To My Mom Part IX: The Purge

So if you are "friends" with me on Facebook, you've noticed that I've been going through my moms stash of greeting cards and mailing out all the silly inappropriate ones to those who have requested one, and even some to those who haven't. So why have I been doing this? Well, after two and a half years, Dad and I are finally cleaning out her office, to convert it into the spare/guest bedroom/my office. This means everything needs to be taken out and gone through. Big task. I've gone through her CD collection and digitized the ones I want to keep and boxed them all up. Dad has gone through her desk and organized all her stationary (there's a lot - she loved shopping at Staples). We have sticky notes and pencils to last two lifetimes. We've been finding interesting things. Something dad found was three note pages with her list of books to read, movies to watch, and a list of 10 books from me. She had copied the list from one of those Facebook things that people fill out. It was one that asked for the 10 books that have influenced or stuck with you the most. So it isn't a list of my favorites, but influential. She kept it. This list is probably 10 years old. Why? She must have thought it important to know about me. She was a voracious reader. And perhaps thought that reading the books that have stuck with me, would bring her insight into me or closer to me. I'll never know, because I didn't know she kept the list in the first place.

Here's the list: She named it Kelly's List
1. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
2. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. Christy by Catherine Marshall
7. A Town Called Alice by Nevil Shute
8. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
9. Canery Row by John Steinbeck
10. The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind

The list is still pretty accurate. However, I would change that last one now. Once I got to book 5 in the series, I got tired of the preachiness of the main character and the fact that none of them learned or evolved and seemed very two-dimensional. I got bored. There's a new series (book one: Outlander was published in 1991) I would replace it with. The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon. For one, I finished the series (she's writing book 9 now), second, and more importantly, it's the series I was reading when she died. That may sound very creepy, but, I had started reading them maybe three months before she passed, and I finished them a few months after she passed. They got me through a very difficult time. I would read them at night into the wee hours of the morning during the last month when she was really sick and in the hospital. And I would read them till my eyes couldn't focus anymore and fatigue would put me to sleep in under 5 minutes after she died. It was the only way to get sleep and not have my mind constantly thinking and turning. So I guess they have a special place in my heart now for getting me through that time.

It will be interesting to see what else we discover in moms old office.

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To My Mom Part VIII: So How Are You Doing

I've been working on this one for a while now. Little by little, it gets written. Why is this one so hard? I don't know. Perhaps it is because I am not in the mood to do this, but feel like I have to get this out. These past few months (summer) have not been hard or difficult, but they haven't been easy either. And so to answer the question in the title: I fucking bloody miss her, and I'm still pissed off that she died. That's how I'm doing.

I keep getting asked this question. How are you doing? I'm fine, I say. That is all I ever say. My answer never changes. Quit asking how I'm doing. If I want to tell you how I'm really doing, I will tell you. I won't need a prompt. I know this is a common question, even to people not mourning a death, so I get it. It's just one of those conversation starter questions in general. It gets asked two to three times a day at work at least. But when asked by people "in the know" a lot, it gets annoying. Quit it. In an effort to quell this question a bit, here is my true and honest response.

How am I doing? I got up this morning. I put clothes on. And if I worked out or had to work today, then I actually left the house as well. Congratulations! I keep getting up.  I keep moving. I get out of bed everyday. Keep moving. This song is on my running playlist on the ipod nano. First song I hear after it gets charged or the playlist starts over. I keep moving.

Working out and running has been the one thing that has helped me through this so far. Not the only thing, but the one thing that I have found, that I do, where I find joy, happiness, and motivation to keep going in life. Life goes on, and we can chose to keep going with it or stay stagnate. I was stagnate after her death. It was a shock. It all happened so fast. We were suppose to have more time. She was suppose to come home. I was stagnate and didn't do or feel or anything for two months. I think that that was okay. We all sat around and stared at walls for a bit. It's a lot to process. But then you have to pick yourself up. You can't stay in that space forever. Working on my physical body with exercise and eating better got me out of my stagnate phase. And once I started on this new direction (because there are many directions one can take), I found that I really enjoy it. I find myself smiling and doing mental high fives and fist bumps after good runs. Sometimes they aren't mental and I quickly look around to see if anyone out mowing their lawn or walking their dog just saw me fist bump my imaginary friend. Some runs aren't so fun. They're painful from burning lungs, side stitches, or the inhalation of bugs, lethargy, too hot, too muggy, or some other random ugh. At the end of those runs, I shrug them off and say to myself that I still got out the door today, and I did it anyway.

