Thanks for all of your support, thoughts and prayers gang. The boxes full of memorabilia that I packed up and sent from a FedEx shipping center in Bloomington last Monday showed up this week. Just starting to go through stuff.
There is a 30" tall statue of St. Francis, for instance, that none of my brothers wanted, and the Trophy wife started becoming a "fan of Fran", as one of her favorite poems is the Prayer to St. Francis. I've got it already polyurethaned for weather, and he is going to live out in one of the gardens, next to the bird bath, home to many Montana birds, ranging from colorful Western Tanagers, Bohemian Waxwings, Stellar Jays and the more common Nuthatches, Mountain Chickadees and Robins. A perfect home for Fran.
My Mom crocheted ever since I was little. I sent things home ranging from table runners to shawls to couch throws (she also had created and gave multiples of these to each one of us at Christmas over the years. Examining the intricacies of each, it was amazing the countless hours she put into these pieces, not to mention hand-made quilts.
I sent the Trophy wife home a day early last Sunday morning, as she caught a flight home (she had to work Monday), and I stayed in Minneapolis, because the burial at Ft. Snelling had to wait until we could get scheduled at Ft. Snelling Monday afternoon. So after dropping her off, I got a wild hair and went to my first Twins game in probably over 45 years, my first at Target Field. Thought of my Dad often, because he would take us brothers to the old Met Stadium, where I remember seeing Harmon Killebrew hit many towering home runs, along with Tony Oliva's 100th career homer, plus Mickey Mantle, Boog Powell, Al Kaline and more hit homers. That was the game that Brian Dozier hit a walk off Grand Slam in the bottom of the 10th. A good game to get a seat 9 rows behind home plate. More irony? I sat next to a couple from Tennessee who were driving Northwest, taking in MLB games, and their ultimate destination was my backyard...Glacier National Park. So I gave them all kinds of tips on where to go hiking, what to see, where to eat, etc.
One of the many positive outcomes of my Mom's passing was the time that my brothers and I had together. I have one that lives near New Ulm, and he took care of most of Mom's affairs the last few years. Another in Milwaukee, and another in Sacramento...and me out here. We spent hours just talking, going through stuff, trying to connect the dots on some family members, visiting with sisters-in-law and nieces/nephews, cousins, aunts/uncles and neighbors and family friends.
True story: One fellow came to the house Saturday evening, as we had boxes of stuff assembled in the Living room earmarked for the Estate Sale. Turned out he was Mom's dentist, who was my dentist in high school and early college before moving out of Minnesota to Michigan's UP for schooling. I had just told the Trophy Wife about a story earlier that day, that I shared with him. I was in the chair at his office, and he was doing a root canal on me (I was probably 19), and he had this gorgeous blonde dental assistant. He kept asking for longer somethings (drill heads?), I remember a 70, an 80 a 90...and finally this gorgeous blonde blurted out "are all your appendages this long?" LOL. He laughed his ass off and he recalled exactly which one of his dental assistants it was.
Ahhh...going home for the last time. A trip down memory lane. Thanks Mom.
