My first thought was a long trek due to traffic would make for a long afternoon into the night.
There was no traffic.
I stopped at El Pollo Loco to pick up dinner for us.
Serving the love of her life "Gene" would inevitably make her happier than any other notion of service.
As I walked in, she was sitting in her living room. Hair done, make-up on, and her little walker placed in front of her. Other than that walker, nothing else spoke of "Get Well" except all of the flowers placed around her living room, family room, and kitchen. You can see the love sprinkled around.
I could feel it.
I sat down in a chair across from her, and she began to thank me for coming over. She told me I was beautiful, and how pretty my hair looked. She smiled at me, and I could see and feel my Mom.
She said her hospital stay was so much better because Gene never left her side at night. And I thank all the stars in the sky that she has this kind of love. She has a cat named "Julio", whom she calls nu-nu. He looked at me, and her confirming that life was so much better with her home.
She said that on her actual birthday (Friday) the hospital staff came in and gathered around her bed singing happy birthday, and she really loved that.
The food was her only complaint, because the sizes,and bland choice for a stroke patient wasn't the most appealing.
We sat and chatted for a couple of hours. I served Gene dinner, and I served my plate too, sitting in the family room placed in front of a tv tray which only made me feel more at home. Something we used to do living with my parents. We laughed, and chatted about life. She told me more loving stories about her childhood, her young lady hood, and the most important bad ass stories of her "clubbing days"-
Her shoes matched her purse, her hair and makeup always on point. I mean, she's just gorgeous. She really is. She always has been.
As I moved my way around the family room, staring at the hundreds of pictures that have lined her walls. There's more. There's more new little cousins, more life staring at me. She apologized over and over because of the dust on them. As I wiped them off with my finger it wasn't the dust I was enthralled with.
It wasn't the dust at all.
It was the moments that were captured. The little cousins that are now in their 30's. Once two little boys tackling eachother on a front lawn with grubby fingers, and dirty faces. Someone snapped it, and later framed it for her.
It was the precious newborns that are now in their teens.
There was me, and my sister, and my parents. From the 70's, 80's and 90's.
There was my aunts, our rocks that were in their late teens and twenties. Rockin' bell bottoms.
There was my uncle with a mullet filled with curls looking a close second to "Milli-Vanilli"- LOL
There was my grandma as a baby, and a young girl.
As I stood there holding the picture she began telling me of a story about when she lived in Downtown LA, as a little girl, on the 3rd floor that had a garden. A garden that her brother created on their balcony. How one day she wanted to know how the carrots were actually growing so she decided to pull a few out, and placed them right back down into the soil hoping no one would notice. But they did. And the carrots died.
(I recently planted some veggies, sharing that story with her, so she was reminiscing about hers)
She watched as I made way from wall to wall, and counter top to the others. She has an old stereo from the 60's that is a console type. It's entire top is solid framed pictures.
I picked up every single one. Admiring the story behind them all. One of my cousins as little girls, that now have little girls of their own. One of a cousin we lost tragically yet he rides in our spirits constantly.
Some of weddings of my cousins that proved to be the funnest in all history.
People that have left us, yet still leave a legacy from a snap shot.
It's all amazing.
I am so so grateful for her. For her home. The minute I walked in, it's like a beautiful hug around my neck. The scents, her voice, the lighting, the hutches, and the clocks ticking. The kitchen still feels the same.
The life she leads in that home is much more for all of us that get the chance to walk in that door.
And I will forever be and feel grateful for this.
She is truly beautiful.
All of those pictures are beautiful. I encourage you all to take many. Place many in frames. Don't let go of those fellers. Because if you are a tad bit like me, and even an ounce of sentimental, you'll find that those pictures matter. Take the ones with grubby fingers, boogery noses, hugs when unexpected, hair mis-placed. Take them.
For one day they will matter.
To someone, somewhere, someday.
Happy Cinco De Mayo friends!
Be safe out there.
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| To LOVE and feel LOVE is the greatest LOVE of all- |
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