Memories...I've got to start writing these down.

This week I started my photo organization quest. I set up a table in the family room and took EVERYTHING out of my photo/craft armoire. I sorted it by like item and got my scrapbooking and craft items weeded out, sorted, and put away in an orderly fashion. That left only photos to go through, however that is a big ONLY! I decided I would organize them into categories by member of the family, vacations, holidays and by Mike's extended family and my extended family. All I can say at this point is "Oh, my!" These are just the photos up to the digital camera point in my life. Ughh! While looking at these photos, so many memories come to mind and I do recall saying at one point that I need to really write some of the things down that my mother recalls so there's no time to start like the present. I will jot down a few things she has discussed recently while visiting her there. Last Saturday I stopped in and, as so often is the case, my brother came into the conversation. She recalled so vividly the time of his birth and told me of the trip home from the hospital. Jim was born in Forest City as there was no hospital in Britt until the summer of 1953. Mom sat in the car and the nurse placed Jim into her arms. Dad drove down the street and then stopped the car. He said, "Can you drive home? I just want to hold him." Back in that day, the fathers were not allowed to hold their own child while in the hospital which seems so odd to the way we think today. Mom said she would never forget Dad walking around the car and switching seats with her so that he could hold his newborn son and the look of joy on his face. From this point in her conversation, she jumped to the point in time when I was brought home from the hospital. That was another time that she recalls fondly. Dad came with my three siblings all sitting in the back of the '62 Oldsmobile Starfire. Mom climbed into the car and the nurse placed me in her arms. Much to my mom's surprise, my brother, Jim, was the first to lean forward and look at me. She can will never forget the way he asked, "Can I touch her?" and the way he reached up to stroke my cheek. That was the beginning of a lifetime of unconditional love that my brother shared with me and with his family. I hope and pray that everyone has that experience to be loved like that -- to just be loved for who you are, to not have to do anything to earn it and to never doubt that that person loves you. We went on with the subject of hospitals and the "rules" they used to have regarding visitors. She told of a time when Jim was very little and she was in the hospital, probably after giving birth to Deb, and Jim stood at the bottom of the stairs and said, "Mommy, can't you just come down here and see me?" but she could not -- hospital rules. I also had the same kind of experience when she was in the hospital in Britt. No one under the age of 14 could visit a patient at that time. Mom had been in the hospital a long time as she had hemorrhaged after a surgery. One evening one of the nurse's aides walked her to the doorway at the top of the stairs and I stood at the foot of the stairs to talk to her. I remember begging her to come home because Grandma just wasn't the like Mom. What a turnaround times have undergone -- not only do we let patient's children visit them but even their pets can come to visit if they provide their proof of shots and are on a leash. It's really quite weird to think that children would bring in disease but that the nurses and doctors could sit at the nurse's station and smoke until the air was blue. Oh, times don't they change! My mother's mother had a stroke around the time my mother found out she was pregnant with me (no, the shock of my mother being pregnant did not give her a stroke!). She remained in the hospital for therapy for a little over a year -- can you imagine that happening today?!? I was born in December and the following May my mother and I flew to Illinois. My aunts and my mother tried to get permission from the doctors for them to bring me in to visit my grandma so she could see me for the first time. Request denied. They managed to find some sympathetic nurses who helped them sneak me in to see her for a quick visit. My mom and her sisters -- regular rule-breakers! Well, that's a start for my mom's memories. I will try to jot down some more things that she speaks of as they arise. I would, more than anything, love to get memories out of my dad but he speaks so infrequently and it is so difficult to get him started. When he does tell of his past it really is fascinating because the stories aren't familiar since he doesn't tell of them often. I will have to see what I can do to get him to open up a little.