Memoir Monday ~ Love, Loss, the Phone Call, the Goodbye and the Guardian Angel

Welcome, friends, to my corner of the web today!

You're just in time for another Memoir Monday...please join us!

I'd be honored if you linked your stories as well.....

This post contains a little info on the "details" of the hop, 

if you'd like to click over....

                                                     

Also, if you'd care to dust off a piece of memoir

 from the archives, you can click here.

 The post contains a list of previous memoir reflection links.

When you link up, I'd simply ask 
that you grab my button for your post or  sidebar 
or that you link in your post to my blog.
Thank you!

This past Saturday morning, I was so lucky to get involved in 
an ongoing monthly writing workshop at a local library. 

I met the writing teacher/director during a workshop she offered at my library a few summers ago and I took her course a couple of times. 

I love her engaging. insightful style of critique and her ability to develop a community of trusting writers who share openly within the group.

Although I will have to depart her class early each month due to my little guy's baseball game which conflicts, I am so happy to be a part and I know I'll learn much.

Our writing teacher, A, provided for us a smattering of items off of 

which we were to write.

Anything that flows.

In any genre.

Also, this Anais Nin pearl, which I am happy to include here:

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically.
We grow sometimes in one dimension and not in another, evenly.
We grow partially.
We are relative.
We are mature in one realm, childish in another.
The past, present and future mingle and pull us 
backward, forward, or fix us in the present.
We are made up of layers, cells, constellations."

Among the items, everyday household things,
 there was one "spark," which caught me.
It was a pin. A birthstone guardian angel.
You know, one of those cute
angel-on-my-shoulder pins.

And so, with the inspiration of the quote above and the angel,
 I reflected:

So many.

Some speak to me with depth.

Some with fluff.

Some: recent memories, propelling me to the past.

Others: new, current.

The guardian angel pin and the gift shop at  
 South Dakota's famed Black Hills Passion Play.

Summer '93.
And the first time the play had ever, ever been cancelled due to weather.
A monsoon, actually.
Or so it seemed.

The night before we called home and discovered that Dad 
had actually, finally let go.

I saw it there... on the rack.

Bought one for Mom, of course.

Golden with amethyst birthstone for her February birthday.

P. knew I liked it ~ offered to get me one.

I declined.

Don't know why. Still don't.

But,  in the morning before calling home for Tee's July birthday, 
he, on his daily run,  left the campground, 
detouring for the gift shop and picked one up for me.

The one with the aquamarine stone decorating it.

For my March birthday.

And there's more.

so much  more....

The details of being gifted the angel are sketchy in the haze that followed.

For, at the time of our call home,
 we were deep into the barren 

but breathtaking beauty of  glacial, rugged Montana. 

A pre-internet search of airports, flight schedules from 

Kalispell to Salt Lake to Kennedy.

A quick tear-y pack up.
No, more a rushed, hysterical 
how-am-I-going-to-get-there-on-my-own
-I-can't-believe-Dad- is-really-gone- 
will- I-ever- be-not-be-sad- these
three-grueling-years-and-now-this
pack up.

Goodbyes to P who'd drive the battered grey two door Escort
 east toward home and would hopefully arrive from
 two-thirds of the way across the country 
alone 
and within three days,
for the funeral.

Love, loss, a rush, a flight, a goodbye.

And then the biggest goodbye.

And one hard summer twenty years ago.

It's your turn, now, friends....
...to link your stories, your reflections.
The short stream of consciousness was written in
 twenty five minutes on  my Dad's passing, 
which I have never written on at all in twenty years. 
It needs, well, maybe not detail, but expanding, if only for my own sake.
At some point, but not now.

Thank you for stopping in, friends.

Until next time,

~Chris


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