All my life I had heard the advise of "Buy land and you will never go wrong". So that's what I did when we made our money with the motels and sold out to move to California. We put all our cash into buying the ranches, going at that time for about $14,000 to $15,000 an acre. We put 35% down and payments on the rest. We also spent approx. $1,000 an acre on upgrading the properties, either with a new home, or remodeling an old one, or new pumps and drip systems for the irrigaton.
At that time, raisins were selling for $1,200 a ton and a good farm would get from 2 to 3 ton per acre. It cost approx. $1,100 per acre to grow and pick the crop, leaving a good healthy profit for the farmer even after paying his mortgage and taxes.
But, and it's a huge 'BUT', the money was so good, farmers who beforehand had sold their grapes either fresh or the wineries, turned their grapes into raisins. Suddely there was a glut on the market, far more raisins were produced than sold and the amount left in reserve increased every year, driving down the price the farmer got for his raisins, and obviously driving down the price of the vineyards themselves.
The problem we had was we were suddenly under water with our mortgage and no profit to pay the payments with. The mistake I made was buying at peak market prices and not waiting for prices to settle down. I understand that a large number of people got into the same problem recently as a result of the crash in the housing market.
So here we were in 1984 struggling to have enough money to make the crop and not enough money to pay the mortgages. Our ranches bought at the high prices, now would bring $5,500 or less an acre. It as good as wiped us out and we had to turn our vineyards back to the lenders.
My brother Bill was making good money at that time, and he and Frances went into partnership with us on buying 100 acres in Caruthers. The ranch had been lost by the owner in the same way we had lost ours, and we bought his place at the distress sale from the lenders. Most of you will remember our ranch on Nebraksa Ave. It had a very nice 3 years old house, plus a couple of other houses that we rented out.
The excess cash was gone, but thanks for Bill and Frances, we could now start at the bottom again and have a chane at the vineyard business.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Grandpa back
Hello. I have been gone for so long I feel we need to get acquainted again. My name is Richard (Dick) Topper, married to Margaret Topper. We are now living in Apache Junction, Ariz. We moved here just over six months ago.
We were out of touch this last year as a result of some medical problems involving Margaret. She was incapacitated, and I am not aware of your knowledge of her past health problems so I will bring you up to date.
Margaret had a radical hysterectomy in 1976 (after an appendectomy and removal of a cyst from an ovary in 1959) when we were living in Mt. Vernon Illinois. It was successful and she went twenty odd years before suffering a mild stroke in 1998 in Eldorado Springs, Mo, resulting in a minor droop of her right eye and mouth.
Spring of /99 she developed a problem of severe leg pains if she walked over 150-200 feet and after 'beaucoup' number of tests, including an angeagram they discovered four heart blockages and three leg blockages. Seven stents were installed over a few surgeries.
Her next angeagram was in Oklahoma in July '07, where they discovered two of the stents were damaged. These were replaced and two more stents put in her heart. A total of nine stents (Margaret says a cardiologist asked her once if she collected them!!!).
Things went along with no problems until late July last year, when she was given a routine angiagram to see how her stents were doing and while everything looked good there, her cardiologist noticed a possible problem in her right lung - a small (approx. 1/4 inch) nodule. They ran tests and a biopsy (including a PET scan to determine if there was cancer anywhere else) and several options were discussed. Chemo, radiation, or the removal of the top lobe in the right lung (approx. 1/2 of the lung in size). We decided on the latter and this was done in October. The operation went smoothly and everything appeared fine and Margaret was ready to come home, but she suddenly developed a heart problem. She was in the intensive cardiac care unit and was being monitored 24/7. Suddenly her heart rate started surging up and dropping down, twice it stopped completely and had to be restarted. They then put in a pacemaker before she could come home.
The doctors had told her that she would need a minimum recovery period of six to eight weeks and I got a rare chance to play housekeeper, cooking, laundry and misc. helper for a few weeks. I don't think I did that well, but Margaret says I did. She's too nice at times!
