A Walk with Mom, Memories of Dad

Today I am grateful for safe travels and family time this weekend. I am also grateful for the hope that abides in the present moment when I am in tune to it.

We visited my family in Iowa this weekend and spent time with my mom.  I have gotten used to going to visit her in the nursing home, and she has adjusted to the routine. We all agree that she is where she needs to be.

I am grateful for the care she receives and also that she is just a couple miles from the two farms where she has lived the last 65+ years. Most weekends, she spends a few hours out at the farm she called home from 1981 until May of this year. 

I picked her up from the nursing home and took her out to the farm on Saturday afternoon. It was a mild day and dry, do we took a little walk around the yard. She likes to look at the various plants, trees, and flowers around the yard. She checks out the garden as it winds down for this growing season. It was a few minutes I appreciated with her, and my brother and son joined us for some of it too. 

I was also thinking about my dad this weekend. I stopped to pay respects at his gravesite, which I often do when I am in the area. He died 19 years ago today. This is a picture taken the year that he died:

Mom and I walked around the yard. Memories of Dad walked around in my brain. His wobbly walk on a bad knee the last years of his life. The way he always read the paper and stayed up on news. His playful way with his grandchildren. How I rarely heard him swear, unless farm animals were uncooperative.

I think about how my mom must miss her spouse of 48 years, even all these years since his death. I miss him too. I appreciate the person he was in his lifetime and the memories and legacy that live on.