So how are you doing?

I don't want to be stagnate anymore. When you or a sibling, parent, spouse, BFF is on a cancer  journey, your own life gets put on hold. You're focused on that person. You're going to chemo appointments, and Doctor visits. You're doing things that the other person wants to do. Everything is about them. I was on hold. So after mom passed away, I didn't need to be on hold anymore. Of course it takes a bit to get going again. Putting yourself back into drive after being in neutral for so long, takes a bit of trial and error and procrastination. But I'm doing it. I said earlier that this year (2015) is all about not settling. Well, I'm keeping myself to it. I've gotten myself into a physical shape that I have never been in before, not even when I was in High School playing 3 different sports at the same time, going from one practice to the next practice to the next. And I feel pretty awesome. I have body issues, as does probably 99% of the female of our species. I have come to a point now that I am almost... almost actually happy with my body. I'm doing little things that are pushing me to get out of ruts and fixing things. Little things like finally moving my 401k from a former employer to an IRA, that I will actually control and not some crazy wack-a-doodle former co-worker/cake nazi. Little things like cutting all my hair off. Little things like joining new groups and meeting new people. Actually buying new clothes. These are big things to me. Yes, even the clothes thing. I still have/wear things I've had since high school. That was 20 years ago!

 This running thing I'm doing now is something my mom was never able to do. She struggled with weight her entire adult life. I find it ironic that when she was at her best (pre-cancer), which was 2010, she had lost 80 pounds and was really excited, I was at my worst, 30 pounds overweight and miserable. When I started running again after her death, I thought I would do it "for her" because she couldn't. But by thinking that way, I was never going to succeed. Do I run "in her honor" then? No, that's not right either. I run for me. That may be seen as selfish, but it's the truth, and it is the right framework for my continued success. Mom is gone, but I'm still here. I have to do things for me now.

this song is also on the running playlist. A bit more "happy" and something I strive for.

Here's another thing, July sucks. I'm glad it's over. Why does July suck now? Well, mom and dad's anniversary was July 1st. Mom's birthday was July 9th. About four of my parents favorite couples also have wedding anniversaries within 2 weeks of theirs. And they had trips planned with some of these favorite couples. Mom always had something big planned in July. She did this past July. It was to be another epic road trip across the country. She loved the 4th! Making dad BBQ and having people over all month long... if they were home. I think, next to Christmas, July (summer) was her favorite time of year.

It's hard. We sit around sometimes while playing cards or something and think, "she's not here to share this". We miss her not being able to experience things and events with us anymore. No more high school graduations for her grandsons. No more input, design ideas, or help with home renovation projects. Doing our kitchen without mom was hard. She would have loved it. Picking out the cabinet stain, back splash, granite counter top color, etc. We had to do that on our own, for the first time. Sis and I would stand in the middle of the kitchen in the drywall dust cloud and say, "damn, she would have loved this".

I'm not sure this really answers the "how are you doing" question. I'm still angry. I'm still sad. I'm still depressed. I'm lethargic. I'm apathetic. I'm confused. I'm also happy, energetic, glad, and optimistic sometimes. It depends on the day, the weather, TV show or movie I recently watched, book I just finished, interactions with other humans, and all sorts of other things I cannot control like the spinning of our planet through the universe. Sometimes I need to be around people. Sometimes I need to be at the ocean. Sometimes I need trees. And sometimes I need to be alone. And sometimes I just want my mom.



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To My Mom Part VII: The (almost) Golden One

Today would have been mom and dad's 50th wedding anniversary. I didn't have to work today and wanted out of the house. Dad wanted to stay in the air conditioning. So he stayed and I went to the coast to escape the 100+ degrees and residual smoke from a 70+ acre fire south of town.

I drove south past Monterey to Garrapata Beach in Big Sur. Jack Johnson music got me there. I walked around, picked my spot in the sand and set up camp. Ate my PB&J sandwich, snapped a few pics, and got down to reading. Not an hour later, rain drops. Rain? Seriously? "It will pass", I say. Nope, going to rain harder now. I put my hood up on my sweatshirt, packed up, and went back up the cliffs to the car.

I was at a good part in the book, so kept reading in the safety of my dry car. Looked up a few chapters later and couldn't even see the ocean anymore. Marine layer was in for the day. Drove back up the coast to Imagine Dragons music, with a small pit stop in Marina to pee. Thought I got stuck in the bathroom stall in the Target, but only a frantic jiggling of the stall door and a few swear words, and I was free! Walked over the to REI store. They were having a clearance sale. Sorry but still paying $30.00+ for a t-shirt is not a clearance! Left empty handed.

