her bouquet

Eighty years ago my young mother pieced a quilt top while she was visiting her grandmother.  The fabrics used are an amazing bouquet of prints from the first few decades of the 1900’s. Isn’t it like poetry that my mother chose a pattern called Grandmother’s Flower Garden?

great day for ducks

 

Whenever it rained,  my father would declare, "It's a great day for ducks." Good to know isn't it, that someone is happily paddling about as the rain sluices down.

Downspouts gurgle and purcolate. Wet windows waver like antique glass, and a thousand tiny squares in the window screen hold water droplets: abstract art, cross-stitched in silver threads. 

P.S. My mind seemed determined to paint a chick instead of a duckling and I had to scrub out a couple areas and things got a bit muddy and murky. Just like a duck pond?

a scrap

I made masks for a friend and whilst a smidge of inspiration still clung about the edges, I sewed one up for myself as well. I used a scrap of fabric left from a long ago project. My mother was still alive then and she kept commenting on the piecing as they emerged from the sewing machine and appeared on my design wall.(which is the floor)
"Someone is trying to quilt with newspaper," she kept exclaiming with disbelief.
I had to keep assuring her that someone had printed fabric to LOOK like newspaper.
She was just as incredulous about that.
Oh my momma.

no doubt

My Dad wore hats rain or shine, sleet or snow. If I could stack all of those hats in a towering teetering pile, they would give Bartholomew Cubbins a twitch in his eye. No doubt about it.

low road

It's been a few years since I went to a quilt show. Quilt Guilds and Quilt Shows and quilters clutching quilts of all kinds used to be a very big part of my life. My life and my mothers. We delighted in those times together for a lovely block of years.
She passed away unexpectedly last May. It doesn't really matter how old or frail an elder becomes; their death feels somehow unexpected. Can you plan for death and grief?
Boundary Bay Quilt Guild had a spring quilt show and my husband and I, on a day of spontaneous adventure, found ourselves wandering amongst rows of quilts.
"Oh, Mom would have liked that one," I commented. And then to myself added, "Oh no! Don't think about your Momma."
As, right on cue, the live entertainer began to strum and sing, "You take the high road and I'll take the low road..."
Come ON!!!

warm comfort

The phone woke us in the early morning. "It's Mom," my husband said, and I knew in a moment that she was gone.
We gathered as family on August 11, which was my parents anniversary. It seemed an appropriate day to remember and celebrate her life, entwined as it was with my fathers.
It's strange that one of the happiest memories I treasure of my mother came out of my father's memorial service. It was as everyone gathered after the service to visit, and glancing up, I saw her sitting at a table in the center of the room. She was completely surrounded by woman she loved and they were leaning in. I couldn't hear, but could clearly see the warm comfort of their friendship and my mother was......beaming.
It's that smile of joy I remember.
I'm thankful for the gathering we had this summer. Family came from near and far. Mostly far. It was a gift of warm comfort......and of joy.

1922-2010

1922-2010

time perhaps

The soldier boy is my father.
He was still a teenager.
A boy on the brink.

World War II is history now.
Decades have swept along.
A life time.
I remember when I realized for the first time that I was born only a dozen years after World War II ended. Twelve years isn't long at all. You can almost reach back and touch something that recent.
My parents didn't talk about those years when I was young.
It took the balm of passing time perhaps.

Decades later, he spoke of his comrades.
He remembered his years away.
It was something he never forgot.

much much closer

This is not the Von Trapp children posing in the Austrian alpine.

It's a picture taken high atop Mount Cook and includes my mom and dad perched on the edge of splendor.

Isn't the composition of this photo a rare and wondrous thing?

Aren't the teenagers framed just right?

Don't they look like some lifestyle photographer had a vision?

Doesn't my dad have a bad case of hat hair?

Maybe it's just because my mother is smiling warmly from the center of the photo's foreground that it occurs to me the photographer got the focal point just right.

And, I noticed something for the first time tonight.

