'd take off for a place nice and cool for the summer. Then maybe I'd like summers instead of closing the drapes and turning on the a/c.

Your new idea sounds wonderful. Talk about being famous . . . your stories should do it.

Quote :

It takes concentration to remember the bad, but
the good comes through in a blink of an eye and there you are in that
old space and time with the same people you are remembering and the
same feeling that came on you and you smile to see them there so close
in the memory that you can reach out and touch them.

I think you said that beatifully, Betty! Sometimes a run-on sentence
conveys more than just the words, you know? (And I believe you did that
intentionally. If not, remember it!)

You're right about the sudden flashes of memory... certain smells do
that for me. A whiff of Lavender and my grandmother is right there with
me. Pipe tobacco or the smell of an old book brings back my
grandfather—and the rememberance is not the big events—it's those small
insignificant times of daily life that return so vividly.

And sometimes just thinking about them...

Those ain't earrings that Mama Barnes is wearing. They're ear-bobs,
and they screw on. And if you detect a sense of humor in that smile,
you're right. She had a very dry humor that would go over most people's
head if they didn't know her.

Papa Barnes wore a hat, suit and tie every day of the week. I had to
ask him to take the hat off for that photo. I can guarantee that his
pipe was in one coat pocket and a tin of Prince Albert in the other.

Brew,

That is a great picture. She certainly appears to have a twinkle in her eye.

Carol

Love the photo, Brew. And I remember earbobs. Even had some years ago.

They say that the type of earlobes you have are hereditary. Some are
attached and some "dangle" free. Mama Barnes' were danglers, and I
think from wearing those heavy bobs stretched them down even further.
Both her daughters and their children had the dangle-type.

Are you checking?

Dear Brew,

Long, long ago, I went to McCrory five and dime and coveted so many sparkling things. I loved the Five and Dime, complete with Evening In Paris Parfume' in the lovely blue bottles and sparkling rhinestone chadelier ear rings that screwed on. What a child I was then and how I wanted those beautiful things. I could never get them, just look at them and want.

My friend, Carol Troestler had an Evening In Paris perfume bottle and, out of the kindness of her lovely heart, sent it to me. I cried. It smells the same as it did back in the year of 49. There are so very many kind people that post on this message board, including your own dear self.

I dream so often of finding beautiful things like stones and carvings and lovely works of glass. I imagine that comes from the lack of beauty in my youth, and yet I wonder if it has not something to do with the fairy tales that kept me going as a child. They were like sparkles in my terrible life.

I wish that my little book, Wooffer, would be the sparkle to another child that some of the stories of old brought to my childhood.

Life is a complex wonder, even when you get old enough to have learned a bit about living. Mystery. It still is to me.

Love,
Betty

Betty, my copy of Woofer arrived today, and I am chomping at the bit to get to it! But I had to check the board first.

I am so very glad you have joined us here, and I think you and Carol must be the gentlest souls around.

Betty, you under estimate yourself. I'm sure Woofer has already brightened the day for many children. Adults, too.

Dear Zada,
Thank you for buying Wooffer. I hope Dick is right and it brightens your day. Let me know what you think. I have told Old Agnes about your and that you are going to read the stories and the news has spread far and wide. Maudie has sent Ibie the Ibis around twice to see if you were pleased!
Love,
Betty

Betty, sorry it took me so long--had to get the hay in today and it got up to 102 degrees!!

Anyhow, please let Wooffer, Ibie, Agnes, Maudie and all the other residents of your farm know that I truly loved the stories. They are all stars and Wooffer is a real hero in my mind.

I couldn't wait to get to the next story as soon as I got done with the first. Then when I was done reading, I was very sad that the trip to your farm was over.

You have a unique gift for insight into the animal world.

My sister is in Alaska at the moment, but when she returns I will pass it to her. It will be a very special gift that she will appreciate.

When it cools down a little (still 80 degrees at almost 10 pm!) I will try to write a review that does Wooffer justice.