Sunday, November 22, 2009

11-17-09

“Today was the best day, so far,” my mother said.

Her alarm woke me, but she didn’t turn it off. When I walked into her room, she lay on her bed, motionless until I hit the snooze button. Rousing from a dream she didn’t want to end, she glared at me for disrupting the rhythm of her alarm.  She wasn’t angry, just a little upset when she couldn’t recover her private movie.

Since she was sleeping when I returned “home” last night, she wanted to know all about my evening out with Matt. Any mother loves one-on-one time with her children, no matter how many she has. We all treasure the moments we have alone, “just the two of us” and long for whole days to do absolutely nothing but what suits us – answering to no one else. No shouldas, wouldas or couldas.

After our breakfast of cereal, Momma and I lounged a bit and talked about what we wanted to do today. We weren’t in a hurry. Momma only wanted to shop at one store – Hamrick’s in North Charleston.

After her morning phone calls and medication, a nap and a little television, Momma announced she was ready to leave. We weren’t sure exactly how to get to our destination because Momma has been a passenger for her recent trips and I haven’t driven to Charleston in almost ten years. Jane and Bernadette both gave similar directions but neither of them warned me about the construction detour. As soon as we made the turn, Momma and I both felt we were not going in the right direction.

When I saw signs leading to Middleton Place and Magnolia Gardens, I knew we’d made a wrong turn, but the road was a narrow two-lane with few opportunities to turn around or pull off to check our bearings. Certain we were going in the wrong direction, we didn’t care; we were together and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

Huge moss laden oaks created a shady canopy over the road. As I drove, Momma gave her commentary on the things I couldn’t see, those huge homes or ranches that were set back from the road.

When I saw the entrance to Middleton Place, I turned in. My first thought was, “Look at those trees!” I wanted to stop and stroll. I wanted to be able to photograph the trees and other beautiful landscape features. Unfortunately, the biggest trees were at the entrance and I could not stop there. We had a scenic drive to the parking area where I stopped to plug in my GPS. Since I didn’t have an actual address for Hamrick’s and wasn’t even certain of the street where it was located, I had to rely on the only point of interest I knew that was near the store – Frankie’s Fun Park – turns out FFP was exactly across the road from Hamrick’s.

As we drove toward the exit and back toward the highway, Momma pointed out a tree she thought was especially pretty. When I finished taking the tree’s picture, we saw a horse-drawn carriage but I wasn’t close enough to get a clear photo. Detouring to Middleton Place took time from our day, but it provided a pleasant diversion.

After a leisurely lunch at Applebee’s, we shopped – and shopped – and shopped. When we returned to Walterboro, we stopped at Dimitrio’s for dinner.

Yes, this was a very good day to spend time with my mother.

posted by Unknown at 11/22/2009 11:34:00 PM