We found it impossible to keep a candle lit in the cold wind behind Holy Trinity Church in Webster so we put the candles in our pocket and brought them home. We’ll probably burn ours later tonight. Our niece died twenty years ago from an infected heart and her two sisters organized a remembrance at her grave. Nicole was twelve when she died and three of her friends from back then, some with their own children now, were also there to share memories. I babysat for Nicole and her sisters on Wednesday nights for three years and I couldn’t decide which memory to share. She was so full of life and ready to go on all fronts.
Just before she got sick she asked me to paint her portrait so I said I’d bring my camera out the next Wednesday and take a photo. Nicole made a big deal of this sitting, picking the white chair on the porch as the location and wearing her favorite t-shirt and then spending over an hour in the bathroom putting on make-up. By the time she was ready to sit down it was getting dark and there was barely enough light for the film in our old Canon FTb. She died before I got around to doing the painting.
We headed back out to Webster last night for calling hours for Brad Fox’s mom. Brad flew in from Oakland, just in time for the first snow fall and the whole Mahoney family, who lived a few doors down on the same street, was there when we arrived. Brad’s mom was the sweetest person in the world. Years ago I made her a cd of old country songs and she told me how much she liked it every time I saw her. My favorite memory of her was from way back. The Who’s “Substitute”was out and Brad was singing “I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth” at the top of his lungs when his mom laid into him. “What do mean you were born with a plastic spoon?”
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