"Everyday is Christmas..." -- my mom

My dear, sweet mother said this in her year of remission from lung cancer. She also said she wasn't going to buy any green bananas. She treasured each day, knowing that she was on borrowed time after having part of her lung out and chemotherapy. She sensed that the end was near.
It's hard to put in a nutshell, all the great things about my mother, Marlene. All of my friends loved her, because she was cool before cool was invented. She was not on the cutting edge - she was before the cutting edge. She wore blue jeans long before other women. She hunted and fished right along side my dad, but always did better. (She held the record for the largest marlin caught on the Gulf coast for years.) She was good at everything. In high school, she was the lead actress in their school plays, and had to choose between Homecoming Queen and Miss Kilgore High, since she was voted for both. She was extremely bright, much smarter than me, and helped me with pretty much everything until she got sick at the age of seventy.
She had a very approachable persona, and had no enemies, not one. She had a loyal set of friends who laughed incessantly. She never talked bad about anyone behind their back and she never gossiped. She left East Texas since she didn't like the terrible racism she witnessed, and marched in the Martin Luther King parade every year. She was an avid reader and was very well-versed in all things English. She was a writer, and wrote free lance articles for magazines, short stories, and Texas history publications. Proud of her ancestry, she was in the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, spoke at Gonzales' "Come and Take It'"annual event, and was an officer in the Conservation Society, spearheading the saving of the Municipal Auditorium in San Antonio.
And she would have had a blog if she would have known about them. She always had the latest Mac, and stayed up on whatever would keep her young and hip.
She was the most unselfish person I've ever met. She was everyone's favorite and when she died, each of her grandchildren felt as if they had lost their mother. She was funny, real funny. She would be cooking at home and then break into a tap dance. One time we were at the eye doctor at the Nix Hospital and got onto a crowded elevator when I was in early high school, and she started pretending like she was deaf and (fake) signing to me. I never laughed so hard when the elevator opened.
I miss her every day. I want to call her, but I can't. I've often thought that God should give us one more shot with people after they're gone. One more chance to tell them we love them. Oh, if I could hug her one more time - she had the best hugs. She was irreplaceable. She was like one of those people at a job that did 15 people's jobs, and it would take 15 people to replace them. Only a million times more.
I don't know why someone as good as my mother had to suffer so much at the end. Good people just shouldn't have to go through that. But I know she'll be waiting at the pearly gates for me when my time comes. And she'll give me one of those good, good hugs...

"All it takes is money..." -- my dad

I miss my dad... he's been gone almost eight years. Some days it feels like last year and some days it feels like twenty. I felt so secure when he was in this world. He was such a stablizing force, you could set your clock by him. My dad saw things in black and white, there was no gray. When he said something, he meant it, always. If he said he'd be there, he was, and on time (or early.)
He had very high standards, and wouldn't accept less. He attended Texas Military Institute, and to this day, is the smartest person I've ever known. If we ever had a bet on something we both thought was right, he always won. My mother said he was tested at a younger age, and was at the genius level. I believe it. He was just always right. He could be very difficult, don't get me wrong. But he commanded respect, and he got it from everyone.
He was cool, calm and collected and never yelled, not even once. He would back up whatever he said, so if he said no, he meant it or there were serious consequences. He was a real man. They don't make men the way they used to. Dad was like John Wayne, or the guys in the Westerns. He was bigger than life, he still is.
He spoke sayings that I like to call Martin-isms (his name was Martin.) One of them was "All it takes is money..." which he pretty much said after everything we mentioned. If I said I wanted to go to Hawaii, he said it. If I said I needed a new dress, he said it. You can say it after almost everything actually, and it seems even more relevant today with the diving economy. I often wonder what he would think about Obama, and the decisions being made in the government, and what the future holds. I think he would answer with a simple 'Martin-ism' but I'm not sure what it would be. It would be something as truthful as 'all it takes is money,' -- I just wish I knew what it was...