While we're on the subject of health, I am going to write about the old man (me) and his health. He was very lucky (and I thank the good Lord for it). I had no serious problems until 1991 (showed up on our 25th Anniversary trip to Europe). Margaret made it fine, but I could not walk any distances without stopping and resting. In Switzerland, we had taken a series of chair lifts to reach one of the highest peaks, almost 15,000 ft. I had problem breathing and couldn't walk more than 30 feet without getting dizzy. I would have to sit down and breathe deeply to cope. On our return, I didn't start to feel normal until we were down to about 2,500 ft.
After returning to the States, I felt pretty good but a few months later, we went up to Shaver Lake (approx. 5,000 ft) and there I experienced similar problems. So 'hello doctor' and I had my first cardiologist. He came up with congestive heart failure (a diagnosis at that time which was lucky to have a five year life span). This is when I put Margaret in charge of all our businesses, everything about the operation of the motels, and all the legal and accounting for the farms. I myself did nothing but check on the farming operation. We were farming 140 acres and had one full time worker and a supervisor who farmed his own 120 acres and oversaw ours.
The next problem occurred about a year later. I was having severe chest pains and Margaret took me into emergency. It was a gall bladder problem, but they had to delay the surgery because my pancreas had a severe problem with exceptionally high readings and they wouldn't operate until they got it under constrol. I was in intensive care for over a week, fed intraveneously and heavily doped. I was not allowed to consume any water, not even enough to just moisten my mouth. It was a rough week.aty
Finally the pancreas healed and they went ahead with the surgery. This was late on the Saturday evening (about 11pm) and the next thing I knew was about 5.30 the next morning and I was on life support, and surrounded by doctors and nurses. They were inserting a hose down my throat into my lungs and blew water out of them. I actually remember seeing the water spewing out. Another five days in intensive care and it took about eight weeks of recovery at home (on oxygen most of the time).
Things went along fine for about a year and Margaret and I took a trip to Northern California and Oregon. I had not felt good the whole trip and things got worse after we got home. Margaet took me to emergency and I was checked into Fresno Community Hospital, this time with diabetes. I spent the weekend there taking insulin and learning about being a diabetic and how to treat it. I had lots of company that weekend as every nurse had to come and see the man who had walked into the hospital with a blood sugar count of over 1,000. You're supposed to be comotose at 600!
Margaret has been a big help on my life as a diabetic. Watching what I eat and cooking everything without sugar. I was also able to lose over 100 lb. and after about three years, had the numbers under control enough that I was able to go off insulin for about 8 years, when age caught up with me and the pancreas was not working as efficiently again. The weight loss also had the added benefit of taking the strain off my heart, so I was no longer diagnosed with congestive heart failure and the abnormal size of my heart had gone down to normal.
2007 I started having the problem with my left hip. I was 76 at this time and Margaret tells me I didn't help matters by falling off the top of the ladder at 75 while building our spec house!. It was decided to give me a new hip, but since I had an irregular heart beat which had a tendency to 'pause', they wouldn't do the surgery without putting a pacemaker in first. Both operations were done that summer. The hip surgery was supposed to take about two hours, but because of the twist in my body (results of my meeting a freight train with my car back in 1950), it took three attempts with three different hips for a total of five hours before the job was done. Recovery was somewhat painful and they were not able to do some of the therapies they wanted because of my back problem, but even with that I feel I recovered well. But it wasn't long after this that I was feeling pretty bad again - mostly from stamina. Margaret was concerned about me, I had no energy and according to her, no 'light' in my eyes and did not have a healthy color. But we didn't do anything about it, but on a routine visit to our doctor and having routing blood work, they called and said I had a severe kidney problem, immmediately put me on some heavy duty medicine and I had to go in every day and draw new blood until they got the potassium level down where it was supposed to be. I guess we should have been checking this sooner, as the doctor did tell us that I was dangerously close to having heart failure from too much potassium. Another specialist now (nethrologist) and my kidney function was less than half of what it should have been for a man of my age. He warned me to not have any blood drawn from my left arm, as he wanted to keep the arteries clear in case he needed to put me on dialysis in the near future. My numbers at that time were in the high 2o's and 17 means you go on dialysis. A change in medicine, another diet challenge for Margaret and I, and slowly but surely we got the numbers back up, so that now I am in the high 40's - only about 20% less than what a healthy 82 years old would be.
