Visitors

This week my best friend visited with her daughter for a few days, which was fantastic. We celebrated my birthday (29 on the 29th!), went to the zoo and watched the hippos and a baby elephant. I'm a new fan of the hippopotamus, and appreciate the fullness of the name hippopotamus. Just say it, "Hippopotamus." Watching these beasts swim makes me glad they don't always have to walk. Whoa. The comfort of an familiar friend and the joy of a little one were just the trick (and treat) this week.

My brother and sister-in-law and niece arrived today and will be here for a week. Sitting around the house this afternoon, watching my niece walk for the first time, it hit me that mom was missing. We are in this new phase of family--the grown up phase--we've entered the next generation and the floor we used to crawl around on is now where my niece plods and crawls. And mom is going to miss it. And we're going to miss her.

We're having a memorial service on Saturday at the church I grew up in. My dad is going to try to say something, and I think I will, too. I remember someone telling me once that you don't get too many chances to honor people publicly, and so I want to do that. And I think that I, more than any other human being, bear my mom's image--not only physically, but my laugh, my outgoing personality and sense of humor. So much of her is in me. People did say she was the most organized person they ever knew, though, and I know no one will deem me THAT.

But there's been a lot of planning and a lot of debating and discussing about planning. We'll have people over Saturday night and Sunday for a brunch that the neighbors and friends will make. Today we got cards from neighbors from a LONG time ago....one of them has a daughter who used to babysit my brother and me. Don't even know how these people found out. So much love, though. Such a life that was lived.