Love At Home

I don't want to blog tonight. I just don't feel like it. But I keep coming back to this computer. I keep clicking on "New Post." Then I keep walking away. I don't think I'm going to be able to go to sleep tonight until I do it. So I'll just do it so I can go to bed already.

My Mom's birthday has always crept up on me. February is such a short month and March 1st always comes before I know it. So when I was sitting in church today and saw the date on the newsletter I received in Relief Society, I nearly jumped out of my chair. I thought about it once last week, but then not again. Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 54. One of my first thoughts that horrible night in July 2007, when I began to understand that my Mom wasn't going to make it was, "but I still haven't bought her a birthday present!" I always thought it was kind of weird that was one of the first places my mind went.

There's not a lot I have to say tonight about my Mom's birthday. It's been interesting though, how all weekend my thoughts have turned to my family. Not just my immediate family, but my extended family. Sants, Meibos's, Warners, and Kimballs- all of them. And most if not all of these thoughts led to memories that included my mom. I always knew there was something about this Sunday School teacher I really liked that reminded me of someone. I finally figured out today that person is my Uncle Kevin (my dad's brother.) I've always loved the story my Mom used to tell of when my Mom and Dad were engaged and the whole family went to pick up Kevin after his mission at L.A.X. It was the first time she ever met him and my mom and Kevin argued the whole way home. He was probably spouting off about something my Mom didn't agree with and she took offense and let him have it. So funny. It reminded me of how much fun Sunday dinners were at my Grandma's house in Provo. How much I love my cousins and how nice it was to see them so often. Last night we were watching Law and Order and one of the characters was a judge who was suffering from dementia and had to step down from the bench. I thought it was so sad and Bobby reminded me of my Uncle Merlin and how sharp his memory was even in his late nineties. How he could remember so many of his life experiences and recount them in great detail, remembering the names of people and the year these experiences occurred. It was so hard for my Mom when her Uncle Merlin passed away. We all loved him very much. Then the practice hymn today in R.S. was "Love at Home." That reminded me of my great aunt Marinette. Good old Aunt Marinette. My Mom used to tell us this story about when she used to visit them when she was a kid. If she was in town and my mom and her siblings were fighting, Aunt Marinette would follow them around the house singing, "Love at Home" under her breath and it would drive them crazy. Then I thought about this time that Aunt Marinette was visiting us in Huntington Beach and my Dad took us all to see "Back to the Future 2." When we walked out of the movie my Mom was ticked. She was like, "Cole, I can't believe you took us to see this movie." She didn't think it was appropriate for us kids or Aunt Marinette. "And with my Aunt Marinette here!" Then my aunt piped in with, "The last movie I saw in the theater was Pinocchio." Classic.

People play that game the six degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever. I haven't tested this theory, but I'm pretty sure I could link every aspect of my life to my mother in some way. At least I felt like that at the time of her death. Because if she wasn't directly involved, then she and I had talked about it. I talked to her about everything. And she cared about everything I had to say. I find myself trying to keep that link up even now. For example when I'm shopping, I might pick something in her favorite color instead of mine so that every time I look at it I think of her.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you.

I used to leave notes like this one for her when she and my Dad would go out of dates and leave us home with a sitter.