“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.” Henry David Thoreau

My mom is the type of person that justs makes you want to do nice things for her. After my dad passed she lived alone in the huge house they shared for 35 years.  The upkeep and maintenance were overwhelming for her. I lived 120 miles south and couldn't just pop up every time there was a need.  Like the time her neighbor called and said "Hey, your mom is on the roof with a chainsaw".  A family meeting was held and it was mutually decided that mom just needed a base camp to operate out of. She & my dad became ministers late in life. Her heart was to continue working in the migrant camps outside of Tampa so we sold her house or the mini-storage as I call it. She only lived in half of the bottom floor. Most of the house was cram-full of the family's stuff.


 That was a hard process for her. Going through her life and deciding what to keep, give away, or sell. So she moved the 120 miles south and has lived with us for 10 years now.  She had never felt well and the entire time she has been with us has been filled with doctor's visits and tests for this and that.  In 2009 on what would have been her 44th wedding anniversary she went in for open-heart surgery. She is now the proud owner of 5 by-passes and a new aortic valve.  She is doing great except now that she is actually getting oxygen to the brain she feels the pain of her spinal stenosis condition.  She loves the water and going to the beach to shell but is unable to bend of stoop.  This has hampered her gardening also. She loves to putter in the yard like any good southern woman but has to watch the bending and the heat.

The Path

Night blooming Cirrus from the old 
house

The last time it bloomed

  We grow plants that don't require alot of maintenance. Our little garden area is filled with plants and rocks from the house she sold.  It was sad to me that she couldn't bend over to pick up shark's teeth and shells so each time I come home from the beach I bring a bucket of shell crush and dump it on the path outside our door.  I also dump a bucketful in the garden area.  These areas were already covered in shell mix from the apartment complex but now it has a little bit of our beach right outside the door.  As GeeGee spends time outside watering or chasing the squirrels from the bird feeder she can do a little beach combing right at her front door.

My version of a shell doggie bag

Hoya

Blooms smell like chocolate

Rick Rack Cactus

Desert Rose

 I remember having a really bad day during the time we were cleaning out her old house.  I was overwhelmed & on a major rant about all the clutter.  I was waving around a stack of papers from inside  a shoebox and questioning the sanity of keeping such crap.  My niece took them from my hand and showed me they were all missing children.  Their pictures came on the back of my mom's junk mail.  She saved them all and prayed over them for their safety and for their return home. That was my last rant about that. I learned from that that everyone looks out of their own eyes and sees the world the way they are supposed to see it not the way I want them to see it. So I am blessed to have my mom live with me.  She walks her path and I walk mine but they pretty much end up at the same place at the end of the day.