Mother's Day - 2014

Today I have mixed feelings about Mother’s Day. I thought my mother would always be here. I guess we all feel that way until the day comes that they leave us. My mother was a good woman and I have many memories. I am an only child and my mother was very protective of me. Should I say “over protective”? I really don’t remember this very well but my mother told me that we were in Miller Brothers downtown and she was looking at the ladies dresses. I must have been about 4. She said I hid in between some dresses hanging on a rack and when she came over, I threw the dresses back and yelled “Mammy.” Needless to say, we had a long talk about what I should call her. I never called her that again. I remember the first day of school when I went to first grade. Most of the kids were crying and clinging to their mothers. My mother said I looked up at her and said, “Don’t you have some place you need to go?” My mother told me whatever I did I had better not get on the merry-go-round on the playground at school. Well, you guessed it, I did. Not only did I get on, but I was dragged around. I was skinned, bleeding, and bruised all over. Back then they didn’t take you to the emergency room, you just washed off the blood. My mother worked at night so when I got home from school I told my daddy and I told him she would kill me. He was always my protector from her. I heard her that night when she came home. My daddy told her what had happened and of course she wanted to punish me. He told her I had been punished enough. He said I don’t think she’ll go anywhere near that merry-go-round again. Escaped again! You guessed it, my mother was the discipline person. I really can’t remember my dad ever laying a hand on me. My mother and I had a love/hate relationship for a long time, but at some point we became really good friends. I could get upset with something and call her and we would talk about it until I got it out of my system. I miss that. So many times I’ve wanted to call her and just hear her voice again. Well, this is life as we know it here. I’m happy that I’ll see her again and there will be no more tears in Heaven. DR 5/11/14

Another One?

Tomorrow I celebrate another birthday. I feel torn between I’m glad I’m alive and oh I’m getting so old! I have a couple of birthdays that I remember very vividly. The only birthday I had trouble with was when I turned 25. I was so upset that my mother told me she would never wish me happy birthday again. Now, that’s getting pretty bad! I don’t know why the hangup on that age, only that I thought I would never have any children. But thankfully after my 26th birthday, Christi was born. She was born on Friday before Mother’s Day and it was the best Mother’s Day ever. The next birthday I remember was when I turned 50. I was born 45 minutes after President Franklin Roosevelt died, so I just knew there had to be something special at The Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. Charles and I packed us a lunch and we headed there. It was a good thing I packed us food, because once the word that President Bill Clinton was going to be there, no one could leave. It was so exciting that there were thousands of people were there. I got frisked and the contents of my purse was emptied. I set off the alarms because I had on too much metal. Ex President Jimmy Carter was there and of course tons of Democrats. My 50th birthday was really special to me. That also reminds me of the time Charles’ mother first met me. Charles was 14 years older than me and she was curious about my age. She didn’t know the age difference, but she knew there was one. I told her I was born 45 minutes after President Roosevelt died. She looked at me, and then said, “Teddy”? I said, “No, Franklin.” Boy, that would have made me really old. We’ve always made a big deal out of our birthdays. I look back and I can’t believe I’ve made it to this age. No, I’m not telling. You’ll have to figure it out. It’s in all the history books. I still feel like I’m still young and I can remember my teenage days like it was yesterday. I am reminded of something Charles said and it applies to me also. He was on a Pool League with a bunch of really young guys one time. Charles said he felt just like one of them until he passed by a mirror. Yeah, the mirror tells it all. Birthdays—I am thankful for each one of them. DR 4/11/14

Really???

Today would have been my mother and dad’s 71st anniversary. I would like to picture them having that celebration in heaven, but we don’t really know how we will be after this life. But, it’s a pleasant thought for me. I started thinking back to something that happened many years ago. We had moved and I told our new neighbor that my parents were married on April 5th and I was born one week later. The neighbor told my mother what I had said, now remember I was just a little kid, and my mother nearly died. She said what Diane failed to tell you is that it was 2 years and one week later. My dad always told me that the day I was born he had two major disappointments. Both happened at the hospital. The first was that the doctor came out and told my dad that our president was dead. Yes, I was born 45 minutes after President Franklin Roosevelt died. The second disappointment was that the doctor came out and told my dad he had a girl. I guess every dad wants a son, but what my dad didn’t know at the time was how attached we would be. I was a daddy’s girl. My dad always took up for me no matter what I did. I don’t ever remember him ever spanking me or ever saying a critical word to me. My mother was the one to be feared. It’s a lonely life to be an only child, but my mother always told me that someday I would thank her for not giving me brothers and sisters. I think she said that because she was the oldest of twelve. I did grow up with aunts and uncles closer to my age, and I’m still close to one aunt who is the same age as me. She is as close to sister as I will ever know. I lived by a cousin a year younger than me, and he felt more like a brother than I’ll ever know, and now he’s gone. I like to picture him entering Heaven and my husband and my mother and dad saying, “Welcome home.” Someday we will all be together, but in the meantime, I want to spend as much time with the people I love and do all the things that I can cram in before I can’t. Tell somebody today how much you care about them—they might not be here tomorrow. DR 4/5/14

Chantilly Lace

As I clean on my house this rainy Saturday morning, I’m listening to the oldies. Chantilly Lace just came on and brought a smile to my face. Guess I’ll never get over the memories I have with Charles. We were exact opposites in a lot of things and one of them was our music. He was classical all the way. Of course, he loved some blues and I have so many cd’s of music that I’m not really fond of. When he would load our cd player at home, he would put on a classical and then an oldie. It was a lot of fun to see him singing my songs, even though he knew how to change the words that they became pornographic at times. He really thought I was the only one who loved those songs until we were in New Jersey somewhere and they were playing all the oldies. He had heard them so much from me he knew the words. He looked at me and said, they’re playing your songs. I just had to laugh. Those were the times I could tell our age difference, but he was so good to accept my likes, and I became a fan of classical. My favorite is Mozart. Charles used to copy my cd’s so if something damaged that cd, I would still have the original. He made his own labels and most of them said things like “made by your loving husband, or I love you,” Glad I still have all of them. Yeah, I’m spoiled. He especially liked the song that started out, Hello Darlin. Finally, the fun memories are coming back. DR 3/29/14

