Remembering My Mom (Includes A Little “Hernandez Tone”)
This podcast episode wasn’t the easiest to record so close to her death, but telling some of the stories I told put a smile on my face. My mom has lived at Maris Grove in Glen Mills for the last 13 years. The first 11 years were in one of the independent living buildings of the community. There she and my dad, before his death in 2012, had an apartment that consisted of a living room, dining room, eat-in kitchen, den, bedroom with en suite bathroom and another half-bath off of the dining room. The last nearly two years, she has lived in Rose Court, an assisted living building in the community. It seems strange to me that we won’t be going there anymore. We’ve been going out there for visits at least once per week. I remember when my parents moved from their apartment in the Putnam Village section of Wallingford, as well as the house I grew up in in Sproul Estates, I had a similar feeling.
When we visited her, we’d take her out to dinner and to the bookstore (Border’s until it closed, then Barnes and Noble.) Sadly, she didn’t read much the last year or two, because she had difficulty holding a book due to her arthritis. Sometimes, we take her to buy some clothes, too. As she got older, some of her clothes didn’t fit her anymore, since she seemed to be getting smaller. She said to me just a few weeks ago that she wanted to get some new pants. I told her we may have to try the kids section for something to fit her properly.
Books were her thing, though. When I picture my mom when I was a kid, I see her sitting at a table in our den, reading a book, smoking a cigarette, and drinking a cup of coffee. She consumed many of all three. There were times that I came home from school to a layer of smoke in the den that was probably six to 12 inches down from the ceiling. I finally convinced her to prop open our back door just a little to keep fresh air coming into the den. If you can picture a city skyline with low hanging clouds obscuring the tops of the buildings, that is what our den was like before she kept the door open a bit.
I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recounting the good memories. She was proud of the work that I do with the Keystone Chapter of the NFB of PA. She requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to:
Keystone Chapter, NFB of PA
1500 Walnut Street, Suite 200
Philadelphia, PA 19102
