For some reason Mom comes to mind more often on the anniversary of her passing than on her birthday. Maybe it’s the proximity to Christmas and her love of the celebration and her deep-seated faith. Maybe personal-tragedy creates deeper grooves in the soul than some collection of days we sporadically celebrated. We mark the official start of the holiday with the ‘placing of the pillow’ – one of Dee’s favorite holiday details.
Many of the great day-to-day stories that paint-the-picture of Dee come from the holidays. Us jockeying not to stand next to her at the church caroling since her volume often dramatically surpassed her tone…or the joy we had when we heard the ding-ding-ding that meant her Polaroid was out of film and we had hidden the resupply so we could just get on with the unwrapping and no-more-pictures…or the smell of the family recipe “Meringues” and plotting to sneak down at night to grab a few extras.
The holiday would be more full if it were to include a visit with Dee.