Mom died

Mom Dies

I have very few memories of those days. Living in small communities, where dad could get work. I do remember Mom began staying closer to home. In fact she began spending more and more time in bed. I remember a few occasions where she would get up out of bed and she’d have a moment of unusual strength. One evening after coming home from a local Rodeo that my brothers and I had snuck off to, we sat around the table reliving what we had seen. My favorite story of the day was the one where the cowboy’s pants fell off after he was bucked from the horse and drug around the arena hanging on to the horses tail. The story didn’t go over well with mum however, and before I knew it, my mouth was being washed out with soap. Some how for mom, it wasn’t as funny as I had remembered or maybe it was in the telling.

Once I fell out the door of our car into a snow bank. Dad would have driven on oblivious of my absence but my mom noticed I was missing and had dad stop the car so I could get back in. I was running like crazy, “Wait for me”, Wait for me”! Afraid I was lost forever. I sure loved my mother. She thought about stuff like that.

One other time when I had fallen off the marry go round and split open my head, she jumped out of bed and came to my recue with as much care and compassion as she could muster. But she was growing frailer and frailer. Near the end we said our good byes through the window of the hospital and I went to live with Grandma. Why did she have to die so young with so much to live for, God?

After the funeral, Grandma picked us all up and took us down to Vancouver. We had never seen such amazing sights and most of the ride our heads were out the window. And there was lots of pointing and yelling. Grandma was a very stately woman - she had pride. She walked head held high, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in. She was a Dalgaty and that name carried with it, especially among Pentecostals, a demand for respect. - Most of her sons and one of her daughters being ministers and such. I think she was a little embarrassed by our behavior.

Grandma was a disciplinarian. There was one spot on the neck that she would grab and tweak real hard when she thought you needed a lesson in something or other. Even worse was when she got a hold of your ear and twisted it real hard. You were at her complete disposal when she had you by the ear. We respected her. She was the monarch.

And I was arguably her favorite. I was cute. I was little. And I was innocent. I knew that because she would call me her little Lloydy boy or better yet her little preacher boy. Byron was the rascal and Bob, well he was in the middle and he and Byron fought like two rabid dogs. When they were young, their fights consisted primarily of fist throwing and yelling. As they got older the fights sometimes involved knives and guns. They would have murdered each other if I hadn’t got in the middle. That was my place. I was the peacemaker and the good son. At least that is how I remember it.