Sweet Memories of a Time Gone By

All the current news coverage of the upcoming marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton this week must bring back to many people who are old enough to remember the incredible fervor surrounding the marriage of The Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer.  I was in college at the time, attending Brigham Young University, and living in the basement apartment in the home of a sweet older couple.  One of my closest friends, Ruth, lived with her family around the corner from my house and we were all huge Anglophiles. The afternoon before the big day, a handwritten invitation appeared at my door, penned by Ruth's mother, inviting me to attend the royal wedding at their home that night.  Such fun!  I remember going to bed extremely early and then awakening around 2 a.m., getting dressed and then running full speed to Ruthie's house, where we lay on the floor in front of the TV for hours, watching the pageantry unfold.   It was such a sweet time, because of course, like most people, we believed this was a love match and I adored Lady Diana and how virtuous she was when she married.  These are lovely memories of so long ago...

Of course, over the ensuing years the whole thing fell apart, but I still loved to peruse pictures of The Princess of Wales, admiring her fashions and the warm way she had with people.

Fast forward to another memory.

It was 12:30 a.m. on August 31st, 1997.  I was lying in bed, timing contractions I had been having for the past hour with my second pregnancy, which were with my son, Robert.  My husband, Mark, was watching TV in the living room.  The contractions had gotten to be close enough apart that I went out to tell Mark that the baby was coming and that he needed to take me to the hospital.  As I came into the room, Mark turned around, having just heard the news report and told me that Diana was dead.  Utter shock and disbelief.  After waking our close friends and neighbors, the Langstaffs, to come over and watch our daughter, Sarah, who was 2 years old at the time, we got in the car and drove to the hospital.  Once in our hospital room, we turned on the television and watched news coverage until my labor became so acute that it was time to turn it off.  To this day, I remember so well the incredible jumble of emotions I was feeling at the time and whenever I see pictures of the crashed car in the Paris tunnel, it brings it all back - horror, disbelief and also the incredible awe and joy of having a child, all of that all at once.

One week later, I watched the funeral with my newborn baby in my arms.

Now, this week, the nuptials of Diana's son, William, and Kate Middleton.  It is great fun for many, I am sure, but I do wish the news media would refrain from referring to their relationship as a "fairy tale", which of course it is not.  I hope it all goes off without a hitch and that the son will be luckier in love than his mother.

But I cannot help remembering an earlier time, when my body was full of youthful vigor and my heart and mind were full of romance and I went running to a friend's house in the middle of the night to celebrate what I thought would be the wedding of the Century.

Love,
Elizabeth

Show and Tell Friday

Kelli, from There Is No Place Like Home, is once again hosting "Show & Tell Friday". Today, I want to share some old photos that were part of my mother's belongings that were recently sent to me. Old photos and school records, which bring back many memories...

I love the above picture, taken when I was five and part of a dance studio. I was a very feminine little girl, fanciful and open-hearted. I believed in everything magical. The world was a rainbow to me, multi-colored and splendiferous. I was sure I would grow up to live in a castle.
Above, here I am in second grade. A wistful girl. An average student, I was given to daydreaming when I ought to be paying attention. A doctor wrote of me that I had "sensitivity rarely seen in a child her age". I easily made friends, but was shy and longed for solitude.

As the years went by, I grew to be awkward and buck-toothed. Braces didn't add to my self-confidence. I wore dark-framed glasses and struggled with style. I no longer felt like a princess and believed I'd be lucky if anyone would ever take a second look at me.

Then the braces came off. I traded my glasses for contacts. I found my style (romantic). I felt confident and I forgot about myself.

Here I am with Mark, years ago...

Now, I am middle-aged, chubby, at times awkward and not as stylish I once was. But that's okay, because deep inside, I feel like that little girl with the crown on her head. I know that the world can be a scary, sad place, but it can also be magical, where anything is possible .

As we experience life we can one day find that we are far away from our true selves. It's a journey to get to that place and it's a journey to find our way back. It reminds me of a poem that was shared at church last Sunday...
Beautiful Women
At age 3, a little girl looks in the mirror and sees a queen.
At age 8, she looks in the mirror and see Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty.
At age 15, she looks in the mirror and sees fat/pimples/ugly and says,
"Mom, I can't go to school looking like this!"
At age 20, she looks at herself and sees too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly, but she decides she is going anyway.
At age 30, she looks at herself and sees too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly, but decides that she doesn't have time to fix it and goes anyway.
At age 40, she looks at herself and sees too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly, but says, "At least I'm clean," and goes anyway.
At age 50, she looks in the mirror and says, "I am" and goes.
At age 60, she looks and reminds herself of all the people who can't see themselves in the mirror anymore and she goes out and conquers the world!
At age 70, she looks at herself and sees wisdom, laughter and ability, and goes out and enjoys life.
At age 80, she doesn't bother to look. She puts on a purple hat and goes out and has fun with the world.
Moral: Maybe we should grab that purple hat earlier!

Courtesy of the Purple Hat Society

Have a lovely day!
Elizabeth

Bittersweet Momentoes

I was visiting Sharon at Rose of Sharon and saw that among her recent Goodwill finds that she also purchased a little blue shoe, like the one above. That got me thinking about how I came to have mine.

In 1950, my mother gave birth to her first child, my brother, David. As you can imagine, she and my father were ecstatic over their new child. She was gifted with a sweet bouquet that came in this little, blue, ceramic shoe. Unfortunately, there were problems during the birthing (David was born breech), which caused a lot of pressure to be exerted on the baby's soft head. Shortly after birth, David began to struggle. The doctors realized that he had suffered brain damage and that some of his functions were beginning to shut down. My mother was never able to take David home and, for reasons that are difficult for me as mother to completely comprehend, when my mother found out that David would die, she never visited him in the hospital. Feeling devastated, she feared becoming attached to him. He died several weeks later.

Many, many years later, when my mother could finally talk about it, she told me that she believed that the hospital did not feed him through tubes once he lost his ability to swallow, so that he wasted away. All Mama had left to remind herself of her first born was this little blue shoe... and the gift of a little silver, baby brush, below.
When Mama died, I inherited these remembrances. They are both on display in my home.

I hope when Mama died she was finally able to find some peace over David. Though she rarely spoke of him, I know that it haunted her until the end of her life.
Love,
Elizabeth