This morning we made an
almost-no-sweetener-added blueberry and cream cheese pie, chilling for later,
in addition to a salad and fish for lunch.
Also had bath, shampoo, and linen change. Met with Elizabeth, the attendant agency
supervisor, about adding on 1.5 hours of Tammicare per week as authorized by
DADS, and with her came a volunteer coordinator who is going to find someone
that will help me sort through boxes and papers, clear out this place. Have done my budget for next month (squeaking
by kindasorta), and can now focus elsewhere for the afternoon.
Last night I discovered among new
records being made available online is the death certificate of Author Atkins,
the man who raised my mother and was her beloved Daddy. I was startled to discover that although,
yes, he died of pulmonary failure, it was not from CHF as I had thought but
instead was lung metastases from GI carcinoma.
She often told me about sitting up with him at night, when he could not
sleep from gasping and coughing, as he took months to die during her 16th
year. It must have been a worse death
than I had imagined. Marked her for life
and perhaps accounts for some of her fatalism toward health issues.
Even more shocking, I discovered
they (Author, Sook, Mama, and her adoptive brothers) lived not in Stoneburg but
in Fort Worth during 1931-32. When I ran
across this city directory, it sparked a vague memory of Mama talking about the
Christmas when she was 5 years old and they were in Fort Worth, but I had filed
this away as a visit. Instead, Author
found work as a flagman for the Rock Island Railroad and they lived in a small
frame house (2 bedrooms and a detached bathroom) a couple of blocks from the
rail line. On further searching, I found
the house is still standing, built in 1915, and I snagged a photo of it.
I ache to show it to her and ask
what memories it evokes.
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