I think Dad’s fave photography subject was Mom. I can’t tell for sure if she’s wearing a wedding ring or not in these pix, but I feel confident saying Dad took these in either ’47 or ’48—before they were married. I’m just guessing at where they were at the time, but it looks like these might have been taken somewhere near Baker, Nevada/Lehman Caves—once again, probably on a day trip to work in one of Dad’s bee yards there. I have a suspicion that no matter the place or date these photographs were taken Mom and Dad had a grand time together. I have titled this triptych o’ snapshots “Mom and the 3 G’s:” Mom and a Gate; Mom and a Gun; and Mom and Fake Gender Confusion.
‘Tis I, doing one of my many impersonations of Mom. I call this particular impression “Mom And Her Fresh CHRONICLE.” Mom and her weekly MILLARD COUNTY CHRONICLE PROGRESS, a.k.a. THE CHRONICLE, are inseparable when she gets her mitts on a new issue.
Mom has never personally subscribed to Delta’s weekly paper, because she is too impatient. She has to read it hot off the press—whole hours before it could possibly show up in her mailbox. Getting a copy in her mail on Wednesday is unacceptable to her. She gets her copy the minute they hit the local stores on Tuesday afternoons. When Mom moved in with my brother in St. George after she broke her hip, my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless bought Mom a CHRONICLE subscription to be sent to her there. Mom was forced to read her beloved hometown newspaper out of the mailbox on Wednesday’s or Thursday’s, depending on when it showed up in my brother’s mail. I am convinced Mom decided to move to MCR in Delta, just so she could somehow get her CHRONICLE on Tuesday afternoons again. Since Mom moved into MCR almost two years ago, my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless and her husband have faithfully delivered Mom her CHRONICLE every Tuesday, the minute a copy is available for purchase.
Jump back to 2017, before I sold my Delta place (a.k.a. Momo and Popo’s house), and before Mom broke her hip. Here’s what Mom’s Tuesday schedule looked like:
8:30 AM. Mom saunters over to my living room, where she sits in a puffy chair and asks, “Should we see if Pegetha wants to go for a drink today?” I don’t know why she ever asked. Of course, Peggy (Mom’s best friend) wanted to get a drink. Of course, Mom and Peggy wanted to be driven all over the county to see what’s what and who’s who. And of course, Mom would call Peggy to see for sure that she wanted to go with us.
9AM. Mom and I get in her car and I drive us to Peggy’s house. I hit the horn.
9:01 AM. Peggy gets in the passenger side of the car.
9:02 AM. I order 2 Pepsi’s and a Diet Coke from the Cardwell’s drive-up window.
9:02:45 AM. A bickering ensues about whose turn it is to pay for the drinks. We also chat with the gals working at Cardwell’s, cuz we haven’t seen them since…..yesterday at 9:02:45 AM. The car behind us at the drive-up wishes we’d pull away, but the driver waves at us cheerfully anyway. The driver knows who we are because we are sitting in either the Helenmobile or the Pegethamobile. Mom and Peggy each have their own vanity plates, and they are famous and beloved women of Delta. Because of their fame, we can get away with a lot of things others can’t. I’m just the chauffeur.
9:07 AM. I drive the two Old Girls across the valley, while we drink and once again solve the problems of the world—while catching up on whatever it is we need to catch up on since yesterday.
11:00 AM. We drop off Peggy at her place, where Mom reminds her it’s CHRONICLE day, and Peggy says to Mom, “Ours won’t be here until the mail tomorrow.” Same sentences, every Tuesday.
11:01 AM. I park us in front of Mom’s house, as close as I can get her to her front door, where she asks if I’ll drive uptown to buy her a CHRONICLE as soon as it’s out—as if I don’t already know it’s my job.
From 11:02-whenever THE CHRONICLE is available. Mom searches for a pair of reading glasses with both lenses. This is a task which usually takes Mom a bigly chunk of time.
CHRONICLE o’ clock PM. I drive to fetch a copy of THE CHRONICLE from Jubilee because it’s the closest place to get it.
30 seconds later. I’m back to hand off the paper to Helen Sr., knowing she will be happily hunkered down and glued to it for the rest of the day. Finally, I can get a nap in.