I began to feel better, people said the color was back in my face and I had some life back in my eyes. But the energy never returned. I could still do some things around the house, but had to do everything sitting down and even with that would have to rest a lot (even raking leaves in front of the house).
I could no longer play golf and our financials were deteriorating and we were beginning to think that we would be better off closer to California and family where we could visit occasionally and hopefully have people visit us. We had little or no visits during our years in the Midwest. We made the move to Arizona, and Margaret literally had to do all the packing and moving. I was not able to lift the boxes.
We found new doctors and specialist quite quickly and the new cardiologist felt that my lack of stamina was possibly caused by blockages. My history of diabetes and smoking pointed to that directly, so he gave me an angeagram and was amazed to see how clean the arteries were. He then said it had to be my lungs - after all I was a smoker for over 55 years and a heavy smoker at that. We got a great pulmonolist (he's Margaret's now) and after full testing, he announced that I had the lungs of an 18 year old, adding that I needed to push the cardiologist as the problems was obviously there.
But in the meantime my GP kept pushing me to go on oxygen as my blood oxygen numbers were always too low. Stubborn as ever, I kept stating I didn't need it because the pulmonolisist said my lungs were great, but when I got to the point of having trouble walking across the room (!) I allowed Margaret to take me into the emergency. One look at the 73% oxygen, I was literally whisked into a room, hooked up to monitors and surrounded by nurses and dctors. I spent three days in the hospital and came out using oxygen on a 24/7 basis. We had problems there through - they asked the question, did you smoke, and how long and how much and declared that my lungs were bad and proceeded to give me breathing treatments every few hours. Margaret fought with them, pointing out what Parides had said (our pulmonoligist has won the award as top doctor for many years in the Phoenix area), but it wasn't until the last day that they pulled in their own pulmonologist and did their own testing. Guess what! Great lungs, the problem had to be the heart. We changed cardiologists and found out from him that the first one had actually missed something on the angeagram that might have saved us some time on the PAH diagnosis, but we did end up with a specialist cardiologist who confirmed that this was the problem and started a program of recovery. Pulmonary Aterial Hypertension, the heart doesn't supply the lungs with enough oxygen for them to do their job.
One good thing from the tests they did in this hospital trying to prove there was something wrong with the lungs, they did spot a small nodule on my right breast. More referrals, more tests and yes it was cancer, so I had a complete masectomy. Since then I have had another small unrelated cancer on the same side, but this time on the surface and closer to under my arm.
The PAH specialist has me on two 'miracle' medicines. One costs $6,000 a month and the other one $18,000 per month. Unbelievable! Thank God for insurances, Medicare and Charities, or I would not be alive today to write this story of our medical journeys. Even with all this help our combined medical bills is over $850 a month and takes a huge chunk out of our social security income. It is evident that PAH had started before we left Oklahoma and the normal life expectancy is two years. We have been old that these medicines should extend it six to eight years. Right now they have made a huge difference in the way I feel and I actually feel overall better than I have in probably 5 or 6 years. When I was first diagnosed, I would have to rest two or three times while doing my abolutions in the morning and getting dressed - not the case any more. I would literally be passing out or at best be extremely dizzy if the numbers dropped into the 70's, now I can get that low and not feel much effect. I can work much longer and with less rests and have to admit that there have been a couple of times when I have made a mistake and not hooked myself up properly to the oxygen and gone as long as 2-1/2 hours with no oxygen at all while working outside and not felt any affect.
