NaBloPoMo - Day 9

This is my mom's response to an earlier post:

Dear Kelsi,

Responding to your April 3 post. I remember all of it.

You would tell me "I don't need a nap" so I would say "OK, you don't need to take a nap, just rest on the couch with your blanket." You would almost always fall asleep.

Oh, the anticipation of Christmas Eve on the farm. Then we would go downstairs and work until midnight setting everything up under the tree. Tying the stockings on the backs of dining room chairs with rubber bands because the tree was in front of the fireplace! Did you ever wonder how Santa got into the house with that tree in front of the fireplace?

We still do the throwing the food in the air at the grocery thing - it adds a little excitement to a mundane chore.

That was a little silver paring knife that Grandma Wright gave me - and that sharp is still very, very knife!

The stick shift! We were on Raab Rd. just east of Greenbriar. I had just bought that silver car - can't remember the make or model. The clutch was very mushy. You did OK once you were out of first gear! Shortly after that I bought that new little Nissan Sentra (1990). You didn't even have to step on the gas when letting out on the clutch, it was so tight. You perfected your skills on that long, blacktop driveway at Bernie's house out in the country. All Sunday afternoon you drove up and back, up and back. That late afternoon you drove all the way back to Bloomington. Confident.

I don't remember the guy being on a tractor. I just remember the road was seldom used and it was dusky or near dark. I thought he was just one of the rare cars who ever used that road and just happened down it as you were trying to learn how to drive that car. We were surrounded by cornfeidls, though.

You water skiied. I sat on the sand and drank electric kool-aid, as I remember it! Fun times. I do remember the floating dock got away from us and you swam way out and got it and pulled it back to its place. I was a nervous wreck, pacing and smoking cigarettes!

You would still sit on the toilet in the bathroom and watch me put my makeup on if you didn't have two 5 yeard olds to supervise.!

The Screaming Eagle at Six Flags! I didn't know you were terrified. You were too busy screaming!

Garcia's Flying Tomato Brothers hot air balloon! It landed right by Lancaster Heights (or Lancaster Depths as we used to call it). They tethered it to a stake with a great big rope and took people 50 feet or so up in the air. I remember the heat on top of my head from the flames heating and expanding the gas in the balloon. What a ride. It was so quiet and peaceful up there. I can't believe you didn't go up in it. The hardest part was getting in and out of that basket - there was no door.

Peeking through the curtain at the window in my dressing room at the church to see you, my maid of honor, standing at the altar waiting for me to walk down the aisle at my wedding.

Did you think I was going to be a "Runaway Bride?" Oh, no, I was just letting the anticipation build. It was fun peeking through that window and watching people start to look around like "Where is she?" HA!

Dancing at my wedding - we did enjoy that. I throw good parties.

I love the Brian Regan DVD you sent me for Christmas. He is funny, funny, funny. Science Fair Dirt Cup. "It's a DIRT CUP. It's a CUP with some DIRT in it. It's a CUP of DIRT."

We still laugh until we can't breathe over America's Funniest Home Videos. After all, people fall down. I took the DVD you sent me for Christmas of AFV Kids and Pets along to Texas and watched on my portable DVD player last week.

I believe the presents we opened on the floor of our house in Geneva were wedding presents.

The day you left for California. The darkest day of my life - it surpasses the day I my dad died and the day I had to have Meischje put to sleep. I pray you NEVER have to know the pain.

You were working at Bombay Bicycle Club, living in your first little apartment in California. I believe your roommate got busted that same day!!! Anyway, we painted your bedroom furniture on that little balcony.

The I Love You sign. We still do that, although tears don't stream down our faces anymore. That doesn't mean that I've reconciled myself to it. My heart still cries.

My graduation party was a blast! We rode to it in the '31 Buick. As mentioned before, I throw good parties.

Your wedding. Beautiful setting, beautiful bride. So final.

I was standing in the kitchen when we lived on 9th St. in that 100 year old Queen Anne house when you called to tell me you were pregnant with twins.

If I knew then what I know now about your high risk pregnancy, I doubt that I would have left California. Now that I've been working in labor/delivery/recovery with some high risk thrown in, I shudder. I am at work right now and my patient is 24 weeks 2 days with pre-term labor and on 2.5 grams of mag. She's miserable. I told her about you just like I tell every one of my mag patients about you. You are an inspiration.

I was having lunch at the Cracker Barrel with Fishers and Todds when you called as you were being wheeled into the OR.

Wow, those babies were so little but so feisty. Wimpy, little white boys, true. Two little miracles.

I remember it all...

Love, Mommy