Maudlin

Yes, this will be maudlin.

I was laying in bed this morning trying to move my aching body and I was thinking about where we used to live -- the house in which we resided for over 25 years -- and trying to remember some of the things that happened to us as a family while we lived there.

My children grew up there. I can remember very little of what they did as children or what we did as a family, yet I know we did a lot of things as a family because we have family nights or days or something like that.

We had several dogs when we lived there, my favorite will always be Floppy, a cocker spaniel who was the sweetest dog, potty trained when we got her, and just so lovable. We had Tigger, who the kids loved, but wouldn't come when called, which, to me, was inexcusable. We had Winston, named that because as a put she looked like Winston Churchill. She was the worst dog ever. After she was spayed (how do you spell that?) she went crazy, and drove us crazy, and finally we had to put her down. We had Beagley. A beagle who was very lovable. We gave her away after a couple of years only because I couldn't handle two dogs (Floppy was still with us) and all the dog hair, messes to be cleaned up, etc., and work full time, and be a full-time mother, etc.

I am maudlin because I can recall so little of my children's respective childhoods. I hope they have memories of them. I recall two, in my mind, horrible events in the life of Becky. One was when she had the flu and she was so very sick I thought she was going to die. A friend of mine tried to cheer me up by saying that while I had birthed Becky, she was really God's, and he gave her to me for His time, not mine. Becky got better. Then there was the time she was shocked (electrically) by the stove turn-on switch. At that time we had an older stove and the turn on switch for each burner was built into the overhead fan unit. I didn't realize the unit had gone bad, and Becky was cooking. All of a sudden she looked very, very ill. Apparently when she turned on the stove (she was cooking that night) she was shocked badly.

Two events in the myriad events in my children's lives. Wow!

Maybe over the next few days, I'll force myself to remember them as children, growing into adulthood.

And yes, Becky, I do remember the wedding we had in our back yard. But, I have 200 pictures to remind me of that event.

ttfn