There is no question in my mind that God's hand has been there throughout these recoveies, and I also feel fortunate in having some excellent doctors come into our lives. I'll take some credit on some things in that I do take these matters seriously and have stuck to every diet they have thrown at me. The sugar-free diet for my diabetes, the low potassium diet for my kidneys and now the diet to aid holding my blood count stable with the usage of the blood thinners, and of course thank Margaret for her efforts on this which makes it so much easier for me. But there has been a bigger hand involved in reducing the size of my heart, reducing my insulin intake to almost nothing and still holding good numbers, to be two to three weeks away from dialysis and now being told my numbers are almost normal, and to catch cancers at their earliest of stages, and now to be feeling so good with PAH. Life is good.
We were out of touch this last year as a result of some medical problems involving Margaret. She was incapacitated, and I am not aware of your knowledge of her past health problems so I will bring you up to date.
Margaret had a radical hysterectomy in 1976 (after an appendectomy and removal of a cyst from an ovary in 1959) when we were living in Mt. Vernon Illinois. It was successful and she went twenty odd years before suffering a mild stroke in 1998 in Eldorado Springs, Mo, resulting in a minor droop of her right eye and mouth.
Spring of /99 she developed a problem of severe leg pains if she walked over 150-200 feet and after 'beaucoup' number of tests, including an angeagram they discovered four heart blockages and three leg blockages. Seven stents were installed over a few surgeries.
Her next angeagram was in Oklahoma in July '07, where they discovered two of the stents were damaged. These were replaced and two more stents put in her heart. A total of nine stents (Margaret says a cardiologist asked her once if she collected them!!!).
Things went along with no problems until late July last year, when she was given a routine angiagram to see how her stents were doing and while everything looked good there, her cardiologist noticed a possible problem in her right lung - a small (approx. 1/4 inch) nodule. They ran tests and a biopsy (including a PET scan to determine if there was cancer anywhere else) and several options were discussed. Chemo, radiation, or the removal of the top lobe in the right lung (approx. 1/2 of the lung in size). We decided on the latter and this was done in October. The operation went smoothly and everything appeared fine and Margaret was ready to come home, but she suddenly developed a heart problem. She was in the intensive cardiac care unit and was being monitored 24/7. Suddenly her heart rate started surging up and dropping down, twice it stopped completely and had to be restarted. They then put in a pacemaker before she could come home.
The doctors had told her that she would need a minimum recovery period of six to eight weeks and I got a rare chance to play housekeeper, cooking, laundry and misc. helper for a few weeks. I don't think I did that well, but Margaret says I did. She's too nice at times!
While we're on the subject of health, I am going to write about the old man (me) and his health. He was very lucky (and I thank the good Lord for it). I had no serious problems until 1991 (showed up on our 25th Anniversary trip to Europe). Margaret made it fine, but I could not walk any distances without stopping and resting. In Switzerland, we had taken a series of chair lifts to reach one of the highest peaks, almost 15,000 ft. I had problem breathing and couldn't walk more than 30 feet without getting dizzy. I would have to sit down and breathe deeply to cope. On our return, I didn't start to feel normal until we were down to about 2,500 ft.
After returning to the States, I felt pretty good but a few months later, we went up to Shaver Lake (approx. 5,000 ft) and there I experienced similar problems. So 'hello doctor' and I had my first cardiologist. He came up with congestive heart failure (a diagnosis at that time which was lucky to have a five year life span). This is when I put Margaret in charge of all our businesses, everything about the operation of the motels, and all the legal and accounting for the farms. I myself did nothing but check on the farming operation. We were farming 140 acres and had one full time worker and a supervisor who farmed his own 120 acres and oversaw ours.
The next problem occurred about a year later. I was having severe chest pains and Margaret took me into emergency. It was a gall bladder problem, but they had to delay the surgery because my pancreas had a severe problem with exceptionally high readings and they wouldn't operate until they got it under constrol. I was in intensive care for over a week, fed intraveneously and heavily doped. I was not allowed to consume any water, not even enough to just moisten my mouth. It was a rough week.aty
Finally the pancreas healed and they went ahead with the surgery. This was late on the Saturday evening (about 11pm) and the next thing I knew was about 5.30 the next morning and I was on life support, and surrounded by doctors and nurses. They were inserting a hose down my throat into my lungs and blew water out of them. I actually remember seeing the water spewing out. Another five days in intensive care and it took about eight weeks of recovery at home (on oxygen most of the time).