8:00 PM. Mom comes over to my house to go to sleep early on my couch, because it’s been another busy CHRONICLE day for Mom.
I think this is Thanksgiving dinner for our family at the Palomar in the early 2000’s. My Grandma Wright was the unofficial guest of honor. Mom was head cook.
Not everyone can live next door to their mother-in-law without bigly problems. We lived next door to my dad’s parents, and the only issue I can recall is that Mom felt a bit embarrassed if dad’s mom—who we called Momo—came to our door and the living room looked like a family was living in it. But that was on Mom. I don’t think Momo ever gave Mom a snooty judgement about her lived-in living room. In fact, Mom has told many a story of going out to get the clothes off our clothesline out back, and finding socks that had been hung to dry with holes in them had miraculously been darned. Momo strikes again. Mom took no offense. She considered it as the help it was, and not as a condemnation of her ability to take care of her own family.
Recipes got traded between Mom and Momo. They watched each other’s homes and cars, and collected each other’s mail, if one or the other was out of town. They didn’t belong to the same clubs, but they liked hearing about each others activities. They did Relief Society stuff together. They were in the same ward, of course. They really couldn’t get rid of each other, nor did they seem to want to.
As my grandparents got older and more bound to the inside of their house, I saw them less. At dinner, every evening without fail, Mom or Dad would ask, “Has anyone checked on the folks today?”—meaning Momo and Popo. If somebody hadn’t done it yet, Mom would come up with a message or a goodie to send over with me to their place, so I could verify Momo and Popo were alive and kicking. It was an important lesson: Love your neighbor. Yet again, kindness rules.
Boundaries are good. Good fences make good neighbors. But looking out for your Momo and Popo is always proper. Have you loved your neighbor today?
I don’t know anything about where and when Dad snapped this photo of Mom and his car. I have absolutely no story to tell about it, or really anything to yammer on about beyond saying Mom is far from 90 in the photo. I can, however, tell you that I have teased Mom many times about how I think she only married Dad because he had a car, and bees, and indoor plumbing. Mom gets a kick out of my musings about her chasing Dad for those three reasons. I am certain the fact that they were crazy for each other had nothing at all to do with them getting married.
Half of A Bow Tie o’ the Day is better than none at all.
Hey, earlier this week, I posted this pic in a set of pix about Mom and Skitter, but it’s the perfect photo for what I’m writing about this morning, which is Mom and Suzanne. They have been chums from the beginning. I think they trade secrets about me, and they conspire against me—if only to keep me on the straight and narrow. I am not necessary to their conversations. They talk sewing and cooking and house decor. Blah, blah, blah. After one of Suzanne’s surgeries, I took her to Mom’s and dropped her off for a week of recovery, while I drove back up to Ogden with Rowan so he wouldn’t have to miss any school. Mom pampered Suzanne with lots of quiet and plenty of tasty food, as we knew she would. I wasn’t worried about either of them. When I picked up Suzanne at the end of the week, she was nearly healed.
One of the first times Suzanne and Mom met was in 1985. We were all in Mom’s kitchen, and Mom was concocting cookies—chocolate chip, I think. (No surprise there.) The three of us gabbed and guffawed about who-knows-what. Mom plopped the cookie dough on the baking sheet and put it in the oven. I think she even sat down with us for three or four minutes. (Mom rarely sat down in her kitchen: She ruled it and hovered around guests from a standing position, always at the ready to start cooking something else, or wash a dish.) So there we were—just the three of us chatting away in Mom’s kitchen kingdom, when Mom jumped up and screamed, “I forgot to finish putting all the flour in the cookie dough!”
She did not skip a beat. She flew to the oven, retrieved the cookie sheet, and scraped the partially baked cookies back into the mixing bowl. She folded-in the rest of the flour, then plopped the cookie dough back on the sheet, and stuck it back in the oven—hoping the treats might work out. OMGolly, if I—or anybody else—had tried to correct the same mistake the way Mom did, my cookies would have come out barely worthy of going into the trash. But Mom’s “ruined” cookies were sooooooooo yummerific. It was an impressive feat to see. I think it was right at that moment when Suzanne decided she better keep me, if only to be around Mom performing her miracles.
