Happy Birthday Momma!

On this day in 1928 my momma was born. She grew up desperately poor and without a father. Her mother divorced an alcoholic and was raising two kids on her own  during the great depression. She met another man when  my momma was in elementary school, they married  and he became their father for all intents and purposes. He was a huge man  who drove a tank in WWII under the leadership of George S. Patton. He brought home a Nazi flag that my grandmother sewed into a quilt and we had it for years and years to remind us how warm it was but never considered it's historical value.

Then my Momma met the man of her dreams. This pic was from her wedding shower...Then she married him!

My sister and I always laugh about how over the moon my Diddy looks in every picture at their wedding.

Then they had us...and we sucked 'em dry! We always had a used car, usually ugly but always reliable.  A repairman was never called to our house...our repairman was our Diddy. He fixed the cars, the appliances and the furnace and even threw in quite a few whippings with his belt in  the dreaded "green bathroom." My momma made every meal, sewed almost every outfit and even upholstered the furniture in our house.

We had a youth any kid would envy.  Our house was the one EVERYBODY wanted to be at, and I'm not just talking kids. We had fresh eggs delivered every week and the "Egg Man" as we called him would sit for over an hour in our kitchen talking to momma while she cooked, pickled or baked. He was an insurance man by trade, his son is a well known gardener on HGTV, his first name escapes me but his last name is Reeves. I think it's Walter?

She could pop gum like a firecracker (Wrigley's Doublemint), I've always wanted to do that...

Then there was the man who owned the local Gulf gas station...Herman Jeans.  He was so in love with my momma, even though he was an ole fart when I was just a young fart.  He was pretty well off (by our standards) but his wife was a miser and hated it when he came over to visit my momma. He would sit in our kitchen for hours talking to her and bring her free dishes from the station which you got when you filled up your tank.

Then there was my Diddy's buddy from high school who he served with in the Navy. He would come over and sit in my momma's kitchen for three hours straight. They would both smoke Kool Milds, drink iced tea and gossip like two old women.  Diddy called him Pierce (his last name) but his nickname  was always "Bud."

East Point should have been called Mayberry because the town I grew up in was absolutely the most magnificent place a kid could land. We had a movie theatre that cost $1.35 and could take the back alley all the way up from the back my house to the back door of the Theatre.

Then the unthinkable happened. On a Friday afternoon shopping trip with momma and older (then married) sister for school clothes because I was starting my senior year of high school in a week...our entire world crashed. I was in the changing room and my momma was getting me another pair of jeans to try on when I heard a crash.

My momma had crashed, into a rack of clothes and only opened her eyes once before God thankfully took her quickly. The above picture was taken maybe a year after her death at the place we all went to every year for vacation.

No one can replace the kind of momma we had. We struggled for years to compensate, but how can you when you had the greatest  momma on earth?

My diddy hung in there but in 2002 West Nile took him too...I guess momma got lonely.

The above is what's left of my family. A wacky bunch but one that loves with no reason or blame.

Yes I would love to have my momma still here but as the saying goes "It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all."

I know momma and diddy are together again and that makes it somewhat better.

I aspire to be the woman she was but could never fill her shoes...I just pray that I make her proud and hope my own kids one day love me the way I loved her.

Happy Birthday "Ann Massey Leach"  YOU BROKE THE MOLD!!!!!!