Kansas City Lights

As I write this, my mom would have been 63 or 64. This picture of her was taken in high school. She died at age 28. I was 7. I miss her every day and regret that my children will never know her except through pictures like this one, and what things I can manage to remember about her. I wonder how she'd look if she were still alive. I think about how different my life would be now, had she never gone that day.  She thought about not going, you know.  She did!  There's nothing I can do to change what happened and I know it's not my fault but...at the end of the day it is what it is. I loved my mom so much! She loved the colors purple and brown! She liked to watch Dynasty, probably not unlike any other woman her age back in '83 or '84.  She took me to Molly Murphy's a lot! When my aunts Penny, Betsy, or Kay would come stay the weekend, we would all go and it was so much fun.  We'd eat, laugh, dance, do the Hustle AND the Car Wash, and laugh if anyone had to go pee, because you know what THAT meant!  We went to Woodland Hills a LOT!  And we traveled!  And I had a beautiful canopy bedroom suite and my very own stereo system in my very own room! And she liked elephants.  My Grace likes elephants. My Grace Ann looks so much like my mother it jolts me every time I look at her. Jolts me to the core.

I know there is a God, because of my Grace. Before, during some especially trying years and struggling to come to terms with things I'd been told, I doubted God, I doubted His love for me, and I doubted my own self-worth. Not anymore. Thank you, Lord, for lending my mom to me for the 7 years that you did. I sure do miss her. My great grandma told me when she died that God had picked a beautiful flower for his bouquet in Heaven. I can't hear this song on the radio without choking back tears.  Once when we were in downtown Kansas City, a homeless man tried to climb in the front seat of her Oldsmobile.  He opened the door on the passenger side and started to settle right down onto the plush taupe seat.  I was in the back, of course no seat belt, just hanging out!  You know what she did?  That woman was stopped at a red light and as soon as this guy tried to plant his fanny in her car, she sped off like a getaway car. I will never forget it!  I don't know whatever happened to that person, but as a kid I remember looking out the back window, seeing his outline grow smaller and smaller in the distance.  Looking back now, what a crazy/funny day!  Wow! 

Alas, I will see her again someday.  And we shall pick up our shenanigans right where we left off.