Confessions of a Misplaced Southern Belle

Not so misplaced anymore!

Well, this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

Robbie Ann Creed Maxwell
April 18, 1952-May 27, 2019

I didn’t realize that it had been December that I had last posted. It really wasn’t intended, but life happens. And, death happens too. In late March, my mom had what we discovered was a small stroke. No big deal, right? It affected her speech a little, but a week later it threw a blood clot. Once her doctor discovered that, she didn’t like what she saw, so they sent her for some scans. In mid April, mom was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer. Two weeks after that, she had another, more thorough scan, and they confirmed the diagnosis, and she had another small stroke which put her back in the hospital. She was in the hospital for a week, until she said ‘enough’ and set up hospice. She went home on May 22. On May 27th, surrounded by my dad, my siblings and a long time family friend, Robbie Ann Creed Maxwell, passed away. I was an hour and a half away, driving on Hwy 190 in Louisiana. I left Florida that morning at 5am, and hit two slow downs that probably equaled an hour and a half. My brother had called and said that her breathing was getting slower and I insisted that he put the phone on speaker and take it to her. Mom hadn’t really been conscious for two days, but I wanted to to say good-bye, just in case. I told her that I was on my way, but still an hour and a half away, but that if she needed to go, she could, that she had been the best mom, and that I loved her. That was the last time I would ever talk to her, as fifteen minutes later, she passed away. This whole thing has been so surreal and happened so fast. I don’t think I’ve fully processed it and I don’t know when that will happen. One thing I was able to do for her was to give her eulogy at her funeral. I wanted everyone to know the mom that I knew and I think writing it, and giving it, gave me a chance to say good-bye in my own way. The following is her eulogy as written. I did make a few changes to the intro on the morning of the service and on the fly, so that isn’t included, but I hope you can get a sense of who my mom was, and I hope you get a little bit of a chuckle.

Life Lessons from Mom

As I driving here from Florida,  I had a long time to think back on Mom and things that she has taught me. Some are probably obvious, and some not so much, but I thought that I’d like to share them with y’all today. Now these aren’t your typical Lessons from Mom, but they were lessons from my mom, and while she may not have said these things outright these are a few things that I have learned from her.

  1. It’s ok, to not make your roux from scratch, and recipes are just suggestions.  I can’t tell you how many times I called mom and asked her for a recipe and she say, “well, there really isn’t one, I just made it up. Well, maybe there’s a little of this, and add some of that.” Ok, not much help mom, and after I decided to make my first gumbo ever, I called and asked her about the roux and how to make it. She said, oh, just get a box or jar of roux. Who has time to stand in front of the stove?” I was shocked, but I have never made a gumbo roux from scratch–She was right.
  1. It’s never too late to try something new, and maybe invent an alternate personality.  Mom was over 50 when she and dad started the Village Voice and then went to work as editor at The Chronicle.  It was only then that I realized that mom had a gift of writing, especially humor. When the Marva Stewart letters showed up, I knew that she had a talent for writing. I laughed all the time about Marva’s antics, and I laughed even harder when Mom told me that some people didn’t know that she was actually Marva. So if you didn’t know, *Spoiler Alert* Mom WAS Marva. All this shows me that age is just a number and it’s never too late to change directions.  
  1. Use your talents. Mom was so talented, and could, decorate, cook, draw, write, and play the piano. I can’t count the number of times that Mom helped out by decorating or cooking for a wedding, a baby shower, or a birthday.   Unfortunately, I did not get that special touch that she had and I was always on the phone with her trying to figure out how to make something look the way “Robbie Ann” would make it look. She had that touch that made something look a little extra special. She believed that anything could be fixed with a glue gun, a hammer, some duct tape, and a little ingenuity.
  1. A bad hair day, month or year could be solved by a wig, or two. Mom loved her wig and wiglets. In fact, after I told my friend Chip that she had passed, he went to her Facebook page and even though they weren’t friends,he could see her profile photos, he said this:

I cracked up as I scrolled through her page and every photo, photo after photo after photo was a new hairstyle.  I just thought, a southern Steel Magnolia she surely was. “ when I informed him they were wigs he said Well, I wondered how it went from long to short to almost pixie and back to long again! The thing is, I never could figure out what was a wig and what was her real hair sometimes!

      5) Never leave the house with makeup and always wear lipstick because you never know who you might run into. She’s absolutely right.  Everytime I leave the house without makeup, I run into a student or a parent and whenever I fail to wear lipstick to work, at least one of my students will ask “Mrs. Clark, are you feeling ok?” and I swear, I can  always hear my mom laughing at me.

