I was just informed that my best friends mother has passed, the following is something that I only started writing a few weeks ago, and I was just talking to him (My friend of 40+ yrs) after a long absence.
Sorry if it seems like a long read, but she lived a long life and is worth remembering.
Thank you Org.
Bubba
At three or four I remember the first time I met Andrew, my best friend for over 40 yrs. I was playing in the sand near a natural plum tree that grew next to the small lake we lived around. He and his mother (who at the time looked strikingly like Lucy Ball) were walking around the lake and were coming down the dirt road in front of my house. We met and played in the sand for a while and were set for life.
Andrew’s mother needs to be acknowledged here, she is someone that I have more respect and love for than any other person outside my own family. Sheila Jones has CP and it was very much in the early stages when we first met. As time passed it became more apparent and I hardly remember the days that she could actually walk on her own. She is a pillar of strength and fortitude that I often tap into. Her misfortune and the way she handle it was the personification of determination and gumption that is only rivaled by people like Brain Piccolo, or Christopher Reeve. She was always happy and never, AND I MUST SAY AGAIN – NEVER one to blame anything on her disease. She often laughed about the symptoms and I recall many occasions where she would have an accident with the curling iron and burn her forehead or cheek and would come to visit us with a huge burn mark and comment “I was curling my hair to come over and look what I did†laughing the whole time. But she was a proper woman and would never visit without fixing herself up. She is what I have always referred to as my second mother, as I spent more time with the Jones’ than I did with my own family.
Sheila is also a very intelligent person who was once an editor for the New York Times newspaper. She taught me much about laughing at yourself and knowing your own limitations and excepting them. Many times are the memories of helping her walk from the car into the house and setting her in her “Wheelie Chair†as we called it. This was not a wheelchair that you may be thinking about, this was a much worn chair that looked similar to a directors chair, but with 6 inch wheels on all four legs. She would scoot herself around the entire house on this and never asked for the carpeting or the thresholds to be replaced, many times she would struggle to get from the kitchen tile floor to the carpet, and never said a word to anyone about it. Reflecting now, I see how selfish we were and how altruistic she was. I love her for this lesson she had given to us that went so unnoticed from everyone except me. I always knew her attitude was of strength and design, and hope her children have given her kudos over the years. She is the strength that keeps me in check whenever I believe that life is dealing me a bad hand.
She taught me to laugh at myself and never feel as if I was defeated by outer circumstances, but rather driven by the inner ones. I love her as dearly as my own mother, and her son as my own brother.
The above was written with a loving and happy heart as she would have wanted it.
But today I am selfishly sad as I type these words.
Thank you Org.
Bubba
Sorry if it seems like a long read, but she lived a long life and is worth remembering.
Thank you Org.
Bubba
At three or four I remember the first time I met Andrew, my best friend for over 40 yrs. I was playing in the sand near a natural plum tree that grew next to the small lake we lived around. He and his mother (who at the time looked strikingly like Lucy Ball) were walking around the lake and were coming down the dirt road in front of my house. We met and played in the sand for a while and were set for life.
Andrew’s mother needs to be acknowledged here, she is someone that I have more respect and love for than any other person outside my own family. Sheila Jones has CP and it was very much in the early stages when we first met. As time passed it became more apparent and I hardly remember the days that she could actually walk on her own. She is a pillar of strength and fortitude that I often tap into. Her misfortune and the way she handle it was the personification of determination and gumption that is only rivaled by people like Brain Piccolo, or Christopher Reeve. She was always happy and never, AND I MUST SAY AGAIN – NEVER one to blame anything on her disease. She often laughed about the symptoms and I recall many occasions where she would have an accident with the curling iron and burn her forehead or cheek and would come to visit us with a huge burn mark and comment “I was curling my hair to come over and look what I did†laughing the whole time. But she was a proper woman and would never visit without fixing herself up. She is what I have always referred to as my second mother, as I spent more time with the Jones’ than I did with my own family.
Sheila is also a very intelligent person who was once an editor for the New York Times newspaper. She taught me much about laughing at yourself and knowing your own limitations and excepting them. Many times are the memories of helping her walk from the car into the house and setting her in her “Wheelie Chair†as we called it. This was not a wheelchair that you may be thinking about, this was a much worn chair that looked similar to a directors chair, but with 6 inch wheels on all four legs. She would scoot herself around the entire house on this and never asked for the carpeting or the thresholds to be replaced, many times she would struggle to get from the kitchen tile floor to the carpet, and never said a word to anyone about it. Reflecting now, I see how selfish we were and how altruistic she was. I love her for this lesson she had given to us that went so unnoticed from everyone except me. I always knew her attitude was of strength and design, and hope her children have given her kudos over the years. She is the strength that keeps me in check whenever I believe that life is dealing me a bad hand.
She taught me to laugh at myself and never feel as if I was defeated by outer circumstances, but rather driven by the inner ones. I love her as dearly as my own mother, and her son as my own brother.
The above was written with a loving and happy heart as she would have wanted it.
But today I am selfishly sad as I type these words.
Thank you Org.
Bubba