Visits and Smiles Are Priceless

My daughter, Angel, her husband Tim, and my granddaughter Katie came in again this weekend. Third visit in four weeks. It’s great seeing them when they come in. Mom always enjoys their visits. They stay for an hour or so and leave when they know Mom looks and sounds tired.

They’re looking at houses this weekend because they are planning to move back to this area. Their camper will be parked here at Mom’s for a while until they find a house and move it to their new home.

Seeing her camper sitting in the yard makes me think of camping and the last trip when we took Mom to a Powwow over Labor Day weekend 2006. We’ve always included Mom in everything we do, and wanted to continue taking her places for as long as we could. We found out that weekend even short trips for a few days only added to her confusion and frustration from this horrible disease Alzheimer’s. Staying in a camper only confused her more. It took a week for her to realize she was back home and things were never the same after that; Alzheimer’s was stealing her mind bit-by-bit, memory-by-memory.

Now, we enjoy each day here on our wonderful piece of heaven in our own backyard. It’s peaceful, quiet, melancholy, and beautiful. Mom is quite satisfied staying at home, even if most of the time she doesn’t realize it is her home.

This weekend would have been a lovely weekend to go on a camping trip. The cool soft breeze, beautiful changes in the color of the trees, and sitting by a small brook or river sounds so inviting. We all look forward to the day when we’re able to load up the campers and meet for a weekend rendezvous again, but we’re all quite content enjoying the time we have with Mom in our little slice of nature here at home.

Katie is learning all sorts of new words. She's now asking, "What's that?" and "What's this?" as she points to different things. She says, "GG" and points to my mom. My grandchildren have called Mom 'GG' since they learned how to talk. It's much easier than saying great-grandma. My other granddaughter, Trinity, couldn't get out the "grandma" for me; it ended up coming out as "Bammaw" so that's the name that's sticking for me. Katie hasn't mastered it yet, but she's getting there.

None of us would trade the time we have with Mom now for anything. Just seeing the smile on her face when her granddaughters and great-grandchildren come to visit is worth the time we spend with her. Her smile is priceless and it will be imbedded in our hearts and minds forever.

I've been tagged.

Nita (ritinrider) at Absolute Write tagged me.

It hasn’t been all that long since I've played tag, but I do know I’m getting too old for the real run-around-and-touch-someone-game that we used to play as kids. A few weeks ago, both my daughters visited and brought my grandchildren and we were playing tag with water balloons. That’s why I said I’m too old for this stuff; I don’t run fast anymore, so I was totally soaked.

Anyway, back to this tag game, according to my friend Nita, this is how it works; I write eight interesting things about myself on my blog. Then I send it to (tag) eight friend-bloggers. Not sure what’s left about me that everyone doesn’t already know and I’m not sure how interesting I can be since I lead such a boring life, but here it goes.

1. I found out that the most interesting things about me were already posted, that’s sad. So now you know I need to get a life. LOL
2. I’m a daughter, a mother of two beautiful young women, and a grandmother of nine wonderful grandchildren (counting Two’s grandkids, too.)
3. I’ll hit the double nickels on my birthday this year. In case you don’t know what that means; I’ll be 55, get it, double nickels.
4. I have a pop-up camper I’m dying to use again, a truck that’s 2 ½ years old that has only 2,800 miles on it, that I’m dying to drive again, and a boat I’m dying to put in the water again.
5. In case that wasn’t a clue, I love camping by the water and my first trip when I’m able to go camping again will be to return to the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina and camp along the Oconaluftee River at Wolf Creek Campground. That’s the last camping trip Two and I made nearly four years ago.
6. I take better care of other people than I do myself.
7. However, I did quit smoking, but I will admit it wasn’t by choice.
8. I wood burn and paint. Here’s a picture of a recent painting.


Oh yes, I'm suppose to tag eight blogger friends. I tag Anne Watkins-Writes With Feathers, Unique--Blowing Smoke, Ray-I the Author, September Skies--Midnight Writings, Jason--Clarity of Night, Mark--The Bluff, Julia--Mrs. Write Right, and Jeff--The Write Thing.

So if you eight wonderful people tag along, please link back so I know you're playing. I really do want to read what you've written. Thank you Nita for thinking of me. I needed to get back to my blog.