Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago my mother died.  I can't quite get my head around the fact that it has been 10 years.  In some ways it seems like a short time ago.   In other ways it seems like forever. I only occasionally have the fleeting thought that I need to call and tell her something.  If I close my eyes I can picture walking into her house.  The slightly smokey,(smokey from her fire place - she didn't smoke) yet also flowery smell made me feel like I was HOME. How I miss those visits and the time we shared just the two of us....well often the three of us because Aunt Mary was an important part of those visits.  I am so happy that I got to have her in my life so many years.  And I will be eternally grateful for the blessing of being there for a visit when she had the cerebral hemorrhage that took her life.  We enjoyed several wonderful days doing all the things we loved before her death.  A tender mercy from a loving Heavenly Father.

Every March when I hear talk of 'March Madness' - the NCAA basketball tournament, I smile thinking of her.  She and my Aunt Mary were die-hard college basketball fans.  A couple of years before her death I came on a visit in March.  Mike Stewart, the lawyer for whom she worked, told me that he couldn't believe she let me come during March Madness.  Then he said, "I hope you know that during games, you need to just sit and be quiet while she watches."  He was only partly kidding!

My mother and my Aunt Mary loved the Razorbacks. In 1994, when the Razorbacks won the National Championship, Moma and Aunt Mary were over the moon!  Mary said that she had a dishtowel by her chair and when something nerve wracking would happen, like a vital free throw, she would lay back and cover her head because she was so nervous.  When I cleaned out books from Moma's house, there were 3 books about that championship season!  Yes, they loved the Razorbacks but they didn't limit themselves.  They also had season tickets for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock basketball games.

At an age when many people have given up traveling, those two fans would travel to Atlanta for the SEC Tournament. And they didn't just attend Razorback games.  Nope they went to every game all afternoon and evening.  

If I remember correctly the last time they attended they were 85 and 84 years old!  My mother didn't like the University of Kentucky and their fans.  The cheer of "Go Big Blue" irritated her.  That is probably because UK often beat her beloved razorbacks.  To her it was an unforgivable desertion when coach Eddie Sutton left the Razorbacks to go and coach the UK Wildcats.  

She took great delight in a story she heard.  Coach Sutton had really super curly hair.  

One of the old timers in Kentucky supposedly took him aside to tell him, "In Kentucky we like our whiskey and our hair straight."

Eddie Sutton

 

Moma passed her love of sports to me and our boys.  They all cheer for the Hogs!  The last Christmas we spent in Arkansas, we went to a Razorback game!

She led us in several rousing calls of 'Wooo Pig Sooie'! And made sure her daughter, son-in-law and grandsons were appropriately attired.

My life is full of so many wonderful memories of fun and love!

This photo has nothing to do with basketball but I just love it so I'm sharing it because I think it catches my mother's exuberance with life!