Ice cream and guilt

 

Connie:

Tonight I caught myself thinking about my family. I thought about where each one was and what they might be doing at 8:48 PM. I was eating ice cream...pistachio my favorite...my mom's favorite. I thought about my sister and how she loves butter pecan, but rarely eats it since her oldest daughter is allergic to tree nuts. How my brother who is not a huge ice cream fan liked strawberry growing up. How my father loved orange sherbert or peaches and cream and could eat them by the gallon before he was diagnosed with diabetes and became a health nut.  I wondered to myself what other random facts I had studied about them... I wonder what I'll remember about her after she's gone. What should I study or try to note now so someday when I have kids I can describe her to them. So I can paint her persona. My mom was stubborn. Strong. Outspoken. Loud. Arrogant. Confident. Beautiful. Indignant. Courageous. Selfless. Maddening at times and Watching her die of cancer has been slow and agonizing. Because everyday that persona is stripped little by little..and her personality becomes more of an echo and a little harder to remember.........

Cindy: 

At 8:48pm I was doing what I do every night, feeding E trying to get her to fall asleep, mom was eating a couple of waffles that Con so expertly toasted for her. And the minute you published this and my phone's dinged to let me know, I got so excited wondering what you had written. As I read your post I was right there with you, crying looking into our old house from the outside, like in a dream wondering how we got here.  Never in a million years would I have imagined that there would come a day that mom, who's always been so feisty and strong would become so timid and frail and that she would wither away and age 20 years overnight right before my eyes.  Last night she asked me to come down at about midnight, right away I thought she must be in pain to wake me in the middle of the night, so I grabbed her medicine on my way in.  She wasn't in pain though, she wanted to tell me no matter what happens or when it happens she's ok with it, that she loves the three of us more then we could ever imagine and she's so happy we'll always have each other to get us through the rough times then she kissed & hugged me and went back to sleep like she hadn't just woken me up in the middle of the night.

:-p

Gotta love her though!!!!

I can't paint you a picture of who mom was or what she was like when we were kids but I can show you...

She was 9 months pregnant with you in this one.

Now if I know you and trust me I do, stop crying, get something super fattening to eat and call me....