She was a writer, too~

     Somewhere tucked away in a box in our spare bedroom are some of the last of my belongings that we brought back when we returned from our visit to Kansas at Thanksgiving time.  Nestled safely inside a plastic tub are my mother's writings, her journals of everyday life back in her house on 14th Street in Hutchinson.  When she passed away in 2007, I gathered them all up and put them away not wanting to read them any longer.  It was too sad for me and rather than discard them (thank God I didn't do that), I just bundled them up and put them away.  You know, out of sight and out of mind?

     Now that I pause a moment and look back, I realize that Mom was a "blogger" of sorts.  Geesch, a chill just ran down my spine as I typed that word "blogger".  It was as if she was looking down from Heaven above and saying to me, "Peggy Ann, don't you be calling me that!".  Mom was never a fan of the Internet, or computers, or anything remotely related to the world of technology.  Even though only a few of us ever read her handwritten words, it didn't matter.  Every day for the better part of 6 full years, my mother would sit down at the end of the day and record the events of her life in small, lined journals that we kids would pick up for her at the local WalMart.  When December 31st came and ended, she'd simply put the filled journal up and pick up a blank one to begin the New Year.

     You know the stuff that she wrote about was pretty mundane, nothing "earth shaking" and certainly nothing that would have made the front page of the daily newspaper.  But it didn't matter to her because that's not why she was writing in the first place.  Mom wrote about the high temperature of the day, what she made for supper that night, who came over to visit or had called her, whether or not she did the laundry, or if  it was the day she had sat down to write out her bills.  Just the normal stuff, you know?

     There were times when she would show her emotions but they were few and hard to come by.  She would remember certain dates as she wrote and they were not the kind of dates that you would circle on the calendar with a "happy face".  Rather, they were very sad times of her life and her journal entries for each and every November 4th (the day my sister was killed), November 3rd (the day my niece died), December 11th (the day my father died) and January 13th (the day my maternal grandmother passed away) would always reflect the somber tone of her life.  Mom was always recalling certain dates when things like that had happened and it used to drive me crazy.  When the phone would ring on the anniversary of my sister's death each year, I could always count on her to say, "Do you know what day this is?"  Of course I knew but she would always remind me anyway.  And here's the crazy thing~I have become just like her and for me, I say "thank goodness" that I have.  I never want to be so far removed from life of the past that I forget the people whose time was up before mine was.  It's just a way to honour them and not in a macabre type of dwelling on it, but rather a "just for this moment" kind of time.  I ended up liking that about my mom but it took me a while to really understand it.

   Now I am a writer as well although that wasn't always the case.  After my mom passed away a couple of weeks after her 87th birthday, I began to realize there was a need in my own life to write down my thoughts.  For 3 years, I did what she did by writing daily in spiral notebooks that I had on hand. In my handwritten scrawl, I recorded the events of my daily life too and just like Mom had, I recorded the weather of the day, what I had eaten, where I had gone and who I had seen.  But I also recorded something she had done little of in her own journals.  I recorded my feelings and emotions, my dreams of good things and my sorrow for the "not so good" things that had happened.  Some days, it seemed like the "not so good" greatly outnumbered anything else.  As I sit here recalling those early days of writing for me, I remember more than once when a few tears fell upon the notebook page.  But I survived and thrived and went on.

     From time to time, I get questions about what got me started in the blog writing world to begin with and I always answer those questions with the story about going on the Bike Across Kansas in 2011 and this blog being a way to chronicle what it was like for me.  It was never intended in the beginning to do more than that yet here over 2 1/2 years later, I'm still at it.  There are some months that I write every day and still others when I write only once in a while. It just depends, mostly on life.  I have found blogging to be an excellent way to deal with stress and depression, both of which I have suffered from and as I've said in numerous posts, "If I can just get my fingers on this stinking keyboard (:) and type away", I tend to feel a whole lot better.  For me, writing is the best medicine, the quickest cure for the troubles that life sometimes sends us.  Yet having said that, it is also the best way to give "thanks" for all of the blessings I have received and appreciation for all of the things that I have yet had to endure.  When you look at it in that perspective it makes a lot of sense, well at least to me.

     At times when I look in the mirror these days, especially when I'm not wearing my glasses, it is Mom's face that I am beginning to see.  I didn't realize how much we favoured one another until I got older myself. Now to be real honest, at first I didn't like it and I began to wonder how that had happened.  Well the answer to that is simple enough~she's my mother :)  And although we didn't always see things the same way and I'm sure there were some times that we must have told each other that, one thing never changed and that was our love for one another.  I miss her, especially during those times when even a 58-year old woman still just needs a "mom" to call.  And hey, you know what?  I still feel her presence in my life and I will always believe that her spirit is yet with me. Perhaps when I sense that someone is with me, even while I am totally alone, it is her all along.  I take some solace in that idea.  Have you ever felt the same?

     Well, it's Saturday morning here along the Western Slopes and a busy day awaits us here.  Time to close off this blog post, turn off the computer and as life would ask of us, to get busy!  One  week from tomorrow, we shall head home to Kansas to celebrate the holidays with our families back there.  The journey is not an easy one and the road is very long at times.  God willing, we shall see you all again soon back there.  Take care dear ones, all of you and have a good weekend.

     This is December 14th, 2013 a great day to be alive in!  If you are reading this, then you have awoken from your slumber and take that as a sign.  You were meant to be here.  Love you guys, all.

One of my favourite photos of Mom from her later years was this one.  We had all gathered at Ken's Pizza in Hutch to have supper together.  I loved her smile in this one.

She might have been surprised to find out I was STILL teaching.....but then again, probably not!

Thanks for showing me the healing power of the written word Mom.