Sunday, January 29, 2006

Twenty Years



On January 21, it had been twenty years since my mother died suddenly of a massive heart attack. It was around noon, at my parent's condo in North Seattle. Mom said she wasn't feeling well and told Dad she was going to take a quick nap. Fifteen minutes later she was dead.

I was having lunch at the time, with a very dear co-worker, at a fancy restaurant on Lake Union. We returned to the office, where my siblings had been frantically trying to get ahold of me. The company's owner, an affable man with penetrating green eyes, put his hand on my shoulders and said I should call my Dad right away. I knew it wasn't good, but had no idea it was going to be that bad.

The rest is history, as they say. In late January, my brothers and sisters and I (usually along with spouses) try to make a pilgrimage out to the Vashon Island Cemetery, where Mom's buried. We always buy some primroses (her favorite flower) at the local Thriftway: four--one for each of the kids.

We went out there today, braving the cold and rain, which are the usual weather conditions. For the first time in quite a while, none of the "grandkids" could make it. We bought the flowers, hung around the cemetery for a few minutes as the rain pounded down and headed off for lunch at a new restaurant in downtown Vashon, located in the local hardware store's old building, where we had been many times with our Mom and Dad, a long time ago.

It was a good day--we all still miss her.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't think I can add anything, except to thank you for a lovely post. Lots of memories from that day, I remember the cookie dough sitting on the kitchen counter, she had started making cookies for Tim when she felt unwell. Not a bad way to go, she would have hated dying in a hospital.