In this photo, we see Mom donning some work duds to help Dad in one of his bee yards. From what I can guesstimate, this was probably taken in 1948 or ’49—either right before, or soon after, they were married. In fact, it would not surprise me if this was where they spent their honeymoon—visiting Dad’s bee yards, from Delta to California and back again. Look at Mom’s expression! I think it’s so cute that she looks undeniably giddy at the prospect of venturing into a buzzing bee yard with Dad. Now that’s what I call love.
In the fairytale truth of Mom and Dad’s love story, I’m sure it was not one of Cupid’s arrows that struck them. It’s more probable that a stinger from one of Dad’s bees was what pierced their young hearts to make them fall into eternal, old love.
BTW Here’s where I pester you again: Send Mom a “90th Birthday” card/note/ice cream cone, etc. before the 26th @ Helen A. Wright, Millard Care and Rehab, Room #104, 150 White Sage Ave., Delta, UT 84624. Thanks to y’all for always watching out for Mom—especially during that last year before she agreed to peacefully hand over her car keys to us. 😎😉
Mom has always humored my whims. She’d gladly wear a Bow Tie o’ the Day for me any time I ask. And she did. Many times. And I’m sure she will again. Many times. This photo was taken at her home on August 26, 2017.
Mom’s got more of her eye-catching garb on, and her hair has been recently “did.” Heck, her socks match, and that doesn’t happen much. She’s got her glass o’ Pepsi in one hand, and her phone in the other. This is my mother, in a nutshell.
I vividly remember taking this picture of Mom. It was in my living room in Delta, about two weeks after Dad died, in 2007. I can see the anguish in her features. And she’s cried out. I forget who she was talking to at the time I snapped this, but I do remember it was someone offering her their condolences on Dad’s passing. From listening to her side of the conversation, I could tell she had a close relationship to the caller. She bared her soul and—based on her responses to the caller—it sounded to me like the caller did the same. To my ear, it sounded like Mom did much of the comforting in the conversation.
I have always admired Mom for her ability to be a true and deep friend to so many people at the same time. Sometimes I think everybody she meets is her best friend. She doesn’t just pretend to care. She authentically cares about you, and wants to know you, and wants to know what’s going on with you and your family, and your pets, and your crops, and so on. I know my mother is far from perfect, but I think I’m not exaggerating when I say that Mom is a woman who fundamentally loves like Christ loves. Every person Mom encounters, she simply loves—no matter what tattered shape they’re in, or what mistakes they’ve made. She’ll make sure you know you have to correct your wrongs, but she’ll be nice about it. To Mom, every single person is worthy of love and laughter.
Here’s an afterthought: Now, imagine you have Mom’s name, and you’re expected to live up to her example every day of your life! I do try, but she’s so far ahead of me in the Christlike love department that I don’t anticipate I’ll catch up to her, no matter how long I live. And I’m counting eternity in the equation, too.
FYI Send her a card or note for her 90th birthday @ Helen A. Wright, Millard Care and Rehab, Room #104, 150 White Sage Ave., Delta, UT 84624. Skitter thanks you.
After Dad died, whenever I was in Delta, Mom made two or three daily trips across the alley to my Delta house—carrying her little glass of Pepsi. If weather permitted, we hung out on the front porch. In inclement weather, she sat in my living room—where we chatted and laughed and solved the problems of the world. Then Mom would be off to her house again to cook, or read The Chronicle or The Tribune for the umpteenth time, or otherwise putter around her full, but empty, rooms.
Mid-evening, Mom would show up at my place again to spend the night. She never slept in her house alone after Dad was gone. She wasn’t afraid of being alone at night. It just made her miss him too much. I always offered her a bed, but she liked sleeping on our couch, where she could hear the noises of our house: the tv, dishes being done, the washer, dogs being let out to potty, etc. She would wake early and walk the 40 feet back to her house, where she climbed into a bed that wasn’t hers and Dad’s, in a bedroom that hadn’t been theirs. She would sleep a few more hours, and our routine would begin again.
