It was just a "so long"

Wheh!

My mom celebrated her 90th birthday on Saturday. We kids had been looking forward to some family time while doing something special to let mom know how great we think she is.

Company began arriving last week. My niece Amy and her daughter Julie were going to be our guests for the weekend. I had been busy getting a place ready for them and was excited when they arrived. Julie is 2. She is a wonderful, terrible two. How were we to know that spending a weekend watching Winnie the Pooh, Blues Clues and singing with Barney could be so much fun? It was awesome.

In fact, the entire weekend was awesome. At one point we kids had to get a group picture taken. So there we were. Mom with my brother Royce, me, brother Jim and sister Phyllis… and even at our ages we couldn’t behave long enough to get a serious picture taken.


Worthy of note is that Mom always looks dignified and serene. I guess her ability to maintain her cool around such shenanigans explains how she managed to raise 5 kids and not lose her mind.

It did get a bit “touch and go” when my nephew Greg’s kids brought their dog, Gizmo, to the party. She was a hit right away, of course, she’s adorable. The touch part came when my daughter while holding the dog, turned her puppy dog eyes on me and said, “See how cute. I want a dog, Mom”. But I was tough and we haven’t made any arrangements to go out and get one of our own and the crisis soon passed.

We hung out a lot, ate way too much food. Told stories on each other, remembered the ‘good times’ hugged a lot of necks, but finally family slowly said their goodbyes and we watched them get into their cars and leave. Amy and Julie left on Sunday night. I walked back into my house with not even an echo of Barney reverberating through the rooms. The house was too quiet, too empty.

My brother James (Amy’s father) hung around a bit longer. It was great having extra time with him and I took full advantage ignoring things I probably should have been doing and enjoyed having him around. He came over with mom this morning for breakfast and we sat around the table talking about things, looking at pictures, but too soon he said “I’ve got to go”, reaching out for a goodbye hug.

I stood in the drive watching him walk away. He turned and said “I’ll be back before too long with Jimmie (his son). We want to get some things done for Mom.”

“When do you think you’ll be here?” I asked.

“Before the weather gets bad. Jimmie and I want to get some golf in while we’re here.”

This was one of those times I was glad some of my family members are golf nuts. It made saying this goodbye easier. After all, it won’t be long before I get to say another one.