Yearly we remember this day
Its been 7 years to the day since Mom passed away September 10, 2009. I miss you Mom. So many times there’s been things to tell you or advice to ask for. So many times I wanted to pick up the phone and talk to a friendly voice in an unfriendly world. Cherish your Mom while you have her no matter how simple or complicated your relationship is you will miss her when she’s gone.
Alice in Wonderland was Moms fav book. Fav colour was pink. Loved roses and hollyhocks. She had a whole window sill in the north facing living room covered African violets. The window in the kitchen always had geraniums in it and the old pantry window had a rubbery leaved plant in it and others in some evolution of being started from that plant. She loved getting a snip off of someone’s cool plant and starting her own. When my friend gave me a double hibiscus plant she started three plants from it that are living over 25 years later. I have tried and failed to take slips off this same plant.
She loved spending time with her Sisters most of all….and her Grandchildren were next. The sisters spent many a Wednesday afternoon at my Aunt Ruth’s house visiting and eating goodies that the rest of us turned our nose up at.
We brought her kittens that HAD to be rescued…she nurtured and loved them. Our first house cat was a city cat from Toronto a gorgeous smokey Persian named Muffer that our cousin rescued and brought to us. After that many kittens were brought to Mom for various reasons to be loved and cared for. When I had Tigger and Princess I brought them home from Toronto every weekend and they were just part of the menagerie. When we got the min pins Mom thought Kahn was adorable when he stood on his back legs and danced in front of her. She and Dad were great puppy sitters. I’m pretty sure he reminded her of a little dog a beloved Aunt out west had.
Our best conversations were on the phone. Whether I called from Downsview, Scarborough, Toronto, Listowel or Kitchener our conversations would last an hour or more on the phone.
She made the best fudge - it was family famous. She made amazing mashed potatoes and a layered potato pie in an electric fry pan that my brother and I still talk about.
I would have loved to share some of the the things I’ve learned to bake and cook over the last 6 years.
She played the accordion. She taught me to garden both vegetables and flowers and she let me order plants out of garden catalogues that she’d never grown and we watched what weird things came up in the spring and enjoyed when the poppies reseeded themselves all over the garden.
She worked hard along side Dad out in the fields and in the barn and still managed to keep us fed.
She was a child of the Great Depression and reusing and recycling were done in our house long before the blue box came to our farm or the term environmentally friendly was coined.
She worked in factories in Toronto such as Inglis, a factory making ceramic animals and a suitcase factory. She remembered making $8 a week. She remembered not buying nylons because they cost too much and ladies sometimes drew a black line down the back of their leg to imitate those fancy seamed stockings.
She worked as a bus girl in a restaurant out in Vancouver on split shifts and took accordion lessons while she was out there.
She said she’d never marry a farmer and married a farmer on October 8, 1955. They would have been married 55 years in 2010.
Every year I revisit my notes and add more as I remember more things she told us or I observed just as much for family history as I don’t want to forget all the good things.
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