The Mother, the yartzeit

Not sure how to include everything that's been happening keeping me from posting. It's been a busy week. It was all leading up to my trip to Colorado this past weekend. Finishing all the work I'd had stacked up involved working far past my bedtime too many nights last week. My flight to Colorado was Friday at 7:20 am, who booked this flight and what were they on when they did it?!? I had to be to the bus stop at 4:45 am to catch the Metro bus into downtown Seattle where I transferred to another bus to SEA-TAC airport, got there around 6 am. All for $1.50, which was a heck of a lot better than the $40 or so it would cost for the shuttle service and I figure I'd have left at about the same time.

I got the suitcase checked in, didn't have much in it, a few clothes and empty bags for bringing things back from Colorado. Once through security I made my way over to the Ivar's for a breakfast sandwich (the one with the smoked salmon is awesome) and then to Dilettante Chocolates for a mocha (did you know they offer sweet or dark chocolate for your mocha?!?) before heading down to my gate. I had only 20 minutes or so before they began boarding. I pretty much fell asleep immediately until after we touched ground in Denver, coming in and out of awareness only occasionally during the flight. Landed in Denver around 11 am. Rachel, my sister-in-law, picked me up and we went into Denver to buy kosher wine for Passover and then to the East Side Kosher Deli for some kosher for Passover foods. I may not have mentioned this before, but my family is Jewish. With our shopping completed, Rachel and I headed back to Boulder.

Sunday was the mother's yartzeit, the anniversary (as measured by the Hebrew calendar) of her passing. Among other things it involves the recitation of the mourner's kaddish with a minyan (a group of 10 or more Jewish men) and my brother is now allowed to visit the mother's grave site whenever he chooses. It is challenging to get a minyan together in Boulder so we went in to Denver where one would be gathering. Then back to Boulder to visit, first, my grandmother's grave site, she passed away May 2, 2004, right around the time the mother had decided to move to Boulder. The mother thought long and hard and finally decided she wanted gram's ashes interred in Boulder. The mother is buried in the Jewish section of the same cemetery. This was my first visit to her grave site since her marker has been put in place. It looks really good. My brother remarked how peaceful it felt there now. He'd been there three months after her passing for the burial of a friend who had passed unexpectedly, and felt it was very unsettled at that time. It was a lovely day, but the wind was biting. To get warmed up we went to the Celestial Seasonings tea room for a hot cuppa tea, only a five minute drive away.

Later in the afternoon my brother and I went through all the family photos to choose a few to scan before I left Boulder, the rest could wait until after I'd come home. Revisiting all those memories was both fun and draining. And there were stacks of photos of people we didn't know, some of which may be identified by my grandmother's brother, Leonard, who lives in Olympia, others we'll likely never know who they are. I had to smile when I saw this photo of my brother with his batman belt and airplane. And he had the nerve to ask who was in this photo!?! In order to post the batman belt photo I had to agree to post the photo of the 'unknown person' with the tennis racquet. Done.

In all it was a really good trip. It had the potential to be really unpleasant, there were many emotional land mines strewn liberally about and my brother and I managed to avoid them. There was some sadness, we would both have preferred to have visited gram's grave with the mother, instead of visiting both graves, but there were good memories shared and laughter recalling some goofy things.

We called her 'the mother', kinda cute how she got the nickname, actually. I think I was 15 or 16 and it was Mother's Day. Gram, the mother, the bro, his wife, and I went out to brunch, the waitress came around to take drink orders and asked "Who's the mother here?" It stuck, even her AIM login was ThemotherC. And it seemed the most appropriate thing to include on her marker. I think she'd like it that way.