mason garden

I always loved watching my mom cut her finger nails. Her fingers were always long and elegant and she kept her nails short and clean. Little white cresants always showed perfectly. As I grew up and grew out my nails she would always wonder out loud how I was able to keep my nails long. Over the last year her nails lost a lot of that elegance to chemo. Her fingers became frail. On several occasions I had to help her trim her finger and toe nails and was always happy to help and then provide a nice foot massage like she always liked, With lotion of course. I know it wasn’t as enjoyable with the numbness and tingling but it helped her circulation when she wasn’t able to walk and gave her memories of when we used to sit on her bed trading foot massages while we talked. It’s a tradition her mom passed on to her and her to me.

Mom would always poke my belly if it ever showed. She always thought I should dress up and look nice. She always wanted the best for me. At every Christmas party she would come after me with a tube of lipstick and I’d finally give in if we were having pictures.
On long car rides she would reach behind her seat and tickle Thomas and my legs until we begged and swatted at her to stop. When we were young those long rides usually meant listening to hours of We Sing tapes. We would all sing with the tapes over ad over. We would also play Guess the Character in the Bible. I’m terrible with remembering names and Thomas would always pick names out of the Bible videos from church so Dad would usually give us a really hard one that even Mom had a hard time guessing. He loved to make it hard and we’d always tease him that it wasn’t a real name. Of course it was real! One one car ride home after a trip to Disneyland where they had bought me a tee shirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse with a wand I fell asleep with a giant green chewy sweet tart in my mouth. When I woke up the wand had a fun green sparkle at the tip where my candy had landed. Mom washed the shirt and I was always disappointed that the stain was gone.

A service will be held for Carol Jean Driver at Mount Vernon Memorial Park & Mortuary on Monday, January 23 at 1pm followed by grave side at 2pm.

A fund is being set up for donations towards a memorial in her honor. Update: http://support.themmrf.org/goto/carol.driver

 Mom and Dad on Christmas Eve 2011.

Growing up I had no idea when things were financially tight. Mom would always make things fun. During a water drought she would have us use the same bath water and then use it to water the plants in the yard. I always thought it was fun to haul water from the tub to the front yard and then splash it all over. My favorite food was roman noodles with big franks and Mom would even let me help make it. I never understood till I was older why she didn’t seem to like making it very often.

This morning while I was getting ready for work and choosing what jewelry to wear I thought of my Mom a few years back. She was on a trip to Hawaii and having a blast. She’d found a jewelry store with the pearls in the oysters. She picked out a beautiful little pearl and just Had to call me to ask what kind of chain I would wear with it. She was so excited to give it to me when she got home! I love wearing it and will always think of her when I wear pearls. It’s my birth stone and my Dad got her a pearl necklace in Hawaii when they were in their 20s. I always loved to look in her jewelry box for that little pearl necklace on a chain. Mom never wore jewelry but she loved it.