My dad is holding my Mom's hand.

He hasn't turned to face the picture taker.

His thoughts are somewhere else.

Somewhere much, much closer.

to matter

A pair of old photos from my mothers childhood makes me smile and nod and ponder. I like to think of them as Exhibit A and B.
Exhibit A, above, shows my visiting great grandmother Minerva. It also shows my Aunt Fran, the toddler beaming on the left, and on the right, my mother. My very, very sad little mother.. Smack dab in the center is a cousin, the little interloper. She has traveled by train across the Rocky Mountains with Gramma Minerva. There is something recognizable in her pose. It's HER Gramma Minerva.  There is also something recognizable in my mother's pose, something so unusual that it stands out like a beacon.
My mother is Sad.

Exhibit B is very telling. The photographer, likely my own kind Gramma has sized up the situation. My Very Sad Mother has now been given the place of honor at Gramma Minerva's knee.
Baby Fran's smile has faded.
There is angst in the air.
Little Interloper has taken up her new position unimpaired and has a hand possessively and comfortably placed.
My mother's mood remains unaltered. Very Sad still has her in its grip. In fact, she may now have added Very Put Out.

Time has swirled by since that long ago afternoon.
Lots and lots of time.
My mother has always been known for the sweetness of her disposition and the steadfastness of her optimistic, friendly nature, for her remarkably ever ready smile.
But here, in black and white is the evidence.
She was once a little girl just like any other little girl.

The steady smile of Great Gramma Minerva, the comforting warm sun, a kindly photographer.... all come together in these pictures.
They prove the universal need we all have to feel important and special.
To matter.

arms full

My mother's grandparents lived far away, over the Rocky Mountains.
A province away.
A long train trip away.
The year my mother turned 12, she traveled with her younger sisters by train from Blue River, B.C. to Carstairs, Alberta to visit her grandma and grandpa.
Just the three little girls.
It was the first and last time.
For that brief moment in time, my mother was both old enough to be responsible for her little sisters, yet young enough to travel free.
And what perfect timing; puppies were there to play with on the farm.
My great grandparents raised Border Collies so a fresh batch of puppies was nothing new to them.
They were new to the little girls though.

Bet it's pretty hard to feel homesick with your arms full of puppy.

that way

This picture is more than eighty years old. It was snapped in Drumheller in the mid-thirties. My Dad is third from the left in the back row.

My eyes go to his face like a moth to the light. It is the youngest picture I have of him. He is probably 14 or so. I can see in his face the man he became. His determined chin. His gentle eyes. His fabulous hair. He was a never a large man; graceful but strong, a natural athlete.
He was a huge hockey fan all of his life. He would hunker in front of the TV winter evenings and cheer and sigh and shift and shout and twitch and groan and run his hands through his hair. He always had something to say about the plays too. Hockey is a team sport that way.

on we go

Another Wednesday afternoon and we are all seated around the tables in the main dining area. The afternoon sun has turned the leaves outside the window into a patchwork of greens. Somewhere, a sparrow is chirping and chipping away. I am holding a huge handful of paper strips, fanned out in my hand.  Each person seated round the table cautiously pulls out a paper and reads the single word written there aloud to the rest of the group. Then they tell a little story to us all inspired by the word and the others add on a sentence or two making a chain of small stores. One person chooses the word ‘bicycle.’ She laughs. She recalls how much she wanted a bicycle as a girl but her mother was afraid she would get hurt and so, she learned to ride her friend’s bike. None of us are surprised at her independent streak. When her mother saw her skimming along the road, she relented and bought her a bike. Others add stories of riding bikes to school. We are reminded that another rode a horse to school. The stories pass quickly round the table and back to the beginning. I hold out my paper filled hand and on we go.

in a circle

I volunteer at the Home my mother is living at now.
I lead a group once a week called Story Circle.
It began with stories read from books.
Stories, pictures, poetry.
It morphed into something else though.
Something unexpected.
And simple.