Things went along fine for about a year and Margaret and I took a trip to Northern California and Oregon. I had not felt good the whole trip and things got worse after we got home. Margaet took me to emergency and I was checked into Fresno Community Hospital, this time with diabetes. I spent the weekend there taking insulin and learning about being a diabetic and how to treat it. I had lots of company that weekend as every nurse had to come and see the man who had walked into the hospital with a blood sugar count of over 1,000. You're supposed to be comotose at 600!
Margaret has been a big help on my life as a diabetic. Watching what I eat and cooking everything without sugar. I was also able to lose over 100 lb. and after about three years, had the numbers under control enough that I was able to go off insulin for about 8 years, when age caught up with me and the pancreas was not working as efficiently again. The weight loss also had the added benefit of taking the strain off my heart, so I was no longer diagnosed with congestive heart failure and the abnormal size of my heart had gone down to normal.
2007 I started having the problem with my left hip. I was 76 at this time and Margaret tells me I didn't help matters by falling off the top of the ladder at 75 while building our spec house!. It was decided to give me a new hip, but since I had an irregular heart beat which had a tendency to 'pause', they wouldn't do the surgery without putting a pacemaker in first. Both operations were done that summer. The hip surgery was supposed to take about two hours, but because of the twist in my body (results of my meeting a freight train with my car back in 1950), it took three attempts with three different hips for a total of five hours before the job was done. Recovery was somewhat painful and they were not able to do some of the therapies they wanted because of my back problem, but even with that I feel I recovered well. But it wasn't long after this that I was feeling pretty bad again - mostly from stamina. Margaret was concerned about me, I had no energy and according to her, no 'light' in my eyes and did not have a healthy color. But we didn't do anything about it, but on a routine visit to our doctor and having routing blood work, they called and said I had a severe kidney problem, immmediately put me on some heavy duty medicine and I had to go in every day and draw new blood until they got the potassium level down where it was supposed to be. I guess we should have been checking this sooner, as the doctor did tell us that I was dangerously close to having heart failure from too much potassium. Another specialist now (nethrologist) and my kidney function was less than half of what it should have been for a man of my age. He warned me to not have any blood drawn from my left arm, as he wanted to keep the arteries clear in case he needed to put me on dialysis in the near future. My numbers at that time were in the high 2o's and 17 means you go on dialysis. A change in medicine, another diet challenge for Margaret and I, and slowly but surely we got the numbers back up, so that now I am in the high 40's - only about 20% less than what a healthy 82 years old would be.
I began to feel better, people said the color was back in my face and I had some life back in my eyes. But the energy never returned. I could still do some things around the house, but had to do everything sitting down and even with that would have to rest a lot (even raking leaves in front of the house).
I could no longer play golf and our financials were deteriorating and we were beginning to think that we would be better off closer to California and family where we could visit occasionally and hopefully have people visit us. We had little or no visits during our years in the Midwest. We made the move to Arizona, and Margaret literally had to do all the packing and moving. I was not able to lift the boxes.
We found new doctors and specialist quite quickly and the new cardiologist felt that my lack of stamina was possibly caused by blockages. My history of diabetes and smoking pointed to that directly, so he gave me an angeagram and was amazed to see how clean the arteries were. He then said it had to be my lungs - after all I was a smoker for over 55 years and a heavy smoker at that. We got a great pulmonolist (he's Margaret's now) and after full testing, he announced that I had the lungs of an 18 year old, adding that I needed to push the cardiologist as the problems was obviously there.
