Blog: 30andout on LiveVideo.com

Gender: Male
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Age: 56
Sign: Pisces
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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2008 (7:32 PM)

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Her Smile

On one of my infrequent visits to the front page today, I noticed that I’m a featured blogger. Go figure. And that must be a thumbnail from the archives that they’re using.

The thing is, I’m an infrequent blogger. I’m too busy thinking about videos, I guess. I need to tell myself it’s not necessary to make a video every other day. Add to that the desire to contribute to VloggerHeads, and before you know it I need a poke in the eye to keep my head from spinning!

Of course, the LiveVideo Offensive (II) has contributed to that. Trying to come up with ideas, making videos, watching videos, and totally missing the efforts of some of my favorites: that’s been the last eight days for me. Fortunately, I have #9 done already, so I have a little room to breathe - and figure out what the hell #10 will be.

The timing for LVO was perfect. Coming after my mother’s funeral, it provided a diversion. I don’t need anything to help me stop thinking about her. That’s not what I want. It gave me another thing to think about – as opposed to something else to think about. There’s a difference.

Dealing with her estate and her belongings, I have plenty of things to remind me of her. I have some things that will never leave the house – once hers, and now mine, they’ll always remind me of her. The grandfather clock I made for my parents as an anniversary present twenty-five years ago has been here for two years, since she came to live at our house. I’ll always think of it as theirs. There are some small items she had in her room. A porcelain hummingbird I gave to her for Christmas one year, framed poems I wrote for her… the sort of things that bring her to mind instantly.

If it sounds like I need those to retain my memory of her, that’s not the case. Over the years, I’ve always tried to do as much for her as I could. It always could have been more, but I think anyone might say the same for himself. There’s never enough time to do the things you want to do.

Something I always made a priority was family gatherings. They weren’t frequent – mostly at the holidays – but I made a point of being there for all of them. Even though my siblings all live in the area (the farthest being fifty miles away), there may have been a half-dozen over the past thirty years that had everyone in attendance. Work schedules, especially for grandchildren with entry level or minimum wage jobs were usually the cause for that. Fortunately, my work schedule never involved weekends.

Those holiday gatherings were important for my mother, especially after my father died. A change in her was evident, and we adopted a practice of the daughter’s preparing the meals, with her help. It was obvious how much it meant to her to have her house filled with people. Her biggest joy was to have the whole family together for the day.

In the last six months, a lot of people have commented on her smile. The secret to that smile was in her eyes, and those gatherings were the times that really lit up her face. She was not very comfortable in her last few months, but a smile always greeted each visitor and each of the aides and nurses who treated her with tenderness - even if her memory had become a casualty of her illness.

Her smile is one memory that will never leave me.

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Posted Sep 22, 08 by SisterNan (

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I also took care of my Mom 24/7 and watched her mind leave us a little bit more every day until she passed. It's a lot of work when we share our homes with the eldery and roles are reversed as we "parent" our parent. However there are many rewards as we become much closer to them. We often experience a greater loss at their passing than our siblings but that pain in itself is their gift to us.

Posted Sep 20, 08 by NatureJunkie (

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This brings up so many memories for me, Ken, especially the sorting through of possessions. So many things I had given my mother over the years came back into my ownership: gifts I made by hand, letters I wrote, a pair of ceramic lamb salt and pepper shakers that were her taste but not mine, my baby teeth. Two things came to me from it: Much of what we give is eventually returned to us, literally as well as metaphorically. And second, we're all destined to be outlived by our possessions. It was my first acquaintance with my own mortality.