winning women

I am a bit more introspective than usual during the fall season. Maybe it's just the all too sudden change over in nature and the weather or just a gasp of relief that comes after the bustle and rush of the end of summer back to school thrust, but other incidents have a strong bearing on it as well. My mom has her birthday on October 12th. She passed away early in 2004 and I have some difficulty in commemorating her birthday in silence and solitude. I received a phone call several weeks ago from a cousin who I haven't seen nor talked to since I was a very young teen. She had a couple of folders of family photos that she wanted me to have and after catching up on each other's lives, she sent them to me. It had several photos of my mom when she was a little girl and a young woman, photos that I'd never seen before and at an era of her life I'd never known, whether through stories or pictures. She never shared much of her life with us and, with her passing on, she remains in many ways a mystery to me. My mother was beautiful and was considered a real "looker" in her teens and kept her youthful beauty through her life. Honestly, my mom is about 14 years of age in this photo even though she appears to be a mature early twenties.



Cheryl and I officially got together on October 11th of 2004, the day before mom's birthday and about eight months after her death. It seems fitting to have met the woman who would become my wife on this anniversary. I'm often sad that they never got to meet. I know my mom would have approved of Cheryl and would have gotten along well with her. Cheryl is extremely talented and handy with crafts, especially knitting and sewing, and sometimes when she is busy about her latest project I recall similar memories from when I was a child. My mother and sisters would on occasion go to the fabric store and buy material, patterns and the such, and the home would be buzzing with craft activities that I had a minor fascination with but little other interest in. The other day, after Cheryl had gone shopping to buy buttons for her new sweater, she was showing them to me and asking my opinion of them. It reminded me of being a young boy, hanging out with mom and my sisters, sifting through the tin of buttons they had, looking at the variety of colors and shapes there were. It had an odd attraction to me and probably fostered an unusual love of collecting random things. I guess my mother is partly to blame if I came home with junk to showcase in odd, random nooks about my room.

Over the past two weeks the Big E - the Eastern States Exposition - was in town. It's also an odd assortment of sideshows with unusual attractions, tchachkas, midway fare and all of the rich, deep fried food you can eat, centered around 4 H club exhibits, breeding competitions (no, not that kind - we're talking dogs, cows, horses, llamas, pigs, sheep, etc....), butter sculptures, gigantic squashes and entertaining acts. Cheryl entered several items in the Big E fiber competition and came home with three ribbons. She should have won more. She's that good. I think my mother would have beamed with admiration and pride for her daughter in law. I know she would have been impressed with her talents and abilities to create and knit so well. Maybe sewing would have been at least one area they had in common and could have talked much about.