Memorial Day, My Mom, Facebook, Daughters, and other thoughts

I have always loved Memorial Day, maybe a little less now than I did as a girl. As a young girl, I accompanied my grandmother and dad as they took flowers to the cemetery for what grandma called, "Decoration Day." Sometmies, we had as many as thirty containers of flowers, mostly fresh picked and kept in the refrigerator. Grandma had these white cardboard containers that she would fill with irises and peonies, keeping them in the refrigerator if they bloomed early. I have tried to keep up the tradition in greatly reduced fashion. I went to Tuscumbia on Saturday and in the pouring rain put flowers at Grandma and Grandpa Wright's graves, my mom and dad, my dad's baby sister who died in 1919, the same year that he was born, Uncle Bob Marshall and Homer Clay. I met Connie at the cemetery and we had a great lunch at Eldon, enjoying catching up on our lives. She's been my best friend for as long as I can remember and when I see her it's as though we haven't been separated for weeks or months or years but days. As for the rest of the weekend, it was all right. The girls have been fighting and that always upsets me. However, as I knew they would, they made up over pizza and beer. Every time they fight, I despair thinking that somehow I did something wrong, treating one differently than the other; and, every time they make up, I relax, thinkig that maybe I did everything all right after all. I have thought a lot about my mom this weekend, too. She died six years ago yesterday, May 25th. In some ways, it seems like it was just yesterday...and in others, it feels as though it happened eons ago. I think of her often. Mostly, I wish that I had been closer as she grew older. We talked almost every day but in some ways she remains an engima. She was a private person, exceptionally so as I reflect back now, and I realize now that there was a LOT I didn't understand about her. I think I'm a little more transparent, more like my Aunt Betty, perhaps. As I grow older, my fondest hope is that my girls fall in love and live in Kansas City so I can be there for them everyday...going to the kids' soccer games, celebrating every birthday and school play.

I love this quote from NCIS.

I love this quote from NCIS. It's one of my favorite episodes, featuring McGee, Gibbs, Vance, and the North Korean agent Khi. "Anyone can achieve their fullest potential. Who we are might be predetermined, but the path we follow is always of our own choosing. We should never allow our fears or the expectations of other to set the frontiers of our destiny. Your destiny can't be changed, but it can be challenged. Everyman is born as many men, and dies as a single one."