And finally, number 6 and maybe the most important:

6) Life is always better with a little sparkle.  Mom loved anything that sparked, twinkled, glittered or flashed.  She was always impeccably dressed down to her jewelry. She didn’t believe in the ‘take one piece of jewelry off “ rule before you left the house. Chances are, she added one! But that was mama, and it all worked. I would look ridiculous, but mom had a sense of style that was just her.  I’m sure everyone has heard the saying “She leaves a little glitter wherever she goes. “ Well, that was true of mom, and I know that she has left a trail of glitter for us to find her later, we’ll just have to look for it when the time comes.

I love you mom, I hope you’re having coffee with Aunt Eva and Deva, Uncle Mike,  Uncle Chris, and Grandma and Grandpa Creed and remember every now and again to throw a little glitter in my way.  

Vote

Three weeks ago I was able to visit Washington DC for the first time.  For as long as I can remember, I have loved history and for as long as I can remember, my parents have always told me that it was my duty to vote.  My parents both held local offices, my father was mayor of our small town for eight years and my mom served as an alderwoman for twelve, so voting for me was never an issue, it was, and still is, a privilege and a duty.  I think I have had a hard time putting my brief visit to DC into words mainly because I had such a short time there and because it was overwhelming.  I don’t know what I expected, but I think my history geek neurons nearly exploded.  I had such a short time there, that I knew that the one place that I needed to go was the National Archives.  I needed to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in person. Riding in the Uber towards the Archives, I caught a glimpse of the Capitol and of the Washington Monument and it nearly took my breath away.  Here were those building and monuments that I have read about, seen on television, and where some of the greatest men and women in our history have worked to create this not-so-perfect Union.  Standing in front of the Declaration and the Constitution made me want to cry. (Which to be honest, was a little embarrassing) There it was, the document that set us on a collision course with Independence and the document that eventually gave suffrage to everyone.  Don’t get me wrong, it took a while for that to happen, but it did!  Millions have died, and millions more have served, to protect our freedoms, including this precious right of ours to have a say in our democracy.  Everyone, who is eligible, should never take this for granted and should vote in every election from the school board race to the Presidential race.  Change doesn’t happen by sitting in a chair complaining. Change happens when you vote.  I voted last week.  I let my voice be heard.  Have you?

 

Weekending

We finally had a beautiful day here on the west coast of Florida yesterday.  Amanda and I took advantage and went to the local Dia de los Muertos Festival in the Village of the Arts.  Their huge shrine this year was dedicated to the the 2000 tons of sea life that has died along our coast due to red tide this year.  We also took a little tour of the galleries and in one area got mother/daughter henna, picked up some local honey from Myakka Gold Apiary (ooh, and sampled and purchased some creamed honey…so good!).

I have been itching to get to my ‘local’ yarn store, A Good Yarn, and by local, meaning a nearly 40 minutes drive in Sunday traffic.I did buy some pretty yarn for a scarf for my mother in law, but I’m not showing the yarn or the color, even though she knows I’m knitting her one, some yarn that reminded me of fall.  NO clue when or if I will get to knit it, but I liked it, so it came home with me.I then spent some time browsing Barnes and Noble, but shocker, didn’t buy a single thing! I did get some new ideas for magazines that I’d like to try.  I should have purchased them while I was there, but maybe that is the excuse I need to go back.  My nearest bookstore is a Books a Million and it just doesn’t have the same feel as a Barnes and Noble.  Is that weird? Does anyone else feel that way? Of course, my preferred bookstore would be an independent one, but those are few and far between here, which is just shocking to me.  I could go to Tampa, but that is just as far as driving into Sarasota!  While on my way home, I took a detour to St. Armands Circle and picked up hubby some macarons.  He loves them and it’s been months since I’ve picked him up any as I don’t get to our local mall to get any.  I’ve noticed that if I can’t get it delivered or I can just pick it up, I don’t get out much.  There are some benefits to that, but I think that I would risk missing out on some lovely local shops if I continue to do that

Oh! I’m knitting on the Weigh it Yowza 4 by Susan B. Anderson.  I’ve been knitting on this for over a year…well, actually, NOT knitting, but I’ve picked it back up and am determined to finish it up so I can wear it next month when we do get some cooler weather and I can wear it.  Tomorrow is back to work, but I also have a board meeting to attend in Orlando on Friday and puppy raiser day to photograph on Saturday.  Good thing we have the following Monday off in honor of Veteran’s Day.

How was your weekend?

 

Saturday Sky—Flashback edition

Thanks to Vicki over at Knitorious, I was reminded of years ago when the knitting blogging community was huge and we had several ‘things’ that we all did.  One was Ten on Tuesday and one was Saturday Sky. I participated fairly often, and today was a nice reminder of what ‘used to be’.  I miss that community sometimes. I’m sure it’s still fairly active, I’ve just been away for a long time.  Anyway, I present my Saturday Sky, which actually, isn’t a Saturday and wasn’t today . It was a Friday, a couple of weeks ago, but I liked it, so I wanted to share it with you.