Roomie and Belinda, sometimes the little things mean a lot- but you both are doing more than "little things" in my mind. So- thank you.
I just wanted to leave a few good memories of Jeanne that I have up here. I really am going to do my very best to try to leave this all behind me, in some forgotten place in my head, but I am cursed with a memory that I am sometimes not sure is helpful. For example, I mourned my paternal grandmother’s passing yesterday- she will always be in my heart. Her birthday would have been yesterday. I really don’t know if another human on the earth even knows it was her birthday! It doesn’t mean they don’t remember her, or still love her, it’s just that some of these dates stick in my head and I loved these people, and I will always remember their important dates I think. I remember one time being at my maternal grandmother’s house, and getting ready for the day in LaBelle, and she said, “What are you getting ready for? It’s just family- you don’t have to worry about the way you look.” I told her that to me, there wasn’t anyone else in the world more important to me than my family, so maybe I shouldn’t bother getting ready to go to other places over getting ready for family. She just looked at me for a while and said, “you have a good point there!” The point to that little story is that I will never be the same without all of them, but I am going to do the best I can with what I have left so that I would make them proud someday. (the ones that don’t hate me that is.) Anyway, my point is, that of everyone that was so important to me, truly my mother was always at the top of the list. I want to write a few things I remember about her that were wonderful also.
I just remember that my mother taught me to read when I was still 3 years old, she read to us every night that I can remember really. She taught me to brush my hair upside down 100 times a day to make it shinier, and how to push down the cuticles on my nails. She taught me to play the piano, and I graduated from the virtuoso book by 3rd grade. She was the best piano player I have ever heard in person. She smiled a lot, even when I knew she was sad or her mind somewhere else. I was her oldest, so whenever mothers had to come to our classes at school, my mother was nearly always the youngest, and the prettiest I thought, so I was always proud to have her as my mother.
She was home alone with us one Halloween at Spring Lake, and my dad had one of the $200 cars out somewhere working, and we had the other one. It was a jeep with no top on it, but she was determined to take us trick-or-treating even though there was a storm. We all got into our very homemade costumes, into the jeep, and took off down the rocky road to our nearest neighbors who were home almost 2 miles away. It was pouring rain on us, so we had cardboard boxes over our heads to keep us as dry as possible. We got to the home, not sure if they were there or not, but we tried, and then we drove back home sopping wet!
I can’t remember her ever fully succeeding in making our lives easy growing up once we moved to Spring Lake, but I do remember her trying. I think a little learned helplessness set in over time with her. Before Spring Lake, I remember her taking me to a town that was half an hour away so that I could have gymnastics lessons rather than the local lessons because the instructor said I was doing well. She also took me to tap lessons, swimming lessons, and to the pool every day it wasn’t raining in the summer time. I remember her making us homemade meals, and the house was clean in those earlier years.
So- just a few things I remember about her that some of my siblings may not remember because they were too young. She really did seem like a different person before we were at Spring Lake- and I am glad I got to know that person. I just want people to know she was this person also.
