Mother’s Day and Father’s Day

Both of those days are coming up soon, so I put up one of my favorite pictures of my folks. I have a framed one in my living room. They look so natural in the picture – my dad is wearing blue, his favorite color, and my mom is wearing a red and white T-shirt – she wore red quite often which was very becoming. They were sitting on their deck, and directly in front of them was my dad’s rose garden. He’d always grown beautiful roses wherever they were living. It must have worn off on me as I carried on the tradition and grew roses for many years until I moved into apartments. My dad wrote poetry – mostly short, humorous poems – and was published in many newspapers throughout the state. He did that for many years, and now I’m writing a blog – something else I inherited from him. I enjoy writing and hope my dad would be pleased with what I’m doing. He had never heard of blogs and would have written great ones given the chance. He climbed all the mountains in Washington and Oregon and went on many mountain rescue operations. Now that’s one thing I didn’t inherit – high places scared me to death!

My mom was a tiny woman and very pretty. She may have been tiny, but she had a mind of her own and was ahead of her time with many of her opinions. She was very independent and had strong beliefs on many subjects. I’m like her in a lot of ways which makes me feel good. I couldn’t have had a better role model. I had so much fun with her throughout the years. I remember when she was in an assisted living home and she called me as she couldn’t get her TV to turn on. I tried to help over the phone and could hear her hitting the buttons on her phone rather than on the remote! I think I finally got her to use the remote and we both were hysterical by then! I think of her when I’m cooking a Lean Cuisine in the microwave and the buzzer goes off when it’s done . . . and I open the refrigerator. I wish she were here to laugh with me. There are so many times I want to pick up the phone and talk to my folks. I have so many questions I should have asked them years ago, but didn’t. I miss them every day.

I took this picture four days before Daddy died.