Every year since 1989, when Mother's Day rolls around, I am a sad lambchop. Same goes for Father's Day :(
I do honor my parents on those holidays, by remembering them for the goodness they afforded me, even if I didn't appreciate it enough in their living years.
My parents took me to Vizcaya in Miami when I was 3 years old, and it changed my life. Because a 3 year old cannot process what it takes to build an Italian palace by the sea like Vizcaya, then to also watch the home movies of Mom and Dad behind the headless statues in the gardens processed into a couple decades of nightmares, and in sleepwalking that paralyzed me in childhood. I'm just glad I realized when I was 22 why I had those dreams, and the nightmares went away!
Now that I am 66 years old, I am looking forward to someday returning, to make peace with the statues, whose heads have been repaired and put back on their bodies, like they should be.
I only have a few relatives left in Miami, where my grandmother moved from Hazard, Kentucky in 1955. She was only in her 50s, bought an apartment building and made money in Coral Gables until she retired.
We would go down to visit her after Christmas and it was a hell of a trip all the way in Dad's station wagon with 7 kids. No a/c either...
At any rate, happy Mom's day to us all!
Kimmy
