It's been six months now since Mom passed away. Dad seems very withdrawn. I thought having family around and a lot of parades and town celebrations would help, but maybe it's actually worse for him b/c this all reminds him even more that Mom is gone.
Tonight was the Kiddie Parade. Mom used to always create some clever float for me to pull in the wagon. One year she put flowers and silver bells and shells, and I wore a sign that said, "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" I wore a long sunflower skirt. Another year she made a Paper Mache mountain in the wagon, we spray-painted it gold, and put a miner's pick-ax in it. The sign I wore that year read, "Aplington's my pick." I wore cut-off shorts and a raggedy shirt w/ an old floppy hat. In 1975, in preparation for the country's bicentennial, two of my friends walked in the parade w/ me. One pretended to play a flute, the other carried the American flag that always hung outside our house, and I carried the drum that Mom bought for Lori to practice on. We wore ragged clothes w/ bandages on our heads to look like wounded Revolutionary War soldiers. They put us at the beginning of the parade, and I don't think people realized we were an actual parade entry. I don't remember what the sign said on our backs but something to the effect of getting ready for the Bicentennial next year.
Mom was amazing when it came to making and creating. All I ever had to do was say, "Mom I want to be in the parade," and she took it from there. When I got too old for the Kiddie Parade, she helped her grandchildren and other people's children. Mom loved a parade. Mom loved kids. She wanted to have at least one more after I was born, but she had ovarian cancer when I was four and had to have a complete hysterectomy. I think that's why she loved teaching the preschool Sunday School students b/c they became Lucy's Kids.
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