Rolled back into Gilroy and it wasn't in the 100's anymore. Stopped at Goodwill and rummaged through the clothes and got 2 pairs of new to me jeans for a whopping $16 bucks. I now have 2 pairs of jeans that fit my new running legs. Woot woot.

I survived the rainy beach, and dad survived the air conditioning. All is well. Sucks that mom didn't make it to the "golden" anniversary. She had made plans. But such is life. We all survived a big milestone day today. Tomorrow will be just another day. Next week will have another big milestone day without mom. But that's another post.

Some may think that driving 50+ miles and through traffic only to spend an hour or so at a beach... in the rain a crappy day. But I don't. I find it quite funny actually. Ironic. I did escape the heat. And don't worry, I'm sure mom is still laughing at my misadventure.




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To My Mom Part VI: The Road Trip Edition 2.0

Way back in April 2013, my mom and I did a road trip to Los Angeles. I wrote a post about it. Before I share the link to it, a few observations. My mom had cancer at the time, it just wasn't diagnosed yet. I knew she had health issues at the time. She had a hard time getting around. She couldn't walk long distances. I was somewhat upset at her lack of mobility back then. I kept it all internal though. I did not voice my displeasure at having to cater to her needs. We got her diagnosis a little more than 4 months after this trip. I didn't know it at the time, when you read the last sentence you will understand, it was the last road trip we would take together.

Here's the link: LA Adventures

She catered the trip around her friends and family, as always. Her friend number 2 passed away just a few months after our visit. So we made it just in time. I actually think she used taking me to the book fair as her excuse to see her friends. I had no issues being used like that.

I mentioned in my previous post in this To My Mom Series, that my dad had finished a "project". And said I may or may not share here. He gave his permission. So here it is. It's an online memorial. The family was deciding what to do with mom's emails and letters she had written during her cancer "adventure". (she called it an adventure, I'm not kidding) A family friend had put a lot of them together for my dad. My sister saw them and said it's like a book. Mom had written a book via her emails to her support group about her journey with cancer. What can we do with this? So this is what my dad did with it all.

It's a closed link, in that it is not searchable or linked to anything.

www.paravel.com/carol

So here's to my mom who used me (more than once) to see her important people.




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To My Mom Part V: Music

I was working on making my mom a playlist for her to listen to while she was taking chemo. Once a month, she would have a long chemo session where they would pump in something that would help strengthen her bones. This would usually be an hour to an hour and a half session. So I wanted to make her something that she could listen to while they pumped chemicals into her port.

I never finished it. I only got five songs on it before she passed away. Now don't get offended but I called it "fuck cancer". I wasn't going to label it that when I gave it to her. But it is what it is labeled in my itunes. I was listening to the radio in my car when I heard an old U2 song and I immediately thought, "this would be a perfect song for mom, I need to make her a playlist." Well that one U2 song was the only song on the list for a very long time. I had a hard time finding other songs. What I find as inspiring songs and what I thought my mom would find inspiring songs are two very different things. Somehow I don't thing she would enjoy Rage Against The Machine.

Well, here are the 5 songs I did find:

One Tree Hill by U2

Adiemus by Adiemus

Strawberry Swing by Coldplay

I Won't Give Up by Jason Mraz

Strong by London Grammar

On the rare occasions that I was the one driving her to the chemo center, she would listen to one of two cd's that someone had given her. They were religious cd's. (Discovery Singers and Haven Quartet) Many of the songs I remember singing in church. They helped calm her nerves. I knew she was anxious, when she would ask me to turn it up. Sometimes, I'd be in the back jumper seat of the truck while dad was driving her to an appointment that she wanted me to go to as well. I am glad that these cd's gave her comfort. But I had a hard time listening to them. I think at the time, it was because I was angry. Not at her, but at her God. How can she be so faithful and find comfort in a God that allowed this to happen to my mother. How dare he! What did she ever do to deserve this. I didn't understand how through suffering, one finds grace and comfort in God. Well, I still don't, but that wasn't my journey to take. That was mom's.

I suppose this isn't what you thought it would be about when you saw the title. I may do a music part 2 post later about her playing Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop so loud that the cd actually skipped. A CD skipping! That's some decibels.

