HELEN

In the many years that I knew her, she never once uttered an unkind word to me. In fact, I can’t recall her ever uttering any unkind words to anyone. The worst thing she ever said to anyone was to the one she loved, her Jim: “Go shit in your hat.” She uttered that enough times for her daughter to pick up on it and tell her husband the same thing.

She was part of the greatest generation, and her participating in it made it great. She was not a woman of leisure, but a woman who was never on time. She laughed and loved to hear stories or jokes I told her. She was a very intelligent woman with a child like innocence. She was a wonderful grandmother, and a great Mother-in-law. Yes, she was my Mother-in-law, and I miss her. I could have written about her on her birthday, but I would not have had the right attitude, or on the anniversary of her death, but I wouldn’t have had the emotional stability or heart.

She loved to tell stories about when she was young, riding in her father’s Pon tiac as she pronounced it, how he would never let anyone ever pass him, or how some incident occurred in her childhood, as she was relating it digressed into how she loved Superman Comic Books, and then after a half hour of that, back to her story.

TLW (The Little Woman) was her daughter, one of four children, bright, and successful in their own way, none were ever anything but. TLW related how she would get down in the dirt to play with her children, and raised them up to her high level.

She loved my children, always giving them all the attention and then some, every time she went to a store, she had to buy her grandchildren a toy, or she wasn’t Grandma. She catered to her Jim and loved him dearly, and he loved her.

She looked like Hyacinth Bucket or Edith Bunker, even sounded like her at times, and I’m sure poor Jim in some of his exasperations felt like Archie. She was a modest and unpretentious as one can get, had friends all over the place, a real chatterbox and I loved to hear her.

All her children are very serious, very business like, except for her oldest daughter; Maureen (blog to come) and sometimes I wonder how she never rubbed off on them in her laughter and spirit. But she did rub off on them in her decency, self-respect, and affording one comfort in her presence.

Although I miss you Helen, I haven’t let you go.