But in the meantime my GP kept pushing me to go on oxygen as my blood oxygen numbers were always too low. Stubborn as ever, I kept stating I didn't need it because the pulmonolisist said my lungs were great, but when I got to the point of having trouble walking across the room (!) I allowed Margaret to take me into the emergency. One look at the 73% oxygen, I was literally whisked into a room, hooked up to monitors and surrounded by nurses and dctors. I spent three days in the hospital and came out using oxygen on a 24/7 basis. We had problems there through - they asked the question, did you smoke, and how long and how much and declared that my lungs were bad and proceeded to give me breathing treatments every few hours. Margaret fought with them, pointing out what Parides had said (our pulmonoligist has won the award as top doctor for many years in the Phoenix area), but it wasn't until the last day that they pulled in their own pulmonologist and did their own testing. Guess what! Great lungs, the problem had to be the heart. We changed cardiologists and found out from him that the first one had actually missed something on the angeagram that might have saved us some time on the PAH diagnosis, but we did end up with a specialist cardiologist who confirmed that this was the problem and started a program of recovery. Pulmonary Aterial Hypertension, the heart doesn't supply the lungs with enough oxygen for them to do their job.
One good thing from the tests they did in this hospital trying to prove there was something wrong with the lungs, they did spot a small nodule on my right breast. More referrals, more tests and yes it was cancer, so I had a complete masectomy. Since then I have had another small unrelated cancer on the same side, but this time on the surface and closer to under my arm.
The PAH specialist has me on two 'miracle' medicines. One costs $6,000 a month and the other one $18,000 per month. Unbelievable! Thank God for insurances, Medicare and Charities, or I would not be alive today to write this story of our medical journeys. Even with all this help our combined medical bills is over $850 a month and takes a huge chunk out of our social security income. It is evident that PAH had started before we left Oklahoma and the normal life expectancy is two years. We have been old that these medicines should extend it six to eight years. Right now they have made a huge difference in the way I feel and I actually feel overall better than I have in probably 5 or 6 years. When I was first diagnosed, I would have to rest two or three times while doing my abolutions in the morning and getting dressed - not the case any more. I would literally be passing out or at best be extremely dizzy if the numbers dropped into the 70's, now I can get that low and not feel much effect. I can work much longer and with less rests and have to admit that there have been a couple of times when I have made a mistake and not hooked myself up properly to the oxygen and gone as long as 2-1/2 hours with no oxygen at all while working outside and not felt any affect.
There is no question in my mind that God's hand has been there throughout these recoveies, and I also feel fortunate in having some excellent doctors come into our lives. I'll take some credit on some things in that I do take these matters seriously and have stuck to every diet they have thrown at me. The sugar-free diet for my diabetes, the low potassium diet for my kidneys and now the diet to aid holding my blood count stable with the usage of the blood thinners, and of course thank Margaret for her efforts on this which makes it so much easier for me. But there has been a bigger hand involved in reducing the size of my heart, reducing my insulin intake to almost nothing and still holding good numbers, to be two to three weeks away from dialysis and now being told my numbers are almost normal, and to catch cancers at their earliest of stages, and now to be feeling so good with PAH. Life is good.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
1984
Life continued at Yosemite Lakes Park, and Dick expanded our rear decks with their lovely mountain views.
Our involvement in the Park events grew when Dick became the President of the Golf Association. He started a series of fund raising events, like Par-Tee Time, where we took the existing golf cart storage shed and turned it into a party room and dance room. It was a great success except for someone suggesting to me that I put Corn Meal on the concrete floor to make the dancing easier. A good idea, right? Unfortunately I 'heard' Corn Starch and we danced to a cloud of white floating and getting on everyone's clothes! Ah well, the idea was good.
