July Memories....

July has become a pensive and reminiscing month for me.
My father’s birthday was July 3 and my mother’s is today, July 31.
Dad would have been 87, Mom 89.
I think of them both with gratitude on a daily basis; they live in my heart.

Next month it will be two years since my mother died.
For dad, in May, it became 9 years.

Where has the time gone?
The clock is ticking.
Live in the moment.
Where did it all go?
The past is past.
It’s a cliché life.
I ponder my own mortality.

Memories of bringing mom to live in Seattle remain with me.

In January 2004, I wrote the following about a phrase that mom often used (bad "poetry" I know, but it serves a release purpose at certain times!):

“This is this and this is that”.

Standing together at the dryer,
Sorting through the clothes-
This is this and this is that.

Your underwear, my shirts
You fold like a Nordstrom’s professional.
I ask the Tarot reader “is it legal to ask how long”?
The answer is:
Not too soon and not too long.
This is this and this is that.

We’re dancing and we’ve exchanged places.
There’s no “how to” manual.
There never is.
Because, now, you identify all things as:
This is this and this is that.

Some months later, a new entry in response to the many phone calls and messages I would receive. At that time, she still could dial my number. Later I so regretted that she no longer knew what a phone was or even cared.

Ring…..ring….ring…..
Sorry, we’re not home……
Hello? Hello? Hello?
Helloooo. Yooooo hoooo; hello…?
It’s your sister; no lover; no mom.
Please call me. Please call me.

And another:

It’s Saturday night and we’re dancing,
Cutting a rug to Lawrence Welk.
“Oh, he’s not still alive?"
Laughter.
Just a few hours earlier I helped you with your fork and cut your food.

Parenting can be a tricky thing. I think that I finally became a “grown up” when I quit judging my parents and realized that they did the best they could with the skills they had for their life experiences and times. I never doubted their love for me. That’s a pretty good place to be.
With a catch in my throat, I am thinking of you today, my "parental units".