We just became friends.
And now we sit and talk.
And tell each other stories.
In a circle.

rarefied air

I've been looking at old pictures tonight because I'm missing my parents. Sure wish I could turn time back.
Isn't this a great picture of my folks?  My dad is wearing one of his inevitable hats. He had fabulous hair. It seems a pity to have covered it.
My mother looks so happy. They must have been in love because I'm sure the mosquitoes would have been hovering in clouds. I'm surprised they don't show up in the picture.
The alpine scenery of Blue River makes such a perfect backdrop for a young couple breathing the rarefied air of true love.

at the beginning

My Dad moved to Blue River when he was a teenager and it wasn't long before he and my mother were friends. I love this early picture of him from her album. The Douglas boy. He is looking straight at her, his face warmly lit with joy. They traveled a long road together and this is right at the beginning.

goat girl

The goat girl is my mother. She is patiently feeding two young goats. They are knobby kneed adolescent goats, not young kids but that awkward, between age.
Just like my mother.
I imagine she was only 13  or 14 when this photo was snapped.
Her hair hadn't achieved the long blonde splendor of her teen years.
I bet she sewed her dress and I bet she's wearing sensible shoes.
Just a young slip of a girl but already a shadow of the woman she would become; sensible, creative, home spun and dependable.

smile of youth

I met an elderly man yesterday who reminded me of my dad.
Of my dad as an elderly man.
The same slight build.
The same clear, friendly eyes.
A people person.
Frail and dear.
He told me he hitch-hiked across Europe as a young man, and that he liked the Scandinavian countries best.
Because of the beautiful girls, he admitted.
He loved to hike and swim in those days.
And he loved horses, had Welsh ponies for years.
But he remembered those beautiful Scandinavian girls.

He was a veteran like my dad.
Had raised a family.
His wife died just a few weeks ago.

He seemed to have an inner light.
A quiet courage.
His deep set blue eyes were red-rimmed with age.
But he had the smile of youth.

in the bank

"In the bleak midwinter,
frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
snow on snow,
snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
long ago."
Man I love Christina Rossetti.
Love all poetry.
Poetry and song lyrics.
Old hymns too.

Last night I sat with an old friend, visiting my mother.
Our conversation led us by the hand in big loops and circles and brought us around to our beginning point; the power of words to comfort us.

My mother has forgotten things.
She is even forgetting how to speak, how to frame her thoughts with words.
But words have not forgotten her.
If anything, they hold an even greater power and importance for her.
When I quote back to her, snatches of song and poem, her eyes brighten.
Hearing a story read aloud stirs all of her emotions in turn, right in time with the words.

When I was a child, students still memorized things, poems mostly although nothing like the previous generation had. Nor they, like the generation before them. My great grandmother was known for breaking into snatches of song and for reciting poetry. My great Uncle Howard could recite great long epic poems, stanza after stanza. My own grandmother was a quoter as well and my mom too.  And my dad too now that I think about it. Bits and pieces and fragments of poems, selected just for the moment from a rich repository.

I'm so glad my earliest memories include plenty of poetry and song. That while I sat fidgeting and squirming on hard wooden pews, mighty hymns swirled in an out of focus. That as I sat pouring over the pages of Childcraft Encyclopedia's stories and poems, I was building something important. Those words, so rich and varied and colorful and comforting are there now. Just like money in the bank.

wonderful place

My arms slide around my mothers shoulders.
"Well, I'm heading off now....," I say smiling, my eyes locked with hers.
"You'll be seeing my mother of course," she says brightly.
"Your mother was my grandma, wasn't she," I say by way of sidestepping the question.
"Oh, yes," my mother says, smiling.
"And then YOU became a grandma. You have a dozen grandchildren and TWO dozen great grandchildren!" I exclaim.
She smiles modestly and happily.
"And then I became a grandma," I add.
We nod and smile at each other.
Common ground is a wonderful place to meet.