The Final Play??

      Odd, but I recieved a box or two of my mother's things this past Sunday. She has always been heavily into Indian Beadwork( AMERICAN INDIAN). She taught me at a very young age to do this sort of thing, I guess it comes as no surprise that I enjoy doing it now.

        Anyway, I found a necklace that she started, and never finished....sort of like her life....cut off too soon. I will finish this necklace for my wife, later she will give it to one of our children, and things go on.

        The strangest part of this whole ordeal? My mom used to call late at night, sometimes just to babble on about nothing, and sometimes to scream and curse at me. I always sat patiently, and listened. I never argued, or hung up on her, although she did it to me several times! LOL  I used to regret hearing the phone ring late at night---I knew who it was before I picked it up.

        Just before she died, she called to tell me just how much she hated me, and the other kids....well, I sat for 45 minutes listening to that tirade. When she quit, I asked if she was finished, she said she was, and hung up. That was about three months before she was taken from me. Two nights before I recieved the call from the hospital saying that she was in a coma, she called again. She asked if I had just called her...no, it wasn't me I said. But, for some reason, her tone was different this night.

         She spoke of many things that night. I have always been angry with my mother for the things that she did throughout her life---that was MY problem, not her's. She always denied having done anything wrong. That's ok, I came to forgive her, and accept her as she was...it was that or nothing. Four days after that call late one night, I was the one to have the job of telling the docs to turn off the machinery that was keeping her alive.

        I thought we had a little more time...maybe just enough to help me to understand her a little better. She was a hard woman, she could fight, shoot, cuss, drink, she taught me to throw knives, the list goes on. Did you know that "Puff the Magic Dragon" was my favorite song since I was about five years old? She did...and she just finished a beautiful ceramic Sea-Dragon with golden wings for me before she died.It sits in my living-room. It is the last piece of ceramics that she ever made, and I have it.

          You are guaranteed NOTHING in this life....go now, and keep this in mind, don't find out the hard way like I did.