Such a simple sight to see: Mom, in her outfit of mixed pj’s and coats, holding a tiny glass of Pepsi, strolling up the sidewalk—just to sit with me, so we could share good gossip and cure the ills of the world. Memories can be quick snapshots in your head. One of my deepest felt “snapshots” is simply Mom walking slowly to my front door, glass in hand.
After Mom broke her hip in June of 2017, she could no longer live in her own home in Delta, so she moved to St. George with my brother, Ron, and his beautiful wife, Marie, for the next year. We brought Mom “up north” with us when we could, and she’d spend part of her “up north” time with my oldest sister in Pleasant View. We kids traded Mom back and forth like she was a fragile, prize baseball card we were trying to share with each other. (“It’s my turn to have her!”) But Mom was not done with her beloved Delta, and when a residence space opened up for her at Millard Care and Rehab in October of 2018, we were pleased and sad at the same time. Mom would be in a safe and happenin’ place for the final chapter of her long life, but she wouldn’t be having sleepover camp with her kids and grandkids anymore.
Ron and Marie were out of town being grandparents for a week when the MCR space opened up, so Suzanne and I were down at their house doing our Momsitting when we got word Mom needed to be checked in at MCR almost immediately. Suzanne and I helped Mom go through her St. George bedroom to make decisions about what she could move with her to her new digs. To say the whole process was tearful is to underplay the upheaval Mom was feeling. She knew it was time for her to make the move, but it was a huge and probably final move, nonetheless. We had all cared for her until she needed more care than we could safely provide.
That October morning we were packing up Suzanne’s SUV to move Mom from St. George to Millard Care and Rehab, I had to wake Mom up. She had a check-in time in Delta, and we needed to get on the road. As I woke her, I sat on the edge of her bed and explained, step-by-step, what we were doing that day. She said in all seriousness, “Well, I’m not going. I was quite restless in the night. I finally decided I’m not going to the care center, and then I fell asleep. I slept like a log.” I don’t know exactly what I said after that, but we talked and cried and talked some more. She got up and started to gather things together, but she had to choose which of her home-made porcelain dolls to take with her. She could not have them all in her new room. I told her we could trade them out occasionally, so she’d have them all—but only one at a time. Mom’s tears were fierce. I eventually went and got Suzanne, who was packing up the car, and said, “I need you to do one task right now. Help Mom choose a doll. We have to leave.” Suzanne was somehow successful. We eventually ended up in the car with Mom’s belongings, including one bigly doll. Skitter was in the backseat, by Mom’s side, from St. George to Delta. Mom petted Skitter the entire way. Again, we talked and cried and talked and cried, across all the miles of our journey. Gee, I’ve gone through some rough things, but this was the worst day of my life.
By the time Suzanne and I left Mom in her room at MCR later that day and headed back to Centerville, Mom was still a bit flustered. The saving grace was that she knew almost everybody in the place—residents and staff. Every one of them made a fuss over her arrival. She was already the Queen Bee of the prom. It wasn’t her home, but everybody was familiar.
I learned one thing that day we drove Mom to what will likely be her last earthly home. (Honestly, I already knew the thing. But, like any human being, I’m stubborn, so I had to re-learn it that day.) And the thing I learned is this: The right thing to do for someone you love is sometimes the most difficult thing you could possibly ever think to do. But you have to do it. Because you love them. And it’s what they need.
Damn it.
That’s why I was wearing my broken/bandaged hearts Tie o’ the Day. I knew it would be appropriate for our mission.
FYI I drove to Delta to visit Mom three days after we moved her to MCR, to make sure she was doing okay. She was already absolutely jubilant to be there. So many family members and friends were stopping by to welcome her, I only stayed with her two hours. Heck, I was in the way, and I had never been so happy to be in the way. I decided Mom’s best trick is to carry her contentment with her wherever she goes. We’d all feel better if we would do that.
Another FYI You can see Mom had already temporarily “lost” her sunglasses and her tooth on moving day, but you can also see she had her all-important clip-on earrings on her elderly earlobes. No matter how old one is, one must always wear something with a touch of class.
