Tag: siblings

Closure

I had a short day at work and took the scenic route to have lunch with myself. Pouring rain made the landscape of azaleas blooming that much brighter. It was Closure Day. I needed some calm.

I headed to Sedro-Woolley and stopped for coffee at the Woolley Market before heading to the bank to get cashiers checks. The bank ladies reminisced about my mom. “Sweet”. “Sassy”. “Funny”. I told them how much she had loved them. I always thought it was silly that she loved the bank ladies but they really are all so nice.

Say what you will about Wells Fargo as a corporation, each person I’ve dealt with in their entire system has been truly kind and compassionate with maybe one or two minor exceptions.

Next stop was The Flower Shop where I selected a big pink bouquet.

I showed the flower lady my art – the rendered photo of her shop that I have available in my Etsy store. https://etsy.me/2GibjAc. She loved it!

I drove out to the cemetery and told her I had finished everything. I had followed all the rules and kept all the records.

We closed THE ESTATE. Fitting it would be on National Siblings Day. I met with my siblings at our brother’s business and signed our releases and collected our Residual.

I drove to the law office and dropped off the final paperwork and went on the ultimate scenic, one my mom and I had done umpteen times.. through the tulip fields all over West Mt Vernon. I drove past my first full time job – Food Services Inc. it looks the same. My mom loved it when I worked there 35 years ago. She baked and spoiled the warehouse guys and truck drivers and so did I.

I tiptoed through the tulips .. the mud and muck .. so much stunning beauty. I stopped a million times. I talked to the cows. I declared to the Lord how absolutely beautiful his creations are. Oh my gosh he is the most amazing artist!

I stopped at the nursery and came so close to buying a camelia! That was my moms aunts name – one no one had ever met because she died at the mental hospital in the 1930s – of tuberculosis- where she was housed for having epilepsy. My mom got epilepsy in the past decade and I will definitely get a camelia in the near future. The petals will make the most amazing paint strokes!

I finished up with a stop at Tulip Town where they had Locals Night! Hadn’t been there in many years so this was a lovely surprise! Art and flowers galore!

I headed home and went out to dinner with my ever patient husband to recap my day. I am truly blessed and thankful for a bit of Closure.

©Belindabotzong2019

Happy Birthday- Belated again

I remember when my mom brought him home from the hospital. I don’t remember realizing she was having a baby or that we were getting a new sibling. I was only five. My older brother was ten. The twins were two. Robert turned to Robbie turned to Bob and we all loved him, fought with him, cracked up laughing with him, and cried for him when he left us at the age of 28 – killed in a horrific accident.

Yesterday was his 50th birthday and I wonder how he would look now. Those steel gray eyes. That boisterous laugh. That propensity for teasing. His love for Christ. And most of all how he would have dealt with raising a beautiful daughter who wasn’t born yet when he left us. How he would have lived with a wife who developed early onset Alzheimer’s. How he would have been Uncle Bobby to my children still, not a wisp of their early childhood memories.

We would have thrown him a party he hated. We would have taken photos – he hated that too. We would have had hugs and funny stories and laughed til we cried again.

But for his birthday this year he has been reunited with our mom. He’s been hanging out with our dad and grandparents. He didn’t suffer when he died. He didn’t have to suffer with us the past five months since our mom went to join him. I bet they were sure glad to see each other. And knowing they are together in the presence of Jesus is the best birthday present.

Happy 50th birthday little brother.

©Belindabotzong2019