(Pt I is here; Café version, C99% version); Pt II is here: (Café version; C99% version)

Part III

I’d been building balconies for faux-Tyrolean apartments in Breckenridge, Colorado, and once they were finished, my now-husband, our dog Lincoln and I embarked on a hitch-hiking odyssey.  We first headed to Poland, Ohio to visit my mother, and to and ‘do something’ with my dad’s cremated remains.  No one seemed to want to touch them; God knows why.

We drove to our old stomping-grounds near Kent; Twin Lakes really, walked to his favorite golf hole, and sprinkled his ashes and bone fragments at the edge of the fairway.  Looking up, a huge, smiling papa-face filled my sky-mind; I imagined everyone could see his radiant smile as it seemed to fill the sky.  Bye, pop; God, I love you.  I do so wish you hadn’t been the sole child of such rotten parents; how different your life would have been.

(Pt. I is here; Café version, C99% version)

Part II:

I went to visit my mother in the St. Joseph’s mental ward as often as I could, and met most of her fellow inmates in the commons area.  Lady had taken on the informal role of ‘social worker’, a job she’d had for the county for a few years in Ohio.

Occupational therapy was the clay-ashtrays, potholders and leather-craft sort, and my mum wanted to make me some moccasins, much more preferable to a popsicle-stick jewelry box.  We decided on the size, and over a couple weeks she finished them.  They were the Tandy Leather Kit kind, remember them?  Split-leather suede that tied just below the ankle, with three inches of machine-cut fringe around the collar; no hard sole, just the same suede—you could curl your toes in them.  They were grand and pathetic all at once, and I loved them!  And as it turned out, useful.

(a Sunday vignette reprise from 2013)

“Mama!  Maaa-ma!” he cried from the kids’ dark bedroom.  I went to him; he was curled up on his knees on the top bunk bed, his face streaming tears.

“Hey, Jobie…what’s going on?  I’m here…it’s mama; are you awake?”  I reached up for him so that he could feel the weight of my hands, and know I was there.  His eyes and the tears on his cheeks caught the bits of light coming through the door.