Well, mom has been gone four months now. I'm still angry. And I still say, Fuck Cancer. Dad finished his "project" tonight. I was reading through it. It was late and shut down the laptop. Got ready for bed, and thought, I need to watch the video we made for the memorial. I had one of the songs we put on it in my head. So I turned it back on, and watched the video. Then I thought, well I can't go to sleep with any of those songs in my head. I need to listen to something else. So then I went into the fuck cancer playlist and thought, I'd just listen to the U2 song. Well, I'm now on the third listen to the 5 song playlist and wrote a post.

This is what happens when you get a song stuck in your head and have to do something about it. Well, me anyway.

Music is very powerful to me. It can bring me out of a funk. It can help me cope with depression. It can motivate me to run farther. Go faster. It can calm my nerves. It can make me angry. It can make me cry. It can make me laugh, smile. Sharing songs here on the blog that have helped me through something or inspired me is important to me. Sharing the music is very much like sharing the words and thoughts that come spilling out of my head here on the blog. It's therapeutic. And somehow, I hope that by doing so also helps whomever reads these. It's why I've been sharing songs off my running playlist these past few months during #MyPeakChallenge.

I've known for a long time now... maybe since my late teens that mom and I were both very sensitive to music and how it affects us emotionally, psychologically, and physically. She needed to sing. She needed to be involved in it. Immerse herself in it. It's why she joined the South Bay Singers. Seeing her up there on that stage and hearing them sing was amazing. It brought me to tears. It was emotional. It was physical. It was beautiful. They were so passionate and powerful. She was in it. She was part of it. I can't really describe it. It was like I was witnessing something normally intangible.

Music just does that.


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To My Mom: Part IV Valentine Special

So last year on Valentine's Day... or was it two years ago... Anyway, some time ago I wrote this post about how cool it is being single. It was two years ago. It still holds true for me today. I never really liked Valentine's Day. Maybe because 98% of time when that day rolls around, I'm single.

When I lived at my house with the sis and the boys, sis would give us all Valentine's cards and candy. We would also get Easter baskets stuffed with peeps on Easter, and stockings full of candy pooping reindeer at Christmas. This year I didn't get anything. And that is fine by me, cus, I didn't get anyone anything either. I don't like jewelry, I don't wear it. I don't like flowers either. They look pretty, but they're going to die. I don't see the point of giving someone you love something that is now dead. Kind of morbid, really. And I like chocolate, but I prefer it everyday, not just once a year when it is heart shaped and costs twice as much.

I say all that, because I remembered something today. Way back when I was away at college, I had broken up with a boyfriend and I was quite lonely and depressed. And I was sitting in my crappy apartment staring at the wall or something, and I see a delivery guy walking by my apartment window with flowers and a balloon. And I'm sitting there wondering who they are going to and wow that's pretty cheesy. Maybe he's going to my next door neighbors. But he knocked on my door.

I was shocked. Why would I get flowers? They were from my mom. She totally brightened my day. I don't know if she knew I was feeling down at the time. But she sent me flowers. Those were the best flowers I ever got. And I loved them!



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To My Mom: Part III Holding her hand

Mom holding her little sister's hand

The first two posts in this To My Mom Series were easy, so to speak. Writing is not necessarily easy for me, but it is a necessity. Anyway, my dad is working on a project that is helping him deal with his feelings and emotions, which when he's finished I may share with you all... depends on what he says about that. He is processing. He's mourning. He's working through the loss of his wife. I am not. I'm still pushing my thoughts about my mom away. I don't want to deal with her being gone. Well, of course I don't. Who would?

So, I am going to force myself, sort-of. It's time to start working out my anger. My fear. My sorrow. My everything. To start, it's about getting out the notebook I wrote much down in about my mom and cancer before she passed. I had also wrote in it the day she passed away while I was sitting next to her in her Hospital bed. I haven't opened it since that day.

I was told, and keep being told that everyone is different during the grieving process. Everyone handles grief differently, deals with the emotions differently. I get that. I see that. Dad grieves differently than my sister, which is different from her children, which is different from my brother, which is different from me. But I get concerned when it seems that everyone else has all these emotions and crying sessions, and I haven't. I haven't gotten emotional. I haven't cried since her memorial service. I start to think, maybe I'm not grieving. I'm not doing it right. I'm not having all the feels. I have to remind myself that I am grieving my mother. I'm just different from everybody else, just like everybody else is different from everybody else. Maybe I won't ever have those crying sessions. Maybe I won't have an emotional breakdown at inopportune times. And that's okay. It's okay. Maybe my brain knows it can't handle the heartbreak yet. Maybe, me pushing the thoughts of my mom out of my head at night while I lay awake in bed is because it isn't time yet.

