He Really Loved Her

First, Mom has decided to stay in assisted living until October 15. Then unless things change with her health she will move home. This will give us time to remodel her house and also in a month the picture will be clearer about what is up with sister and her house.

Second, as you all know every Friday we have be going to mom's house and going through things to either throw away, give to a relative, or to give to goodwill. Friday we came across this trunk that turned out to be a gold mine. Tomorrow you get pictures of treasures, today you get emotion because some of the things we found were quite touching. If you stick with me the title of the post will become very clear at the end of this post.

Besides letters from Sitting Bull to my great grandfather in the trunk there were letters from mom's students telling her what a great teacher she was and how she had impacted them. After some hurtful statements from my sister during the phone call deciding what to do about mom's move this was like a miracle drug to change Mom's emotions from sad to happy. There were also many letters from the three of us kids to mom and dad telling them what great parents they were. This was a very good timing find.

When I was in high school my brother's best friend was Ronnie H.. My brother and him were the backfield on the football team. They helped form the best team that our high school had in years. The paper referred to them as "the dynamic duo". I played but not often, I have good athletic skills but you needed great skills to play on that team. The coach was always lecturing my brother and Ronnie, "if either one of you had Bill's drive or will to win or Bill had your talent there never would be anyone to set the records you could accomplish." Of course those kind of statements didn't help me. It lead to brother and Ronnie torturing and making insane fun of me on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. So naturally I didn't think Ronnie liked me and I didn't really like him. In the trunk was a letter from Ronnie to my parents. It was when I was recovering from the car accident. It was an eye opener, here is part of it "I know Bill will recover fully. He has such strong emotional character. I've watched him in life in general and in sports competitions. He never makes a big deal of it but he always gets the job done." The kid that made a career out of making fun of me had such a good opinion of me. What an eye opener, you just never know do you?

Now about the real treasure that was in the trunk. There was a letter in it from my dad to my mom's mom telling her that mom was on the train heading home and that she took the news that her dad wasn't going to live like the amazing woman he knew she was. There were also letters from my dad to my mom. Love letters. Heart piercing love letters. Emotions I never thought my dad had. Funny, warm, but most of all very romantic. Those letters left no doubt that my dad loved mom and loved her exclusively. They did bring many tears to my eyes. Many people have said I am like my dad and I always took it as a compliment, it is even more of a compliment now. Just as an example of how dad loved mom I am going to end with a proverb that dad ended some of his letters to mom with. "A great lover doesn't romance a different woman every night, a great lover romances one woman for a lifetime." Then dad would had "you are that woman for me." How romantic is that?

Tomorrow you get pictures. May this be a romantic day for all of you.