My Beloved Curmudgeon had a fairly sudden and urgent need to have surgery today. The surgery was minor for what could have been a major problem. Fortunately, they were able to quickly, efficiently and effectively take care of the problem. By all reports he’s going to feel better than he has in a long time. So in the end it had a very good result.
I spent most of the day at the hospital which as anyone who has ever done that knows is pretty much a miserable and excruciatingly boring way to spend the day. Any day. He’s still there but will come home tomorrow.
My mother and one of my sisters came up and set with me during the morning while Beloved Curmudgeon was having his surgery. We chatted about a lot of things, one of which was my mother’s habit of shopping at Salvation Army. That might sound a little strange to some people, but I know several people who love to shop at the Salvation Army in our town. The uber wealthy around here donate there so people have been known to get some incredibly good deals on some incredibly nice products. For instance, I know one person who bought a beautiful designer handbag for $5 - $10 that would have cost around $500 retail. It was hardly used if it had been used at all. That is why people around here shop at the local Salvation Army. My mother is one of those people. I’m seriously thinking of it myself.
Shopping at Salvations Army entered into the conversation because of one purchase in particular. ‘I bought a snow sled at the Salvation Army.’ she mentioned.
I laughed. What a strange thing I thought. I actually thought she was leading up to some kind of joke or something. It rarely snows where we live and while my mother is very active and always seems interested in new hobbies, snow sledding just didn’t seem like her.
Now, you have to understand that my mother has taken up a lot of activities over the years. A few years ago she bought a basketball goal and put it in her driveway. She shoots baskets out there on her own and with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Yes, I wrote great-grandchildren. My mother is not a spring chicken and we all thought it was a hoot that she got a basketball goal for her driveway. But she used it, and still does and really, we think its pretty cool. Her neighbors think its pretty cool too. Most people my mothers age are not shooting basketball. I wonder if any are.
She also recently bought a piano so that she could take lessons and learn to play. I genuinely hope that I managed to get some of her good genes.
Even with all that though, I was still puzzled about the snow sled and must have looked at her funny because she explained, ‘I bought it for Carol’. Okay, this is getting stranger by the second. Why would she buy my sister a snow sled at Salvation Army. It just seemed like a very strange thing to do.
She explained that when she was pregnant with me the family moved from one state to the other after my father completed his bachelors degree at a college out of state. I was their sixth child and I won’t say what year it was, but they moved five children across several mountainous states without expressways, air conditioning or seat belts. The photo in the post was taken during that trip.
Mother went on to explain that Carol had cried for her snow sled that was left behind all the way from beginning to end of that trip. ‘Why was she crying for her sled?’, I asked. I was imagining that it had been something that had been forgotten. That was coming from the mind of someone from a different era who would just run to the store and buy another one if needed. They had left it behind because they didn’t have room for it in whatever they had used to move. ‘Wasn’t that a miserable trip with her crying all the way?’ I asked, being sympathetic and again thinking within my own life experience.
Mother looked at me and with a matter of fact tone replied, ‘It was just how things were.’ and smiled. I felt that she knew that I was not really comprehending what her life had been like at that time. She went on to say that when she had walked into the Salvation Army the other day she had seen the sled and knew that it was Carol’s sled. She said she remembered exactly what the sled looked like. When she saw it she knew she would buy it for Carol. She joked about the price of it.
My mother replaced a lost toy for her daughter who is a grandmother herself now. A toy that had been left behind 50 years earlier out of necessity. Mother was stoic about the need to leave the sled behind, but never forgot her daughter’s tears. When she saw the exact same sled in the Salvation Army, she was finally able to replace the left behind sled.
We had this short seemingly insignificant conversation early this morning and I’ve thought about it off and on all day. I guess no matter how old your children are, they are still your children. The relationship changes, but it doesn’t change.
Oh, and the sled is not named ‘Rosebud’ as far as I know.
