When I was a little girl, I remember staying after church, at times, for Sunday dinner. It was always warm, and after everyone ate, the kids would run around the church yard and play tag and hide-and-seek in our Sunday clothes. On a regular Sunday, we would go home to pot roast with potatoes and carrots, and Mama would make cole slaw with fresh cabbage from the garden. We had home baked bread and green beans, too. It was family day, usually, but in the summer if nobody came over for dinner, Daddy would take Mama and I on a drive to the ocean across the old wooden bridge over the St. Johns River on 192. I would close my eyes and lay down on the back seat when we crossed the bumpy span and any other bridge along the way, but the water was always warm, and when we swam, Mama wore her white tennis shoes and floated like a cork.
Yesterday, we sat at the traffic light at the corner of Sand Lake Rode and Universal Blvd, waiting to make a left and finish the last few miles to the home where my father-in-law stays in a memory care unit. We sat quietly for a minute, then my mother-in-law said, "I may have told you this before." She had, at the exact same location two different times, some trigger I haven't identified. "Sundays, especially gray ones like this, make me feel strange. Maybe it was because we didn't have school and there was nothing to do. We had a banked hill that went down to the rode in our front yard, and I would lay in the grass and look for things in the clouds. I always felt closed in."
One Easter Sunday, I think I was seven years old, the high school band played at the park on the highway.Our neighbors asked me to go with them after church, and Mama said I could. I had a new dress, red, white and blue with sailor buttons. I had white socks and new white patent leathers. The park had several fish ponds, and we were playing dangerously close to one. My shoe slipped on the green slime covering the rocks that edged the pond. I fell into the water and couldn't get out because the edges were slick. Someone started screaming for an adult and one came, I don't know who, and pulled me out of the water. Green slime covered the front of my new dress and my shoes squished when I walked. I cried all the way home. It wasn't the best of Sundays, but Mama made everything OK when I got home, even though I know now, they had to pinch pennies to buy my new Sunday dress and shoes. She didn't even get mad.
Mama died on a Sunday almost seven years ago. It was a perfect day for her to go. She was peaceful, and it was warm that day. She floated away like a cork.
Peace. Love, Linda
Yesterday, we sat at the traffic light at the corner of Sand Lake Rode and Universal Blvd, waiting to make a left and finish the last few miles to the home where my father-in-law stays in a memory care unit. We sat quietly for a minute, then my mother-in-law said, "I may have told you this before." She had, at the exact same location two different times, some trigger I haven't identified. "Sundays, especially gray ones like this, make me feel strange. Maybe it was because we didn't have school and there was nothing to do. We had a banked hill that went down to the rode in our front yard, and I would lay in the grass and look for things in the clouds. I always felt closed in."
One Easter Sunday, I think I was seven years old, the high school band played at the park on the highway.Our neighbors asked me to go with them after church, and Mama said I could. I had a new dress, red, white and blue with sailor buttons. I had white socks and new white patent leathers. The park had several fish ponds, and we were playing dangerously close to one. My shoe slipped on the green slime covering the rocks that edged the pond. I fell into the water and couldn't get out because the edges were slick. Someone started screaming for an adult and one came, I don't know who, and pulled me out of the water. Green slime covered the front of my new dress and my shoes squished when I walked. I cried all the way home. It wasn't the best of Sundays, but Mama made everything OK when I got home, even though I know now, they had to pinch pennies to buy my new Sunday dress and shoes. She didn't even get mad.
Mama died on a Sunday almost seven years ago. It was a perfect day for her to go. She was peaceful, and it was warm that day. She floated away like a cork.
Peace. Love, Linda
2 comments:
I think maybe Mama is laughing now about that floated like a cork part of your thoughts. Take care little sister with the new Easter dress.
You're probably right about that. She had a wonderful laugh and a quirky sense of humor!
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