Monday, May 10, 2010

And Follow Your Memory Upstream.....

A quick trip from Seattle to DC to spend Mother's Day with my siblings and my mom. Since she fell in October, mom has been wheelchair bound and less able to fully track some conversations. She is still bright and alert and sooo gracious. At ninety she is tiny and frail and needs the assistance of a caregiver eighteen hours a day. We three - her "kids" 2/3 of us gray, 1/3 of us about to retire ourselves, 3/3 of us confronting the reality of aging - took her on a memory tour which included a drive by Hickory Hill, the Bobby Kennedy compound, and then all of the DC sights by car - with the addition of Hillary's DC digs - ending our tour at the hotel that used to be the Sheraton Park.
This still beautiful and luxurious hotel is a treasured family memory - It was 1962. My young father had died after a long illness. My mom even in her own grief understood that her three kids needed something fresh in our minds - something wonderful and happy. We traveled to DC and spent a week together at the Sheraton Park - our twelve year old cousin Steve came along too because he was always funny and she said he would make us laugh. He did. Yesterday on our Mother's Day tour we called Cousin Steve (in Alaska) from the SP to remember together. It was day to say a very special thank you to our Mom.

8 comments:

Helen said...

What a lovely and heartfelt post! So glad you were all able to gather in DC! I remember when my father died - when we were kids - Mother and her sister (along with assorted cousins and husband) packed into their VW bus and headed down to Florida. It was just what we all needed to distract us - in a good way. It was a healing time .....

Brig said...

Great memories are always special. Glad you had a full day with your mom and sibs!

Tabor said...

Nice memory and so glad you have had your mom for such a long time.

Ralph said...

You remind me of a similar thing my mother, sister and I did for my father at a time when he was becoming more and more vegetative but not yet bed-bound. We took him for a ride down to Aquia Creek, near Quantico, where he and my mother had built a home--by themselves--that was first a weekend getaway and then became the retirement home where they had the "second" time of their lives, that revisiting of adolescence we all seem to go through in our mid-50s and early 60s. As soon as he realized where he was, the years simply disappeared. He was the younger man he had been in that house. He got out of the car and made a beeline for the back door--tried to get in! We walked him around the yard and admired the gorgeous water view, and for those few moments he was once again present. It wasn't Father's Day, just a lagniappe for all of us.

Beth Niquette said...

What a beautiful post. I'm honored you dropped by my blog, and that you've passed it along to others--especially to your Mom. Wow!

Happy Mums day!

Mage said...

What a lovely gift for your mom and to yourselves too.

One Woman's Journey - a journal being written from Woodhaven - her cottage in the woods. said...

What a wonderful gift to your mom.
I am proud of you!!!

AMIT said...

Sweet memories are always remembered by us.

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