Life Goes On

On this day four years ago my life changed forever. I had never been alone in my life. The first 18 years I lived with my parents. The next 18 years I was married. Even when I divorced I still had Christi. But then when Charles died, I was all alone. I thought I knew what it would be like. I used to sit in the living room while Charles was still alive but so sick, and think, this is what it will be like when he’s gone. I didn’t have a clue. Until you are in that situation, you cannot even come close to imagining what it will be like. I can tell you this though, life goes on. It took me two years of sitting and staring at the walls, but when my dad died, I realized that I am still alive. What do I do now? The first time I went to Sam’s after my mother and Charles died, I just stood there. What do I buy? I always came to get Ensure and diapers. What do I want? What do I need? Do I need to even be here? Charles had told me that one day I would be alone because he was 14 years older than me and he was closer to my mother and dad’s age and he said that all three of them would be gone and I needed to think about what I would do. Of course, I tried to put that out of my mind, but it really happened. Who would have known they would all three get sick at the same time and then my mother would die only two weeks before Charles. I’ve had people say that they think I’m a strong person. I’m not. I did the things that I had to do. I can say that Charles taught me to be independent. I’m so thankful for that. He just didn’t tell me how lonely and sad I would be. This year it has been especially hard for me again. Last year I thought I was handling it so much better, but I have had a relapse. With someone so close to me dying again, it has sent me into a tail spin. I’ll be ok. I know I will bounce back. I know that I will once again think of all the good times. Today I am at home. This is where I want to be today. I want to be here and be alone. I’m being busy trying to get my house ready to be put on the market. I look around and I see everything that we did to build this house. After Charles got so sick the first time I did some of the wiring and the insulation and I painted the upstairs and the downstairs. When I got ready to do the downstairs, I called my mother and she came and stayed a few days and helped me. I see Charles everywhere in this house. It will be so hard to leave here, but I know I need to. Charles begged me before he died to sell. He told me that it was too much for me to take care of. I did ok as long as Leon was alive and helped me. Now he’s gone too. All his family is moving. Yes, life goes on. DR 3/22/14

Picture This.....

If you ever watched “The Golden Girls”, you would hear Sophia start all of her stories like this. So picture this. The year is 1995. Charles and I just sold our house on Lookout Mountain and we moved to a rental house on Suck Creek Mountain. Charles was so excited because he was going to build our house. He said it would probably be his last and it was. It turned out that the winter of 1995-1996 was a bad one. He stood out in the cold and rain waiting for the different contractors, and he got really sick in January 1996. The doctor was treating him for the flu. It turned out to be a virus that had attacked his heart. I’ll not go into detail here, but our house was half finished and we were living in rent and I was told that Charles was dying. Anyway to the good part. Charles lived because of a miracle from God and we moved into the house. We only moved in the upper level. I really didn’t think that Charles would live to see the completion of this house. We moved into it in October 1996. I guess around February 1997 Charles asked me what I wanted to do now. I had not been able to work because of his illness, and he suggested that I get my real estate license. So in April 1997 I became licensed in Tennessee. I was really scared. My first clients wanted to look at $300,000-$400,000 homes. I’m sure today that number would be much more. I was on my way to meet them, and I called Charles to tell him I was about to throw up. I told him I felt like I was more of a $50,000 woman instead of such a high number. Charles responded to me, “Diane, you are going to see some of the most beautiful houses you have ever seen. You have the key. Open the door and just enjoy.” I never thought about it that way. I did and my first house I sold was $375,000.00. I miss hearing Charles’ point of view on things. I guess you could say, he marched to a different drummer—but it worked for me. DR 3/16/14

I've Led Three Lives

This was the title of my “icebreaker” speech at Toastmasters. In summary, my first life was Diane German when I lived at home with my parents. I was there 18 years. Then I married and became Diane Gasaway. I had that “name” for 20 years. I divorced after 18 years. I married again and my name is still Diane Rizzo. I was married 25-1/2 years when Charles died. I was Charles’ secretary and quite frankly, I was not attracted to him. I thought he was a ladies man, but I did know that he knew where all the “singles” places were. We always walked to the parking lot together after work and as a result, he told me about all of his girlfriends. He felt very safe talking to me since I was married and was also a preacher’s wife. He told me he was devastated when I came in and announced that I was getting a divorce. I told everyone I worked with to not ask me any questions because I did not want to talk about it. Charles thought I had a perfect marriage because he said I was the only person he had ever worked with who never said anything bad about their spouse. He said he just thought wow, if Diane couldn’t make it, there is no hope for me. Of course, Charles was never, ever going to get married again. He had been married for 25 years and had been divorced quite a while. Before my divorce was final, I asked him if he would take me to some single’s places and he said he would. Charles became my best friend. I knew that none of his girlfriends ever lasted over six months, so when we started seeing each other, I began the countdown. Six months came and went and so did seven, eight, nine, and we actually went together two and half years before we got married. Everyone we worked with came to our wedding because they said they had to see it to believe it. They just couldn’t believe that Charles would actually show up. I remember Charles asking me before we ever started going together—on one of our walks to the parking lot—if I had ever fallen madly in love. I answered with the question, have you? He said no and that he would really like to experience that. I can say that we did fall madly in love and we stayed that way until the day he died four years ago. I miss you Charles everyday. DR 3/15/14