Well today is the day that notebook gets opened again. Step one of allowing the brain to process the heart, so to speak. So what did I write that last day, not even knowing it was the last day? What I remember thinking but did not write down that day was that looking at her that last day, she wasn't in there. She was there but she was also already gone. There was only this shell that sort of looked like my mom.

But this is what I wrote that day in my notebook. I only omit the actual names of my nephews. The structure of how I wrote remains the same. It is very fragmented. Also, I didn't write anything after about... maybe 3pm that day (she passed just before 11pm). So there isn't anything here about how she passed, or who was there, or any of that process.

I also thought it would be easier on me to start here and not edit this entry, and perhaps work backwards in time of the entries I made in notebook form. We shall see.

So, here it is:

Dad holds her hand
People call and he holds the phone up to her ear so she can listen.

She can't talk, maybe a word here or there
but mostly nods yes or no.

She is on liquid morphine and decadron.

She is sleeping a lot/most of the time. She will wake briefly with a grunt and her face will contort like she is in pain, and she will breath heavy a few times and then go back asleep.

I finally cried today. Anytime someone says something or hugs/touches, I get teary. Of course so does everyone else.

The boys are doing good. Boy 1 is affectionate and holds her hand and cries. Boy 2 is more stoic, but can tell he's feeling.

What can I say about dad. He's amazing. He is so loving with her at her beck and call, have to drag him away from her side. But I worry about him. He hasn't broken down and sobbed. Neither have I, but still.

I've talked with him. He is ok. He is resolved and said he is jealous that she gets to find out before him. His faith in God as well as hers and the faith of their friends and family truly helps in this journey. The fact that they all believe in the afterlife and that she gets to see God and her mother soon comfort them and in turn comforts me.



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To My Mom: Part II the road trip edition

My brother and I in 1985, somewhere in California waiting for our "driver"

My mom LOVED road trips. And I'm not kidding at all. It was in her blood. She would get itchy. There was a need to get out on the road. To get out of the house. Away from the familiar.

To have an adventure.

Perhaps this is in my head because my father just wrote about their (my mom and dad's) last epic road trip which was her road trip with cancer. You made me cry dad, that was quite the epic adventurous road trip.

Along the lines of what I wrote in Part I, I also inherited that gene. I LOVE road trips. I need them. I itch. I crave. And I need one, RIGHT NOW. It's in the works, (a small one). It better be in the works, you know who you are, boo!

But Mom's road trips were epic. I'm glad I was included in some of them. Not like I had any choice in the matter. I, along with my brother, would be pulled out of school for weeks at a time, and we'd get in the car, and off we went.

Dad wasn't on these trips. Dad would take us camping every summer, and mom would take us on epic road trips. Perhaps I'm using epic too much, but they were epic. Especially to an 8-year old, who got to leave school a month early.

There were lots of road trips. Mom and dad would pile all three of us kids in the back of a car with sleeping bags in the wee hours of the morning and we'd wake up in Nevada on our almost yearly summer trip to Wyoming. But there are two trips that I remember quite well.

My brother and I at Mt. Shasta

She took us north in 1985. I got to see snow for the first time.

already an archaeologist at age 7

I saw Crater Lake.

She stopped, and I got to scoop up ash from Mt. Saint Helens along the side of the highway. I rowed in a boat for the first time (that I actually remember) in Oregon.

I also met mean sheep at Aunt Babe's house in Washington.

She took us east in 1989. She drove us south through California, through Arizona, (we did stop at the Grand Canyon, brother, I found pictures to prove it) New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma to Arkansas. To Grandpa Perk's Ranch (her father).

I met cousins, aunts, uncles, 2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins and I don't know how you're related but you are.

I'm related to them somehow

Learned a new game of cow pucky fights via 4-wheelers. Mom would have to hose us down in the yard. From Arkansas she took us north. Through Missouri and Iowa to Minnesota to a Larsen family reunion. Where I got to float down a river in an innertube and watch my brother and other cousins pee on Wisconsin.

Watch my grandparents dance. See June bugs. Oh and see my dad after a month or so.

hanging out with Cousin Dawn

can you tell we are Pepsi fans?

She then decided that after the reunion that we should take a detour... around Lake Superior before driving back down. "It won't take that long", she said.

Oh Canada!

