... and then there was Kansas

Kansas. 
Home. 
Where I was born. 
Where I (mostly) grew up. 
Where I graduated  from high school. 
Where I met and married Brad. 
Where I find myself tonight, sitting at my mother's computer while she sleeps in the next room, tearing up because I am not really quite sure what to write but I feel like it's going to have a lot of emotion.

It's funny how I can be perfectly fine until I sit down to write and suddenly the day floods back at me like a giant wave.  The drive from Springfield started off wet after a night and early morning of rain there.  My trusty GPS planned out a route that took me not on interstates and major freeways, but on county roads that went by the title of "M" or "V".  God I love her!!!   She gives me so many adventures but in the end always gets me where I am supposed to be!   There were a few things that I wish I had stopped to take a picture of - like the house that had a giant cow on it's roof (obviously a cattle farm, but come on - how cool is that?!) or what was obviously an old service station with a stone front, a Highway 66 sign and no roof.  And there were a few things I DID stop to take a picture of - like the old abandoned house that sat nestled in some trees, most of it's window pane glass gone, some porch pillars missing, but the most gorgeous staircase that I could see through the glassless windows.  I would have loved to have gone in and salvaged it, but who knows if the floorboards would have held my weight, so I just admired from afar.

As the miles ticked on and I got closer to Pittsburg, I must admit to feeling a sense of calm in the rolling hills.  I can't really describe it, but the best I can describe it is that it was a sense of the rest of the world just falling away and feeling really safe and that there was no hurry to anything.  Not all of my days of living here were wonderful or even happy, but I guess there is something to be said for coming home.  A sense of familiarity that sort of makes life simpler - even when it's not.

I don't get to see my mother that often, or I guess you could say that I don't make that many trips home and as she gets older it's harder for her to travel.   I feel kind of bad about that - like I should come more, but I try to make the best of the times I do.  She always makes me a "Honey Do" list and I work away on it.  Neither one of us feels like we are slighting the other by this, and I think we both have said all of the things we need to say to each other - in case anything ever happens.  These are the things you think about when your mother is 87 years old.

Parts of the last 9 or 10 years have been tough.  My mom took a couple of falls that totally changed her life and her lifestyle, we nursed my father through an 18 month struggle with lung cancer (he died on Halloween in 2004).  But for those of you who don't know my mother, she is an amazing and an amazingly resilient woman.   She has raised 9 children, buried two husbands (one at 36), volunteers in her community, still lives alone and at the age of 84 she went back to college to get her degree!  She will actually graduate on May 13th, 2011!!  Yes, I will be there!  I will be the one with the ridiculously large grin, sitting on the front row if possible!

But life always throws you speed bumps and just this year she had surgery for glaucoma and was then diagosed with macular degeneration, so eventually she will lose her sight.  That's a tough one for a woman who is a voracious reader and had hoped to take up painting again once she was done with college.  Or at least it is for me.  Life is about to change.

But I guess part of what this trip is about for me is embracing the here and the now and sort of leaving everything out on the table.  So I will spend as much time as I can with my mom while I am here, I will do as many things for her as I can and I will say all of the things I think I need to say to her.   Before I ever started this trip,  I knew that the three days I spent here would be the most emotional of the trip, but I guess I might have undersestimated it.  Wish me luck!

The song I chose for today is a song called "This Must Be The Place" and it's sung by Shawn Colvin - another artist I really love.  If you listen to the lyrics you will understand.

I love you Mom.