Random and Odd

the bell hop’s tears keep flowin’ and the desk clerk’s dressed in black

In Shingletown there where a few families that if you say their name, people remember them.

We were The Seguins. Some people would remember our name because of my brothers. Good looking, football players…trouble makers and heart breakers.
Kathy was beautiful and stubborn…and I was that cute little Seguin girl with big brown eyes and was always covered in dirt.

Another family name was the Iveys. Mike and Dean had 3 really handsome boys that hung out with my Mom’s 3 handsome boys. Not always a good combination, but it kept both families on their toes.

My mom and dad had great friends; Betty and Terry & Mike and Dean. Between the three families they kept Coors Beer Company in business through the 70’s.

I have YEARS of memories filled with these people. I have stockpiled sound bites in my head of my mother laughing, Betty Pullen singing and the sound of Elvis Presley coming from Dean’s house.
Dean had every single Elvis album, an original white scarf he gave her on her birthday and more Elvis nicknacks than any person should ever own. She would cry on the anniversary of his death and would celebrate his birthday.

A few weeks ago my sister blogged about Dean going into the hospital. I called Dean to tell her that I was glad she was going home and that she needed to hurry up and get better because I didn’t want my mom getting any ideas about thinking it was alright to be getting sick. Dean laughed and joked with me. Then I said goodbye.

Dean passed away yesterday. It’s sad, but it scares the shit out of me. I’m scared. She was the same age as my mother and even though my mom has spent the last 20 years avoiding booze, I realize she did a lot of damage to herself when she was drinking and taking pills.

Last night I was laying in bed and I was hit with a panic attack. It wasn’t the normal anxiety attack, I panicked! It felt like my body had a medal sheet through me and someone had shook it. My mother, at some point, will die. That thought alone makes me want to scream.

Years from now I don’t want to say, “I wish I would have gone here or done this” with my mom.
My mom has been to exactly 3 states in her life and only rode an airplane once. She has never seen the waters of the ocean from high above, smelled Plumera in the airport or walked along a beach with water so blue you felt if you didn’t cry, you were doing the place an injustice.

In the past month, Shaun and I decided that we couldn’t afford to get married in Hawaii.

At this point, I can’t afford NOT to. All the things that seemed important about getting married don’t seem so important anymore. I’m going to do what it takes to get my mom and sister on an airplane bound for the islands to watch me get married for the last time.

Then I am going to watch my mother smile, laugh and enjoy what she has always deserved, a real vacation.

I love you, Mom!