Another idea Dick came up with was a series of Spaghetti Dinners in the little club house. Dick and I catered the first one, and other volunteers did future ones with different variations of spaghetti. We had huge success with this and with the funds raised with the two events were able to expand the club house to its present size. I can't remember exactly how many Spaghetti dinners we had, but Dick came up with the idea of having a special dinner for those who had attended each time (free of charge to them of course). We had it in the main community club house, and Louise, niece Tricia and one other person we hired helped us put on the show. We started with shrimp cocktail, followed by cornish game hens, baked potato and salad, and then a dessert. We had wine, breads, butter and after dinner mints, to round it off. It was quite a success, but like all things did have its problems. This time it was because the ovens were too small to handle the individual cornish game hens and even though we managed to get them all in, the oven was so crowded that the heat would not distribute evenly, so poor Louise sat on the floor during the whole time of their cooking, moving the trays around and the hens around to get them done evenly. It slowed down the process, so we kept people waiting, but they seemed to appreciate it anyway.
We took a couple of trips up to Sacramento, and had one great trip to Florida staying at the Saddlebrook Golf Resort in a five day event put on by Affordable Inns, the company we had left that had the Regal 8 Inns. It was packed with great golf, fantastic meals and great renewed friendships.
Gordon and Irene left us this year and went back to live in Canada. Not to the Eastern part where they had lived before, but up to Vancouver Island. Their oldest son David lived there and wanted them to move and they were also lured by the free medical in Canada compared to paying for a policy here. We were both sad to see them go. Dick's best golf was always with Gordon and Irene and I were very close.
One of the things that happened when we expanded the Golf Club was that they found a cat that had kittens under a section that they wanted to build on. As soon as the kittens were old enough, we found families for them, and Callie joined our house. You know how dogs and cats hate each other, but I think Taffy and Callie didn't get the message.
Chow Time, with Dick's treats, always brought the complete family. Sam (on the right) always thought she was a dog, but Callie knew she was a cat, so obviously didn't want to look too eager!
1984 started our slide downhill financially, but I will let Dick tell that story.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Mam
MAM is how we call our mother in Wales. She was about 4'10", weighed 100 lbs. once when she was carrying my brother, and was born in 1899. This photograph was taken when she was about 17 or 18.
She died in 1983, and I received the news via a phone call from Louise. We were back in Illinois visiting with friends and attending Debbie's wedding.
This photo is my mother on her 80th birthday party, which I went back to Wales to attend.
I cannot say that my mother and I were very close. She was not an affectionate woman, had wanted only sons, so had a tendency to not pay much attention to her daughters. She was a good mother in taking care of us, tending to our needs, and I can remember growing up knowing that she was always there. On bitterly cold damp days, when my feet would freeze walking home from school, my mother was always there with her hands warmed by the fire, to take off my shoes and rub my feet until the feelings came back into them. She worked incredibly hard during the summer running a boarding house for tourists to our Victorian summer resort town, and saved the money she earned those short months to pay what we called the 'rates' (i.e. the local real estate taxes), and to buy our one new outfit every year, which became our 'Sunday best'.
But I went to work in London when still not 17 and at 20 migrated to Canada, and subsequently to the US. I would go home about three times a year when in London, but after leaving Britain, did not return for nine years and saw my parents only once during that time when they visited me and my ex-husband in Canada.
After that I saw my mother either every year, and occasionally every two years, until she died, but the visits were short and usually filled with other activities or other people with me. The net result is that we never had an opportunity to become friends as adults, or to really share one-on-one moments.
I have to also acknowledge that my mother's alcoholism and rather strange detachment from her daughters had bred resentments over the years, even though not acknowledged consciously, and it wasn't until five years into my sobriety, after the death of my mother, that I came to terms with the whole situation. It was hard to process and work through, but what it gave me was the freedom to really SEE this little lady as a person, and realize that in her way she did love me, she was very strong, her toughness and resilience rubbed off on me and she gave me a set of values that I live with today, mostly from her little phrases, like "don't cry over spilled milk", "there are none so blind as those who will not see", and more than I can recall now, even though I find myself saying them over and over.
I have found myself somewhat envious at times, when I see the closeness and friendship a lot of daughters have with their mothers, but I also know that from the Women's AA Meetings, one of the main topics shared is the struggle these women have with their mothers!
God Bless you Mam.
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