A Very Special Moment

This weekend was pretty good. The kids had a great time trick or treating. Later I will have to blog about Chase’s adventure. It is quite comical.

The purpose of this blog is to share a very special moment I had this weekend. You see, my Mother was a master at cleaning, (wish I would have gotten that gene). I decided that I was going to do one of those cleanings in my office area that consist of making a bigger mess than it was originally, then getting everything organized. After about 4 hours of “this” cleaning, things were starting to look much better, I had a very strong thought of my Mom. I remembered how she would come help me do cleanings like this, and how in the beginning of these projects I would get so overwhelmed. I mean, really? I had asked her to come help me because is was such a mess and she was making a bigger mess. But in the end, my house would be so organized and beautiful. So, here I was, everything everywhere. Everywhere. So when things started falling in place, I felt such a sense of pride, and also, I knew that Mom would be proud of me.

An hour or so later, I had one last thing to put away. I said to myself, put that folder in that cabinet, and you are done.

There is a picture of my mom that I took before she was sick. It is my favorite picture, there isn’t another picture that I like any better. I like this picture so much, I have one in my living room on a table, I have one on another wall somewhere else in our house, and I have one in my room on a dresser mirror. I also have one at my office that I look at numerous times a day. This picture was also the picture that sat on top of my Mom’s closed casket. So many people commented on it. Half of those people ask for copies of it. Which, selfishly, no one got a copy. This was my happy memory, just mine. Selfishly mine.

Sometime shortly after her death, I lost the negative. This was extremely traumatic for me. I looked everywhere, many, many, many times. I never found it. I found some other negatives that were taken on the same day, but not “the” negative. I looked in every envelope with no luck.

Back to my story, my last task, I am about 1 inch away from the trash bag with an envelope that was in my hand. I opened the envelope, put my hand in it. There was a negative. I put it up to the light, it wasn’t it. It was the one that I had found so many other times, and found it lonely in its envelope. This negative had pictures taken the same day...but...once again, for some reason, I checked the already checked 137th time envelope, and yes, the negative was there. I cried.

I could not think of anything else to do but look up toward heaven and thank my Mom. She gave me a prize cause I was a good little girl and I had cleaned up like she would have.

***By the way, that is my Mom with my daughter, Mac was about 18 months to 2 years old.