Ten years goes by too quickly...
I keep staring at this computer screen, wondering what I could say. I can tell you this, as has been evidenced several times today, sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same.
My Mom, Mary E. Brown, passed away on March 18, 2002. Today marks the tenth anniversary of her death. She was only 54. She passed suddenly at about 2:00am, after spending the day with her husband, daughter, father, sister, goddaughter, and other friends and family members at the wedding shower for my cousin Michelle. We laughed, we joked, she even chided me and knitchick1979 as we were on the phone late into the night talking about friends, and joking with us. The Teenager was five at the time my Mom died, but remembers how my Mom sure to send her home with balloons from the shower.
My Mom, Dad and I many moons ago - gotta love that 90's look.
Last night into this morning I spent with MJ, Joanna, and Ken. After a night of relaxing and enjoying a feast - the St. Patrick's Day feast will always be special in my heat because it was the last major meal that Mom made sure I knew how to make - I got home at the same time as I did ten years ago, but this time was for a better reason. Instead of coming home from the Emergency Room at OLR, mentally and physically exhausted, I cared for friends. I prefer doing that.
Dad and I went to the cemetery, and then we had lunch at an old favorite from they worked at the racetrack - Gene and Jude's. After that we went down to the old neighborhood and got a picture of the street that is named in honor of my Mom.
In Chicago, on the Northwest side.
We then went driving around the old neighborhood to our old house, and my grandfather's old house (which used to be right around the block from the place I spent the first 20 years of my life). Some things in the neighborhood have changed, but others haven't. The address block on Grandpa's old house is the address block that Grandpa built years ago. And there were coolers and stuff under the front porch (You can see through the slats, we were not being creepers.), like there used to be when that was the "old homestead' of the family. The garage down the alley from our old house still had people working on cars in it, like there always was.
On the way out of the neighborhood, we stopped at the old convenience mart that was down the street. When I worked at the law offices in the old neighborhood (at the age of 15), I would stop at the convenience store on the way home. The store was the same as it always was. I even bought a Chick-A-Stick (It used to be 15-cents, I paid 35-cents today) from the front counter where they always had cheap "penny" candy. Dad and I each got ice cream cones, Good Humor from the case.
Our lives will always move forward, but in certain pockets of space, some things will never change. We may never be lucky enough that we can go back to our old neighborhood and find the little store that has not closed, nor changed, but we we always have our memories.
My Mom was my first, and my best editor. We used to get into fights, resulting in me complaining "DO you want to bleed over this paper anymore? There's some white space left." She loved her red pen, and would make notes, make corrections, help change things around, and so on. But, when she took over running the West Walker Civic Association, and being editor of the newsletter, I got to teach her about using computers to be journalist and newspaper layout. We helped each other. The lessons I learned will never change.
I miss her. No denying that. And as I told Joanna's sister tonight, it's not necessarily things "getting better", but it "changes." I find myself missing her still over the weirdest things - like how she would have so many ideas and suggestion for helping Mary Jo and Ken with their upcoming wedding. I imagine what it would be like, her chiding my uncle for being worried about The Teenager driving, yet she refused to be in the car when I was learning. She was a phenomenal woman, and I miss her, but rest assured, she helped shape the woman behind this journal.
One last thing, at the convenience store I stopped and pulled up Foursquare to check in. There was a check in for "West Walker Neighborhood." If Mom was around, she would have been proud that West Walker was somehow on a social map. I signed in, a smile on my face.