Canada is cold

Well, we can tell you, they don't call it Lake Superior for it being so small. I got to spend my first night in a foreign country, by the name of Canada that trip. I saw Canadian money for the first time and drank a Canadian coke. And for the first time on this long trip, I got my own hotel bed. I didn't sleep with my mom that night. We saw Lake Superior, from all sides. It's a big lake. Somehow we ended up in Ohio. Where family friends were and their twin daughters put my hair in such tight pig-tales that I got a headache.

But I also saw fireflies for the first time.

From Ohio, she drove us back south to Grandpa Perk's in Arkansas for a bit, and then northwest to Wyoming to the Larsen stronghold in Cheyenne, then finally back home to California.

So now maybe you can see why I call her road trips epic. Especially to a kid. She did all the driving. There are a lot of stories we could tell. My brother has quite a few regarding our Grandpa Perk, for sure. But they are his to tell.

But mom was game for anything. "I wonder what it's like to drive on the salt flats", she'd say. So she'd take the car onto the flats in Utah. "I wonder what it's like to hit a road construction cone", she'd say. So she ran one over in Nevada... and dragged it under the car for a mile. "I wonder what it's like to hit a bird" she never said, but it happened anyway. And part of the bird was stuck on the front grill, and other parts of it were on the back.

It was a lot of miles in the car with mom. We'd listen to tapes. The Carpenters, Beach Boys, and The Nylons were ones I remember. We'd wear the tapes out till they started to warp. And we'd sing the miles away. I'm sure there were boring parts (Nevada and Oklahoma ring a bell) but I don't remember being bored in the car with mom and my brother.

She was truly happy on the road. There was a mischievousness to her and a true sense of adventure. We could go anywhere we wanted, and we did.

When I was a practicing archaeologist, this need of road tripping was satiated. I was traveling. I was on the road. Some places were not so fun, but others were great. I saw things and places that I'd never seen before. I got to explore the Sierra Mountains, Eastern California (Lone Pine), the Mohave Dessert, etc. Now that I'm not a traveling shovel bum, the need isn't being met regularly.

Mom had an epic road trip planned. She and dad were going to leave for it 3 days after she got her cancer diagnosis. They never got to do it. Instead she went on her final epic road trip of doctor's appointments, chemo and radiation treatments, and surgeries. No one thought it would be her last road trip. It shouldn't have been. But she was a trooper. She was adventurous. She was mischievous. She made the most of her last road trip.

It was epic.

I am determined to continue the tradition. For her, in memory, and for myself. Because it is in me. The need. The itch. I have to go. Somewhere. The force is strong in this padowan.

Adventure awaits.

I'll see you on the road, mom. I'll belt out the harmony to your melody.



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To My Mom: Part I

I've been avoiding this blog like ebola. But it is time. I got the headphones on. Music is playing. No more excuses. So without further ado, here is the first of probably many posts about my mom.

Here she is at age 18, a freshman at Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa Idaho.

After my mom's memorial service, people commented on how much I really look like her.  I always knew I took after my mom, more so than my father. But then all these people kept saying, "Wow, you look so much like her, I never realized". Well, neither did I. I do now.

I have her hair, widows peak included. Freckles, nose, smile, eyes (except in color - I got the recessive gene from both parents to turn mine green), body type, height, and hands. Internal things as well, but we won't go into that. I always knew I took after her especially after puberty. That's when you really start to notice things.

Mom and I (age 3) at Grandma and Grandpa Larsen's, Wyoming.

During those fun times of puberty and after in high school and later in my 20's, I did not like that I took after her. And not just in looks and appearance. I was never comfortable with my looks, or my body. I didn't like that I have a widows peak, or a round face, and short stature, or that weight is always an issue of loosing. I hated it. I was so self conscious, that I was too scared to even talk to a guy that I liked. I never "dated", didn't have boyfriends. One in college, but we won't talk about that here, not important to the story.

My mom and I (age 18) at her dad's (Grandpa Perk's) ranch, Arkansas.

I think I even resented her for it. I was adamant not to ever have children, because I didn't want to pass on what I had inherited from her. How bad is that? I wanted to be more like my sister. She was tall, and slender, had a more outgoing personality. I thought she was pretty (she still is, by the way). She took after my dad. She looked like my dad's sisters, my Aunts.

I'm in my mid 30's now and still working through many of these things. But I am so proud, grateful, lucky, and did I say stinking proud to be carrying my mom in me. In my face, smile, eyes, humor, in every way possible. Especially now that she is gone. And I am so thankful that I realized this before she left us. I may not have told her this specifically, but I think she saw this change in me. The change from hate to acceptance to pride and love.

Thanks mom.


 She was beautiful, inside and out.

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