Flashback Friday

That cute kid in the front there is my mother, or future mother, Marjie Shirlene Westlake.  She looks to be about three or four years old which would make this picture exactly 90 years old.  

I don't know who is on the right, and never will.  That lady, however, on the left is Marjie's mother,  Mona.  Mona is just about relegated to "The Forgotten".  There may only be three of us left who remember her.  And as we have been told that you are not truly gone until all who remember are gone, too, then all that separates her and who she was hangs on us three.

Of all four grandparents, Mona has probably risen to the "Best of the Best" status.  No doubt this station was enhanced by her being the first to die.  She left while we twins were about 11.  It was our second death we experienced after Roy Rader, our neighbor, passed away when we were 9.  Mona was our first actual funeral.  She wore a black dress with white frill at the collar.  She also wore a cameo broach and the reverend who conducted the service called on all of us "to look the upward way."  I still remember.

We would make trips down to Quincy where they lived marking along the way the landmarks that would tick off the miles.  There was a white columned mansion along the way, and the Great River Road was always fun.  The power plant at Hamilton and, back then, the winding road that would bring us into town and the implement company on the right side of the road that had AstroTurf all over its front.

Our visits wouldn't last long, and then we'd be back in the car heading home, which always seemed to take forever.  Mona always packed something for each of us for the trip. Often it would be custard cups with red bandanas for the cover.   I still remember. 

Family legend has it that Dick had just pinched Mona's butt as the photographer snapped this picture.

She always wore her hair in a tight bun in the back.  I saw her once with her hair down, combing it with a brush.  It was shocking.  She was soft spoken, irresistibly nice and still, after half a century still owns a part of my heart and psyche.

The movie Shawshank Redemption, which l quote like a preacher quotes Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and which I consider a layman's Bible, contains a scene toward the end and has Red reading a letter he has received from Andy from Mexico.  "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and good things never die."

Maybe that's truer than oblivion.