5 years

Did you know that Rosemary...

• referred to herself as "The Imelda Marcos of Birkenstocks"
• Loved t-shirts that had a message, all dogs (but preferred the big ones), buying bath products that she would never use, stale Peeps, the Muppets, and tomato and onion sandwiches
• was in the color guard in high school and carried the American flag. She also graduated 3rd in her class from Hacketstown High School in Hacketstown, New Jersey
• Graduated from Bucknell with a major in Spanish. She was in a sorority. She was originally going to major in math, but her grades in that subject (and child psychology and American Government) were lacking. She proceeded to be a 3rd grade teacher and then to work for the government and have a child.
• had a thing for Sam Elliot. Her favorite movies were Wuthering Heights and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
• introduced her younger siblings to Joan Baez, Peter Paul and Mary, Leontyne Price, Africa and more.
• as a teenager rescued her first animal...a goose she named Henrietta. At an early age, her and her cousin Diane conspired to become veterinarians, although women were not encouraged to do that sort of thing back then.
• was a pretty good bowler, and considered it a family sport.
  
• enjoyed jigsaw puzzles, researching her Polish ancestry, going to Reno to play the slots with her mother (they always won), using the "f" word, and fresh cut flowers
• called her brother John, "Juano" and her daughter Bec "Kidlet". She also enjoyed naming her foster puppies after people she knew.
• hated peas and hated flying. she would fly, but only for special occasions. she would not eat peas, ever.
• would make cioppino every year for her family at Christmas.
  
• Cried when wacthing ice skating on TV.
• Thrived at party planning. For birthdays she would make pinatas. she would make pins, stickers or even t-shirts with embarrassing pictures of the honoree on them. every easter she wore bunny ears. she made bec's childhood halloween costumes by hand.
• went to Baja to pet baby gray whales from a zodiac boat.
• always left an open invitation for any of Bec's friends who might not have a place to spend the holidays, whether she knew them or not. eventually, she knew them all.
• had reall REALLY great legs.

The above was written by family for mom's memorial service. i just did quite a bit of digging through our storage to find it. it stays hidden in the "sad box", or at least it has for the last 4 and a half years.
tomorrow it will be 5 years ago that she died. i could write about it for days and in the end have no more insight than i did when i started. i miss her. i thank her. i am pissed at her for dying. but mostly, i miss and thank.









and here is a postcard from the nugget in Reno. we had taken our pics on one of those photo sticker booths and put our heads on the bathingsuit models. and i think my head is on a dude. we laughed so hard that it hurt. that is truly what i miss the most about my mom. she made me. she made my sense of humor. and she knew the most efficient ways to induce tears through joy. ugh, the missing and the thanking. it never stops.