My mother Marion and her mother Amelia. 

Mom was born in 1928, so I'm guessing this picture is circa 1929. 

According to my father, supposedly her mother (my grandmother) had vascular dementia, the same disease that's destroying Mom. Or at least some form of dementia/Alzheimer's. 

Desolation and Despair

Oh Mom,

Remember when you knew what a card was? And why someone would mail you a card?

You were sent this BEAUTIFUL card in the mail...and I remember when you knew what they were and what to do with them....

Early

Dear Mom,

Do you remember taking us kids to Sunday School at Good Shepherd Lutheran every week?

And do you remember how you made sure that we were always at least 10 minutes early, because your mother taught YOU to arrive early?

And do you remember that this meant a lot of times we were the first ones there, so therefore we ended up turning on the lights & waiting for a teacher and/or other students? 

I remember.

KYW...NEWS RADIO...TEN-SIXTY...

Dear Mom,

I used to call you if I heard on the radio that there'd been an accident on my route to/from work

(because I knew you'd be concerned if you happened to be listening to the same radio station at the same time)

...so I would call just to reassure you that I wasn't involved in the accident

...and you always thanked me for calling.

Do you remember? I remember.

Hot Mama

Dear Mom, 

Do you remember when you and your friends all sloooooowly started getting older and you noticed them huddling more and more into their sweaters? 

And how you also noticed that you were giving AWAY more and more of your sweaters 'cause you weren't getting colder but steadily hotter? 

I remember. 

('Cause I'm starting to do the same thing.)

(#MirrorMirrorOnTheWall) 

Grandma and Grandpa Moger

Dear Mom,

Do you remember taking us kids to visit your parents in Patchogue? 

And then, after Grandma died, taking us to see just your father in Patchogue?

And how you always sat on his lap in his big old armchair?

(And how he always called you "Sis?") 

I remember.

Christmas Eve and Church

Dear Mom,

Do you remember all those Christmas Eves spent in church? Sometimes you and me and my sisters (separately or together) had to be at all 4 services (5pm, 7pm, 9pm, & 11pm)?

So we'd get there by an hour before whichever first service we were involved in, and we would basically make camp up in the choir loft.

And by the time we got done, it was past midnight = Christmas. 

I remember.

Concerts

Dear Mom, 

As concert season for me is approaching once more...do you remember coming to basically all the concerts I've been in from age 10 on, whether or not I was solo-ing (or even visible in the sea of faces)? 

Do you remember making the 5-hour (one-way!) trip up to college at least twice a year for concerts up there?  

I remember. 

Love always, #3

Playroom

Dear Mom, 

Do you remember clearing out the playroom for the three of us when we were little and it was raining, so we could strap on those stupid metal roller skates and still have more fun even though it was raining? 

I remember. 

Love always, #3

Scarlet Fever and Eyeglasses

Scarlet Fever and Eyeglasses

I had previously mentioned that Mom had scarlet fever when around 6 years old, and how she nearly died….because an awful lot of people who had scarlet fever did die. Well, obviously she survived, but the fever affected her eyes far more than anyone guessed.

She nearly got run over when in the road at some point while still very small (grade school), because she didn’t see the car coming, and apparently this provided the impetus for her parents to have her eyes examined.  Naturally she needed glasses, and the prescription was pretty strong.

Shortly afterwards she went out into the backyard with her mother, and she made some sort of comment about being able to see the flowers or some such…and her mother cried, because she never realized how bad her daughter’s eyesight was before the eye exam. 

Manual Typewriter

Growing up in Churchville, my dad used a manual adding machine that required him to punch in the number and then pull the lever to get to the next line. It looked sort of like this one: 

(Anyone else remember these? LOL) 

…and my mother used a manual typewriter (long after electric typewriters had been introduced, but hey…if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!).

Since she was secretary for several different women’s’ groups, she still used that typewriter quite a lot while I was growing up, even though at that point she didn’t work outside the home. And she typed at least 80-90 words per minute.

Honestly, sometimes it sounded like a machine gun was going off in the dining room. 

Meeting the Family

Mom told me that when she was a young woman, women still wore corsets for special occasions. They were married in 1958, so I’m guessing it was 1956 or 1957 that she boarded a train in New York, with her beau Richard Boyce Jr., to meet one of his relatives.

