Posted on 12/17/2002 7:32:02 AM PST by HairOfTheDog
Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)
Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.
If I make it to Entmoot, I'll have to bring some Vermont maple syrup with me. And I know I've promised some of you maple candy. I WILL get around to it, I promise! I did go to the maple shop a little bit ago, but they weren't open, even though according to the sign on the door they should have been. Maybe haven't switched to summer hours? I dunno.
Thanks, Hair. I get so afraid sometimes, though...that I'll forget her face, her voice, the way she was. I don't want to let go of that.
10 minutes until the exact time she passed...
That's good. Ruthy will have all she can do just to keep enough bacon on the table...
Going out for a minute. Be back. Thanks for putting up with this, guys.
This little piece is quite funny.... Except it reminds me again why it was so wrong for Rosie and I to lose our moms in our twenties. We got cheated out of the later stuff.
The Images of Mother
4 YEARS OF AGE
My Mommy can do anything!
8 YEARS OF AGE
My Mom knows a lot! A whole lot!
12 YEARS OF AGE
My Mother doesn't really know quite everything.
14 YEARS OF AGE
Naturally, Mother doesn't know that either.
16 YEARS OF AGE
Mother? She's hopelessly old-fashioned.
18 YEARS OF AGE
That old woman? She's way out of date!
25 YEARS OF AGE
Well, she might know a little bit about it.
35 YEARS OF AGE
Before we decide, let's get Mom's opinion.
60 YEARS OF AGE
Wonder what Mom would have thought about it?
65 YEARS OF AGE
Wish I could talk it over with Mom once more
You guys lost your Moms too soon. I was 20 when my dad died. He was only 49. Something I keep remembering when I realize I'm about to hit 45.
I get angry sometimes when I think about how my boys will never know him, or vice versa. So I have to make an effort to tell them about him.
That's something that tears me up, Corin - my Mom didn't live long enough to see grandchildren. And she won't be there for me if and when I do have kids...I can't ask her for advice or talk to her about what I'm going through.
(see above). It was my Dad. My Mom is still around and goin' strong.
No, I never had the chance to tell him. I've shared some of this before. When I was a kid, he was drinking pretty heavily. He finally stopped when I was in Jr. High, but of course, I was at the "they don't know anything" stage.
When I went away to college was when I started appreciating him. I was 300 miles away in Kentucky. My sophomore year I worked over Christmas break in New York. I remember calling home and asking him what he wanted for Christmas.
All he said was "for you to come home."
That was Christmas 1977. He died August 1, 1978.
And again, I was gone. I was travelling with a ministry team from school. We had just returned back to the home where we were staying in Flint, Michigan when I got the call. It was a total shock. Might as well finish the story...
You've seen my picture. I'm about 6'2" and @#$%^ lbs. My Dad was 5'11" and weighed more than I do now. In 1972 he was one of the first to have the intestinal bypass procedure (here in Richmond, two blocks from where I work now). Over the years, while he lost a ton of weight, he had other problems develop, one of which was kidney stones.
Two weeks before he died, he and my mom came to see our group in Georgia (we were all over the East that summer). We had a couple of days off so I went with them to my cousin's house in Jacksonville, FL. The last day we spent in St. Augustine. I have a picture with my Mom and Dad on the streets there. I got on a bus to rejoin the group that night and driving away was the last time I saw him alive.
Some people think this part is weird. A couple of weeks before their trip to see us and to see my cousins in Florida, my Mom was in church and had what she described as a vision. She saw her mother and my dad's mother holding out a white robe. She took it to mean that something would happen to her on the trip. So she spent the next two weeks getting all of their affairs in order.
When they got back from their trip, my dad started having problems with a kidney stone. He'd had several before. But this one wasn't passing. So the doctor indicated they may have to do surgery. On that Monday morning they took him in to x-ray and gave him the injection of dye that he'd had many times before.
That morning he had a reaction and his heart stopped. They were not able to revive him.
I didn't find this out until years later, but my brother hired a private investigator to check things out. He found enough evidence that there was negligence on the part of the hospital that we could've sued and won. Apparently the anesthesiolgist was not in the room when the dye was administered.
But as my brother said, he just wanted to know what happened. No amount of money would've brought him back. And after that the hospital made some significant changes.
Ironically, after she retired from the job she'd had for 45 years my Mom got a part-time job and worked for almost another 10 years at the hospital.
I flew home from Michigan for the funeral, but rejoined the tour the next week and finished the last two weeks of the tour. I held things together until I got back to school. That's where I fell apart. At one point toward the end of the quarter I called home and told my Mom I wanted to take some time off (like not come back the next quarter). But since we were on the quarter system we had a long (6 week) Christmas break (allowing kids to work). I took that time off and rested and (more or less) got my head back on straight...(like I said more or less).
There are still times I have a hard time dealing with things because he's not around.
Sorry to ramble on so.
I know she didn't see them here Rosie. But I think she'll be able to see them. I have to believe it works that way.
I'm sure there's a sappy country song that would fit here. But what would be more heavenly than for a grandparent to watch their grandchildren growing up?
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