coachmen

I rebuilt the insides a few years ago thinking I or we might live in it some time.
We will take it to Washington State this fall. Christmas will be with everyone there, and this will be our home!
And a very comfortable one it will be.

plan b

Plan B.

In the AD world unknowns outnumber plans and options.

We will live in our little house on our acre as long as we can. That is Plan A. Maybe that can be most of the journey and maybe not. There are no declarations on that one.

I had planned a move to SE Washington, long before this. I think that could have been very rewarding. But it didn’t happen. Miriam would not hear of it, and I didn’t want to force the issue.

But eventually, something will change.

Since I have no idea of how well and how long I can care for my Miriam, I am not ready to make a call on that one. If this process takes as long on the 2nd part as it did for the first, all sorts of things could change.

But, after AD, if I am the one who survives, some things might change. That is what drifts through my mind at times.

I must say I am a great fan of small space living. This house is considered small at a bit more than 1200 feet, but I designed it for 6 people and now just the two of rattle around in it.

We have a smallish but very comfortable travel trailer. I gutted it a few winters ago and completely rebuilt the interior. Same design, but all new inside: cabinets, floors, walls, insulation, an so on.

It would make a comfortable place for one person, providing belongings were pared to the minimum. It could be parked at one of two daughters who live 45 miles apart. I would like seeing my daughters more often.

Let’s see. Miriam was diagnosed 8 years ago. If this goes on another 8, our youngest grand child will be college age. That is scary.

Then there is another space on the back of this property. Some neighbors told me they thought it was an old haunted house. Actually it is the back side of my shop, but it opens into a small closed in courtyard. There is some very nice space there.

So, I make notes in my journals, occasionally, I draw a design idea, and I wait.

Tick tick tick tick.
Did any one ever tell you that it is very boring listening to the clock?

Tick tick.

Linda

I love you Linda. Professionally she has shortened her name to Lia, but she will still allow her old dad to call her Linda.

Linda and her proud papa

I know I have used this picture before, but not too many of the old film photographs have made it to digital. This was taken in Yellowstone Park, on the way home from a long trip east for my brothers wedding.

happy birthday Linda

May 14, a long time ago, our 4th daughter was born.

This was before fathers were allowed any where near the delivery room, but the doctor was a pretty good friend as was the nurse, so the rules were bent.

At the proper time, they signaled and I stood in the door and took pictures of the delivery. I was a seasoned photographer, and it was not a difficult assignment. My Leicas were certainly up to the low level light, but I am not a medical photographer. I get quimish easily.

And so Linda entered our life. She has been a good daughter. She is extremely talented, works hard and is a good mother to Emily. I have loved her from the time I knew she was on the way. This was long before we had the ability to know the gender of a baby until they was born. My guess was that doctors enjoyed the: “It’s a girl” call.

Emily looks enough like her mother for us to confuse them in pictures. When Linda was born Deanna was 4, Lora 5 and Arline was 9. She was a source of constant amazement to them.

I had no idea we’d have a whole batch of girl babies when Miriam and I started this adventure. My desire, I remember, was that they be healthy and I was richly rewarded.

Linda, I know you didn’t have any choice of who your parents were or when you entered this world, but I love you for enriching our lives all these years.

We’ll see you next weekend.

mom, my sister and I

1943 two years after dad was killed. Here mom is 27.

mothers day

Today is Mothers Day.

I will wish Miriam a special day, she is the resident mother here at my house. I’ll do something special for her (cash is short, so it won’t involve much money), and our daughters will all call and wish her a happy day.

But, I will be thinking of my mother.

Mom was a widow at 24. She was short, but she was tough. Before Dad was killed mom delivered 4 babies and buried two. She was a survivor. My memories of mom are universally good .

Mom was a pillar of strength. She was consistent in her judgment and good advice. She loved Miriam and my daughters (we spent her last decade living a couple of blocks away). When Lora (daughter 2) was just getting the hang of reading, mom gave her a kids picture dictionary. She wrote in it: To Lora, the girl who loves words." Mom noticed.

She dreamed of going to college. After they were married she went to college one semester and loved it, but dad wanted to move on to something else and she dropped out. She talked about her dream of going back to college after she retired. She was a lifelong learner and a pragmatist, but she never got back to college.

She studied accountant, took a correspondence course to increase her knowledge and usefulness. she had the accountant’s interest in details. My artist brain and her accountant brain did not always mesh, but we always got on well.

In his NYTimes column this morning, Thomas Friedman talks about his mom and what she went through, ending with a story of the legendary Bear Bryant, who changed a planned television commercial for the telephone company from: Call your mother; to Call your mother, I wish I could call mine.

Friedman wishes he could call his mom, who died this last year, and I really understand.

I talk to Emily and Jessica about how much my mother would have loved them, and how much they would have loved her. Mom was tough as she needed to be, but she was soft and cuddly too. She would have been a wonderful great grandmother.

Mom made it through one daughter's wedding and a high school graduation or two, was cut way short by cancer. She retired as an accountant for the state health department, and about a year later she was gone. She was just 65.

Each day I think of mom and what a classy woman she was. Every day I wish I could talk to her about this or that. And frequently I imagine a conversation where mom would ask me about that black thing I carry in my hand.

“It’s my telephone mom, I can get calls almost everywhere I go.”

Amazing, she would say in pre-computer wonderment.

Today I will remember mom and I will hug my Jess and Em’s grandmother.

I love you Miriam, I am so glad you are the mother of my daughters and a wonderful grandmother to my grandkids.

But, I really really wish I could call my mom.