I started a new job this past week and my life has been so busy I haven't had much time to blog. I'm working on a piece now about Sponsorship that I'll post by the end of the week, but until then, I wanted to share a blog I posted a few years ago when I discovered Kelly Corrigan, an amazing writer who hails from my home town of Wayne, PA. You know you are real writer, when discovering a new one gets you so excited!
I'm one of those people that gets super excited when I discover a new writer. Like you know when you find $10 in your jeans pocket from last week excited? Or when you realize the SEPTA train conductor didn't come and punch your fare ticket excited? Or when you find a $300 handbag for $75 at TJ Maxx excited? Or when you come home from work and your husband has made dinner for you excited? (well, no that rarely happens), but, no, my writer excitement is better than any of that. My writer excitement is like getting a big refund from the IRS excitement (which by the way hasn't happened to me EVER - I'm a horrible money manager!)
Anywho, I'm mid-way through my latest writer discovery book of "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan. Kelly hails from Radnor, PA - even better - a local! Ironically I was turned on to Kelly by my 18 year old niece Katie who sent me a snippet of Kelly from YouTube where she had read her piece Transcending Words on Women and Strength - circa Dec 2008. I started crying when I listened to her share the story she wrote. She stared out speaking about her Mom and her Mom's group of friends called "The Pigeons" and how they'd summer in Avalon, drink their Chardonnay, play bridge and tennis and vowed they were friends for life. It reminded me of my Mom and her "Golden Girls" group of friends. That's what we (my brother, sister and me) called my Mom's friends. A bunch of divorced women who were as tight knit as a Fair Isle sweater. It made me cry so much I had to stop listening to it. Its taken me a week to go back and google Kelly's YouTube snippet again and I finally listened to it from start to finish. I still cried. It made me want to call Kelly, light a cigarette and gab with her about my Mom's group of friends and how amazing they are, and how they too had a shore house every summer in Avalon for 20 years, and how they too played Bridge every other Tuesday evening and tennis on the weekends .... and I wanted to tell her how much I miss my Mom and how much I wish I could have 10 more minutes with her - as I remember her. I'd tell her what an amazing Mom she was to us and how I'm forever in her debt for all she taught me and tell her how I think of her every day and how when I look at pictures of her I realize how beautiful she is.
The past couple of weeks have been challenging with Mom's sharp decline. It happened so quickly and so suddenly that there was no time to tell her, not that she would have understood, but at least she knew who I was 3 weeks ago. Today she is living in slow motion and barely surviving. She needs assistance with all everyday functions; eating, walking, speaking..and yes even smiling. I read an article today on Yahoo that said Dementia is going to triple by 2050, I can only hope that God spares me from the disease, as living through it now with Mom is hard enough, I can't imagine having a repeat performance in the years to come. All I know is I miss my Mom and nothing can take that pain away...not even finding a new and amazing writer, but it sure eases the pain. Thank You Kelly.
This original post was written in May 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment