Thanks for the memory

I promise. This won't be sad. But. . .

Twenty-four years ago today, my mother died. I'm not going to tell that tale. Rather, I'll share a favorite story.

We'd moved to Houston. Mother lived in our family home on Lipscomb Street in Amarillo.  We or, at least, the three kids and I made the right-at 800 mile drive every summer for a couple of weeks of fun--memories they treasure. (I looked on one of the guy's Facebook profile and found he was claiming Amarillo instead of Houston as his home town. Hmmmmm.)

Mother came to see us as well, but it was rarely for fun. Usually she'd dropped what she was doing, walked away from her desk at the Amarillo Globe-Times just as soon as she could find someone to cover for her in reponse to my cry for help. One time a kid had been a terrible accident, I needed to be at the hospital, who would keep the other babies? Mother. That was but one.

This time was different. She'd come as part of my birthday present. I got a sitter for the day and she and I set out for a day of grown-up fun. She'd lived in Houston as a bride. We found the duplex where they lived. Ever the reporter she hopped out of the white Studebaker and sprinted to the front window. She came back with a funny look on her face.

"What is it?"

"It's the same furniture!"

Now it was time for the real fun--shopping downtown. Hard to believe, but this was pre-Galleria Houston. The fine stores were all downtown. This was a special trip. I suspect now that Mother had engineered the whole thing. Almost all of my birthday presents had been money. Not just Mother, but Bob, my grandparents, even my sister, who was on as tight a young-family budget as I was managed  five bucks. Mother told me that it was time I had a good dress. Not something I'd made myself, and not, not, not that cut down maternity dress.

Off we went to Neiman Marcus for lunch. This was the start of a great tradition. For the next twenty or so years, every time Mother made a non-emergency Houston visit, we alway had lunch at Neiman Marcus--downtown, then Galleria, finally the now long-gone Neiman's in Town and Country near our house.

"We'll look for that dress here," Mother told me.

"No. Let's go to Foley's. I can get two for what one will cost here."

"Let's at least look. It's so much fun." We hopped on the escalator.

The prices in the dress department knocked me out. "Let's go."

"Oh, try on a couple." Mother pulled a dress off the rack. "This one's not too expensive, and there are so many thing you can do with a black dress. Dress it down for church, dress it up with a pin for those company parties." She gave me that look. I'd had an almost lecture over afternoon coffed the day before about a wife's responsibility to make her husband proud, or, at least not embarrass him with a made-over maternity dress.

Just to hush her, I agreed. It was my money; I was going to buy two dresses at Foley's.  The saleswoman acted like I was the most important customer she'd had in two weeks. Was this dressing room fine? Would we like a cup of tea? What else could she do?

I wanted to cry. I'd never looked so good in my life. Not even in the wedding dress I'd bought on sale. I turned, I looked this way and that in the three-way mirror. Another mirror on the other wall showed my back. I looked good all the way around.

"Just imagine it with  your pearls."  Mother had given me and my sister pearls for high school graduation.

I could. Time to finish this before I wavered. Just as I reached for the zipper, the saleswoman reappeared.

"Can I bring something else."

Mother smiled brightly. "She'll take it."

"Wonderful choice."

I waited until she left with the dress before I started. Mother held up her hand.

"Listen to me. You are worth it. That's why we all gave you money. So you'd have a dress worthy of you."

I hushed. I also wore that dress until it was a thread and loved every minute of it. I still love it's memory.

Thanks Mother.

So what to do today to honor her memory. I can't drive 800 miles to put flowers on her grave. I could make a donation, but no.

I'm going to buy a new outfit and make her proud.