I know, I know, when a dietitian says the word "purge", it has a negative connotation. Today I purged in a most beautiful, cleansing, freeing way . . . I cleaned.
My mom is visiting. Let me remind you that my father passed away exactly 5 months ago today. My parents were married for 53 years. That is a long, long time. My mom was 19 when she met my dad and they were married 3 months later. Nine months later she was a newly married 19 year old with a baby. My mom will tell you that she was so in love with my dad on their wedding day that she could hardly contain herself. My dad liked to tell some story about how he gave her 48 hours to reply to his proposal. This would always make us laugh. I am not sure why . . . something about the story was absurd. My mom would get this silly look on her face when he told the story and he would chuckle. I can totally picture the moment - this sort of knowing glance that they would exchange.
I can't say that my parents had a perfect relationship. I can't even say they had something remotely close to a perfect relationship. What I can say is that they always had a partnership. You could always tell that my dad respected my mom's intelligence. He cared about her opinion - particularly when it came to business matters. When there was a big decision to be made you always knew they were going to make the decision together. I am so glad my mom was such an active participant in their financial lives because my father had a stroke 25 years into their marriage. Mom was 45 years old. Dad was 50 years old. I was 8 years old. My father didn't know who we were. He never drove a car or worked another day in his life after his stroke. He certainly wasn't cognizant enough to make the choices necessary to keep a family going. My mom stepped in with the power of an army and ran the show on her own. Once he had recovered it was back to being a team.
And so my mom's visit is a touchy one. This is the first time she has visited since my dad passed. We have both already shed tears and only 24 hours has gone by. It is obvious she misses my dad terribly. Mourning a parent's death and mourning a spouse's death are two different things and that should be a blog of it's own.
What I really wanted to talk about is just how much I got done today. I know, total diversion. BUT . . . Having my mom around to play with the kids meant I could clean, clean, clean. Not really clean, but get rid of stuff. I packed up about 10 bags of clothes - lots of it maternity clothes and gave it to the MS Society. I threw out stray toys and grouped together toys like no other. We have bins with airplanes, bins with race cars and bins with cars that don't race. The marble run is all in one spot and the hundreds of trains and tracks we own are gathered together neatly. It felt FANTASTIC. I am now looking forward to how much more I can get rid of in the week that mom is here.
Dear Lord, talking about cleaning is a lousy follow up to the first part of the post. Let's just put us all out of our misery and sign off.
Health and Happiness to you all.
