It's funny how when you're younger, and you go places with your mom, sometimes you just don't "get it." A mother always has a reason behind what she does, where she takes her children and how she spends her time bonding with her children. It's no secret that my mother and I haven't been as close as a mother and daughter normally are, but, in my adulthood I've discovered her reasons for doing what she did with my sister and me as children, because, I've begun to mimic some of those things. (We always say we'll never be like our mothers, and, yet, somehow something about us always is.)
As somber as it sounds, I love visiting Willamette Cemetery in Albany, Oregon, but, for good reason; All of the relatives on my mothers side of the family are there. When I was little my mother used to take me there and we'd place flowers along the graves of aunts, uncles and grandparents. My mother and I also have something in common - We both lost a sister at a young age. You know my story with my sister, but, my mother lost her sister Beverly to cancer at 12 years old - My Mom was just 14. Beverly's grave is also there, and my mom often visited the cemetery to talk with her and reminisce. When I was younger, I just thought it was a part of what you do....Now I realize that there's a grieving process that occurs, and sometimes going to "talk" with those you've lost help to bring a sense of closure and give you the ability to move on. It's been years since I've been there, but, on the way to southern Oregon to pick up Katie a few weeks ago, I stopped by. The only sounds were the "whoosh" of cars rushing on the freeway in the far distance and the water splashing in the nearby pond. It was peaceful. I talked with my grandpa, whom I was very close with until he passed in 1999, and as I left, there was a solace within me. I felt the way my mother looked every time we left that cemetery when I was a kid. I get it now.
I told my mother about that visit just last week. Ironically enough, without her knowing I was going to be there, she traveled across the mountain from Bend a day later to visit the same place - It's been years for her, too. She also went down to the river, with my sister's urn in tow, to look for agates. We did that every morning - My mother, my sister and I - And, often, my grandpa, too - We went to the river banks of the Willamette and looked for beautiful agates. My sister and I called our mom and grandpa "rock hounds." My mother called us her "pebble puppies." As my mother reminisced on the phone with me about her little trip, she broke down into tears saying how much she wished I had been there with her, too, for old times sake. She had imagined holding our hands, my sister's and mine, while walking along the river, picking up pink, clear and yellow shiny, sparkly rocks. In a nutshell, she was dreaming of how things used to be....Those childhood memories of mine. And, in the tears she shed, I discovered, without her having to say it, that it was the realization that those times are no longer possible. Those days of simplicity are gone.
I suppose this is reminder to myself, and everyone else, for that matter, to make more memories, take more pictures, and find more special moments to leave for your children in the future. I have lots of memories with my mom and my sister, but, somehow the photographers in my family sucked just enough that I have very few "face shots" of us as kids, and no pictures of us as adults. Thank goodness I have a decent memory!! As for now, I know that some of the simple things I share with my children are the things that they'll take with them into adulthood. And, for them, those days of simplicity have just begun.
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