While I've been waiting for the plumber and the electrician to complete their portion of the job so that city inspection can take place, I've been painting the woodwork on my windows. No easy task to accomplish as I've found that three coats are required, therefore I've had plenty of thinking time. So, here's where my mind's been drifting....
"The best portion of a good man's life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love." ~ William Wordsworth ~
I think alot about friends and relatives who have taught me lessons or been examples of virtues or personality traits I admire. One of which is my Aunt Marge. The following is a rough sketch I drew as a preliminary for her portrait (which, of course, I gave to her).
I'll tell you what I learned from Aunt Marge ... She had so much love, emotion, and sentimentality contained within her for people that you felt her hug long before she actually accomplished the feat. I still can smile remembering an Auntie Marge hug. So, no limp handshakes from me, no blase' hugs or insincere words .... Aunt Marge taught me to put out that warmth of emotion to enrich the lives of those she loved.
"You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a fine spirit of hope of achievement. You are here to enrich the world and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand." ~ Woodrow Wilson ~
And what would Aunt Marge be without her Otto? Uncle Otto was the strong, silent type of man with a twinkle in his eye and an adoration for the woman he loved that could never be questioned and only admired (of course, it was returned full measure to him). He taught us ~ Not to open our mouths more than we had to ~ To adore your spouse is the best gift you can give your children ( friends, relatives and yourself) ~ To know that people sometimes make mistakes and to seek to understand without passing judgment.
"Whenever you make a mistake or get knocked down by life, don't look back at it too long. Mistakes are life's way of teaching you. Your capacity for occasional blunders is inseparable from your capacity to reach your goals. No one wins them all, and your failures, when they happen, are just part of your growth. Shake off your blunders. How will you know your limits without an occasional failure? Never quit. Your turn will come." ~ Og Mandino ~
Every other year we would go visit them as they lived in New York State and we in Minnesota, so it was a few days drive. They would visit us the alternate years. But, I can remember the family get-togethers we would have playing horseshoes or tag or having water balloon wars with my cousins in their yard. We'd just run wild and holler and laugh and let off steam. We'd love it if we could get an adult to join in and most of the time if we threw a water balloon near enough (almost, but not quite....) one of the adults would up and chase us and then the squealing would really begin. Uncle Pete was a good one for that. It was great fun, those family barbecues at their house. Uncle Otto's been gone probably eighteen years now and Aunt Marge passed more than ten years ago of Alzheimers, the same disease that afflicts my mother.
My brother, his wife and I care for our mother. I am quite aware that we are lucky she's not angry and combative. As Alzheimers progresses, it peels away memories and layers of personality. She is losing her ability to speak as her vocabulary is slowly disintegrating. We are left with her core spirit which is peaceful and happy and can literally be one of the few who are genuinely living in the "now". She knows not our names or who we are to her, but she does know that this face she loves. And, that's good enough for me!
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