She was very nervous, of course.  And, since she grew up in a German Lutheran family, she had had virtually no experience with “standard” Italian dinners. Additionally, since her manners were (and are) impeccable, I’m sure she didn’t want to give the impression that the food wasn’t good. So she had a substantial helping of the first course, not realizing it was the first of many courses.

By the time the dinner was over, her corset was a private torment to her.

(can’t imagine why!!!)

And she remembers nearly getting sick on the train ride back, due to the combination of having eaten wayyyyyy too much and a corset that was now wayyyyyy too tight.

The "Waiting Room" in the Hospitals' Maternity Section

Since Father's Day is just around the corner, this one's about both Dad and Mom:

Dad is not a demonstrative person in the slightest. He's never been. 

So when Mom told me a story about the night their first-born was on the way, I had absolutely no trouble picturing him doing what she described!

Her water broke late in the evening, and of course Dad was very calm as he helped her get ready to go to the hospital. I’m sure he remained calm while he was in her room for the first part of her labor too. 

Then, of course, he had to go to the husbands’ waiting room (or whatever it was they called it) in the maternity section of the hospital, to wait for the news. And apparently he wasn’t calm in there.

When he was allowed to go back in and visit the new mom and the new daughter, Mom noticed that he kept his hands behind his back. She wondered if perhaps he had something for her, so she said, “Richard, what’s behind your back?”

It only made her more curious when he just mumbled something she couldn’t understand. So she said again, “Richard, what’s behind your back?”

When he brought his hands forward, she was both amused and touched to see his pipe…in pieces. 

He had bitten his pipe in half while pacing back and forth!

Lipstick

It's a very vivid memory, so it must have happened more than once.

In my mind's eye, I can "watch" Mom putting on lipstick.

Without a mirror.

Perfectly. 

It was generally the only makeup she wore. When I asked her one time how she did it so perfectly without a mirror, she laughed and said something along the lines of, "I've had this face for a loooong time!"

Because You Loved Me

To Mom:
In the words of the old song,

I'm everything I am because you loved me. 

With thanks and love from your most grateful youngest daughter,
Marianne

Mom and Music

Mom has loved to sing (and music in general) her whole life. She definitely was the one who instilled the same love in me.

When I was 10 or so, she let me sing a version of Mary's "Magnificat" at our church's Christmas Pageant, in front of the congregation. She was there without fail for every elementary school concert, every intermediate school concert, and every high school concert.

Even though I went to college 4.5 hours away, she even managed to attend most of my college concerts. And she's attended 90% of my post-college concerts. (It's like she's my own personal cheerleading section!) Perhaps that's why I feel like I'm singing to her (or with her) almost every time I sing.

She can't sing at all anymore, these past few years, due to a combination of physical concerns. A severe thorn in the flesh for her. So to me, it's even more important that I sing well...it's almost like I'm singing for her as well as me.

But that means that even more of my emotions are involved than usual when I sing, especially gorgeous songs about love or gardens or flowers...

O God...please give me the strength to sing well...for her and for You.

"Praise Arms" from Bible Gateway

 

Yessir, that's my mama.

Typing on a Manual Typewriter

Mom went to secretarial school a few years after she graduated high school. Since she graduated in 1945, school was probably sometime in the late 1940s, or possibly early 1950s.

Even in the 1970s and 1980s she could type 80-90 words a minute.

On a manual typewriter.

I can still "hear" the sound of her typing some committee report or whatever, sitting at the dining room table after supper.

Honestly, it sounded like a machine gun going off.

Church Volunteering

Definition of the 20%: Marion E. Boyce

Something Old and Something Blue

It was the morning of November 25th, 1995. My wedding day.

I still lived at home, and as I was finishing up getting ready in my bedroom in the late morning, Mom came in and asked me to sit down on my bed with her so she could show me something.

In her hand was a GORGEOUS bracelet, made of silver and tiny blue sapphires. She told me that it was my grandmother Amelia Moger's bracelet, given to her by her soon-to-be husband as a courting gift, circa early 1920s.

Then Mom fastened it on my wrist, and told me that it was her wedding gift to me:

Something old and something new,

Something borrowed and something blue.