One of my mother’s and my favorite pastimes when I’m in Delaware is to stroll through her house so I can identify all the things I want when she dies. On occasion when I point to something I like, she commands cheerfully, “Just take it.” Over the years I’ve stuffed my suitcase with a little silver snuffbox, a women’s boot pistol, a gunpowder tester, a brass lock, an old china perfume bottle. This time I waddled home with an antique flowered vase, some teeny leaping dolphins, a stuffed horse, and that sort of thing.
There are times that something once-valuable that she’s given me has broken years after I received it. I can’t bear to throw it out, for sentiment, so it sits in a fractured heap. There’s a shattered picture frame, a cracked bowl and an antique chair that suffered for being thrown across the room in one of my past rages. I have several fractured heaps neatly arranged around my house. No matter how much I detest the sight of them, my hands are tied. I simply can’t dispose of anything that my mother has given me. I am such a baby. There is only one thing to be done for it: to go to confession. That is, I tell my mother what I’ve done, beg her forgiveness, and ask what I should do. “Oh, just pitch it,” she reassures me. Only with that blessing can I dispose of it. That’s all well and good now, but ten years after Mom crosses over to a plane where I won’t be able to contact her, my house will be crammed with broken junk.
I had a wonderful visit with my sweet mother. We went to visit my grandparents.
We made daily pilgrimages to what my grandmother used to call “The Village,” which is actually a fancy shopping center.
We rode a tram through the garden at Winterthur. [Photo by Jeannette Lindvig]
And back at her place, I tried to say hello to the visiting ducks on her pond, but they’d have none of it, and made tracks.
And finally, I got to play with my former doggie Stellaaaaaa, which is to say she is formerly mine, not formerly a doggie.
Oh, I guess that’s all I have to tell you for now.
Looks like a wondrous little ol’ trip. I am so glad you did it.
My Granny is awfully cute. So’s my mother, for that matter.
I am elated that you are blogging again and I can have a sneak-peek into your life.
Also photos of you, your mother, non-ducks, and a dog jumping.
I am happy.