Three Years Ago Today and Yesterday

Three years ago yesterday was one of the best memories I have of my mom. I had taken a four day weekend by taking the day after Veteran's Day as a vacation day from work, and wanted to do some home decorating. I had so many household chores to do though. What to do??? Oh yeah, I thought to myself, Mom has a foreign exchange student that wants to earn some extra spending money, maybe she'd be willing to come over and do those chores so I can do what I wanted to do. I called Mom, and said, "Hey Mom, do you think Severina would be willing to come over and do some housework, while I do a couple other things around the house? I can pay her $40." She said "Let me ask her." "She said that would be fine. We'll be over in a few minutes." "Great. Oh, wait Mom, do you have a staple gun? I borrowed one from Dad, but his is a really old one, and the staples don't seem to fit." "Yeah, I have an electric one. Let me see if I can find it." "Ok, see you in a bit."

A little while later my mom was at my house, I had shown Severina what I needed done, and had shown my mom my "craft" ideas. I wanted to recover my cedar chest, because the fabric that was already on it, just didn't go with anything. I also had some ideas for some curtains I wanted to make. The curtains would have to wait for another day, but my mom had a lot of ideas about how I could do them. She was very "crafty" that way. :) So I unscrewed the top from the cedar chest, and measured out the fabric, and proceeded to try to use my mom's staple gun. KaChunk! Kachunk! Click! Nothing! The darn thing was stuck. "Mom what's wrong with this thing? It seems to be jammed." "Let me see it." I look up from what I'm doing and see her pointing it at me. I notice it's still plugged in. "Mom! Unplug that thing before you shoot me!" She chuckles and unplugs it. Then she gets it to work and hands it back to me. KaChunk! Kachunk! Click! Nothing again!!! "Arghh! Moooommmm! It's jammed again! Hand me dad's. I think your staples will fit in his gun. Oh good they do."

Meanwhile, my mom is fidgeting with her's again. I look up and KaChunk! A staple flies across the room! "MOM! Unplug that thing! You're gonna put someone's eye out!" She chuckle sheepishly, says "Sorry" and hands the gun to me again. I take it back, and begin working again. About 5 minutes later, KaChunk! Kachunk! Click! "Aww! Geeminie! It's jammed again! Mom, this is a piece of junk! I'll get done faster using Dad's!" I get up and go check on Severina's progress and check on my two year old. I come back into the kitchen where my mom is, and notice that she's looking down the "barrel" of the staple gun, and ONCE AGAIN, it's still plugged in! "MOM!!! UNPLUG THAT THING!!! "I DON'T HAVE TIME TO TAKE YOU TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM WHEN YOU SHOOT YOURSELF IN THE EYE!" She looks at me like "I'm fine, I know what I'm doing. I've been fixing staple guns longer than you've been alive" and all that. If you're a mom, or a child of a mom, you know the face. But she unplugs it. We finally get it to work long enough for me to finish the covering. However I notice as I get to the end that my mom had "helped" me while I was in the other room, and her corner was all bunched up. Oh well, I'll remove the staples and fix it when she's gone. I'm done with this. It was so much more frustrating than it needed to be. Why couldn't she have just gone home. I didn't need her here. All these thoughts were going through my head.

Today, I am so glad that she did stay all day long, and for the memory of that day, because the next day, she died. She had a sudden heart attack at the age of 48. So today, it's been three years since she died, and I think I can safely say that time does heal all wounds. I'm not depressed today, like I have been the last couple of years, and I can actually smile without doing so through a sheen of tears. Thank you, mom, for your silliness; for your scatter brained-ness, and for the memories. I love you, Mom!

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