Monthly Archives: July 2013

Happy Birthday, Mama!

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I have had this blog post on my mind for over a month now, but today is the appropriate day to share it.

I was driving to work one morning when the story of the oldest person in a neighboring county came on the radio.  She was celebrating her 110th birthday.

It’s not the fact that she was turning 110 that made me love this story so much.  Or the fact that during the radio interview (click on link and see the “Listen” link in the story to hear the actual interview) you hear her social worker yelling, “HOW DOES THAT FEEL [to be the oldest person in the county]?”

110 year-old Sina Hayes takes a break after eating breakfast in the meeting room at Brookridge Retirement Community in Winston-Salem, N.C. She displays one of her favorite quilts she has made over the years.Credit Keri Brown

110 year-old Sina Hayes takes a break after eating breakfast in the meeting room at Brookridge Retirement Community in Winston-Salem, N.C. She displays one of her favorite quilts she has made over the years.Credit Keri Brown

What I loved about this story was that her 88-year-old and 90-year-old sons flew into town to help her celebrate her 110th birthday.

How awesome would that be to be 90 years old and still have your mama around?  Of course, I can see her 90-year-old son telling his friends at his rest home, “I’m flying home to see my mom for her birthday.”  They’re probably thinking, “Oh, Bob has stopped taking his medicine again…”

I hope that when I am 87, I still have my 110 year mama around.  And maybe, instead of flying into town to celebrate her birthday, my nurse can just roll me from room in the nursing home into her room in the nursing home.  And we can complain that my sister never visits us, how the green beans just aren’t as good as the ones that she used to make, that we wished we could still see so that we could pluck those chin hairs, that someone would change the channel to Discovery ID because our favorite true crime show is getting ready to come on, and how happy we are that they made chocolate cake for her birthday because we both love chocolate.

Happy Birthday today, Mama!  Here’s to at least 44 more — let’s aim for 110!  Hugs and kisses.  Cristy

In memory

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I am incredibly sad tonight.

Around 11 AM, I found out via Facebook that one of the firefighters killed in the Yarnell, AZ, fire was someone with whom I went to school from elementary through high school.  While I was in college, he was in a serious relationship for several years with one of my first cousins, so I would see him at holidays and other family events with her.

But my memories of Eric are not from those later years, but always from high school.  I remember a cute boy, a really good athlete, soft-spoken and somewhat socially awkward.

And I am saddened by his death.

I am also saddened by the tremendous wave of nostalgia that has engulfed me as all the memories of high school have flooded back as a result.

For me, this was the time in my life of true innocence.  I had yet to encounter anyone with an ulterior motive; good things seemed to happen to good people; I didn’t really know any “bad” people.  I was blessed beyond all measure.

Life was:  football games, homework, talking on the phone (a land line), passing notes (no texting), spending the summers at the lake, the smell of sweat in the school gym, cruising town on the weekends, going on dates, gossiping about who was dating who, trying to find enough money to go to McDonald’s after school, cheerleading practice, T-P’ing someone’s house….

That innocence, that fun, that lack of responsibility — it makes me sad to think about how I didn’t appreciate those wonderful days when I was there.

Everyone always says that “if they knew then, what they knew now….”   If I knew then, what I know now, I would breathe in even more precious minutes than I did.  Knowing now what I know now, there’s nothing stopping me from doing that.

And if I knew then, what I know now, I would take extra minutes to ask Eric (and Tammy, and Chuck, and Scott, and Kim and all the others that we have lost so young), “Hey!  Want to hang out?”