Sweet Margie

* This is Christmas Eve at Kimmie's House.

Mom is sporting her traditional Red Christmas Jacket. I love her.

*Little did she know what the next few months would bring her. A trip to Arizona, a move to Jamestown, cleaning out her house, a heart attack, and trying to hang on to life and her memory. As she came out of surgery she was as white as death felt like we were looking into her casket.

But she rallied and smiled and laughed again.

*I brought her home to Wallsburg. She was so confused and lost. I slept most nights with her because she would get up in the night and walk around.  One night I came into her room and she said to me."There is someone else living in this room. Look she likes the same things I do. She likes this beautiful gray basket. (But Mom you gave me that basket years ago). She likes the statue of a little girl on the beach holding up a seashell to her ear. (but Mom you gave me that little girl for Christmas years ago). She likes wooden shoes and she left some on the counter by the sink. (But Mom I left those there because I know you are Dutch and you love wooden shoes). Now look at this, as Mom opens the bathroom drawer, she even like the kind of toothpaste I like. (But Mom this is you).  We then crawled in bed and I began to explain to her about her life. Where she had lived and all about her family. She kept saying, " Oh thank you for helping me remember, don't stop tell me more." I love this mother of mine. I wonder what things she will have to endure?

I wonder the lessons that I need to learn.

"Now I can really understand what it means to say that the house

 where my mother has been is forever blessed."      Out of Africa