The Perfect Marriage

Today is my parent's wedding anniversary. If both were still alive, would be celebrating their sixty fifth year together.

I feel so lucky to at least still have all these pictures, in fact still have their wedding album where these are kept...along with the boutonniere she gave him.

My mother filled out every page of the album, all the wedding gifts she received and who gave them. There's a scrap book section at the back and trust me, she had that filled as well.

I absolutely love still having their wedding invitation as well, especially since I now have a daughter we named Massey Ann Cotton, almost twenty two years ago.

My Diddy looks pretty stoked about heading for their honeymoon in this picture as they left the reception.

Seems they didn't make it all the way to their destination of Daytona that evening. Here's the receipt from their wedding night, eighty two miles south of Atlanta.

They made it the next day, seemingly after creating our oldest sister the night before.

Mama even saved the flier from the movie they went to while on their honeymoon.

They remained married for twenty five wonderful years.

They had the perfect marriage. They were the perfect parents. We had the perfect childhood.

I absolutely love the above picture, taken with my sister's Swinger Polaroid camera in our kitchen on 2545 Bayard Street.

Funny story. Our parents never fought, never argued. The closest they ever came to an even heated change of words was one night when he'd worked late and came home to find out we'd eaten all the dinner mama cooked. He decided to just make a sandwich instead and went to get two slices of loaf (Colonial white) bread. We were out of bread.

Mama didn't act too concerned about it so Diddy commented, "You never seem to run out of cigarettes." Mama didn't miss a beat but calmly replied "If I smoked bread we'd never run out of bread."

Classic Ann Leach!!

The memories I have of growing up with those two as parents are as priceless as the memories I've made, having the above two as the Sib's they gave me.

Our mama died when I had just turned seventeen. Our Diddy died when he just turned seventy seven.

Both deaths were devastating. Both deaths were defining moments in my life.

Case in point, when my daughter was born.

It seemed only appropriate to name my daughter after my mother. Massey was actually due on October 5th and couldn't believe my luck...that had been my mother's birthday! Also as luck would have it,  had major complications and ended up having an emergency C-section on August 19th in the early morning hours after an ambulance ride to the hospital. Massey barely weighed four pounds.We both almost didn't make it, but did. My sister was in the waiting room with my husband and the rest of our family when she suddenly noticed the date... it was August 19th.

That was the date our own mother had unexpectedly and suddenly died.. August 19th in 1977.



Talk about coming full circle.

Massey flourished and has grown into a pretty amazing young woman.

She's my best friend. I still have Ann Massey with me in life, she's just Massey Ann now.

Life is the one journey you need to make the most of, and enjoy every step and every turn of the way.

Looking back over my life, with all the twists and turns have realized (sometimes in hindsight) how truly lucky I've always been.

Life is what you make it...embrace it while you can. It doesn't come with do overs.

Happy Anniversary to my parents, Frank and Ann Leach.

Thank you for teaching me how to be a good person... I hope to make you proud.

Til next time...COTTON

Happy Father's Day

Where do you start when you had the greatest father on the face of the planet? This is a photo of my "Diddy" when he was well into his seventies. I don't look THIS good and I am only fifty two.

 The above is a photo of him installing a dishwasher in our old house on Bayard Street.. He looks happy, doesn't he? (NOT) But he did it anyway...he always did.

 The next is a photo of Diddy sitting on the beach. A year or two earlier he was sitting by my Momma...now he sat alone.

 As grand kids started popping out  unfortunately (or maybe FORTUNATELY) my Momma wasn't around to spoil them rotten. Our kids got "Grandpa"  and by  that point in his life he was a tough nut to crack and reminded me of the tough man I remember as a child.

You did something REALLY  wrong in our house and my Momma would say "You just wait til your Diddy gets home."

Wait we would... then once he got home from his exhausting job and talked with Momma we  would be led to the gallows of the "Green Bathroom."  Nothing good ever happened in there. I think the enema bag hanging on the towel  closet door with that wicked looking tube pretty much made all three of us kids HATE the "Green Bathroom."

I was fortunate and had wonderful parents ... if you did something really wrong, my Momma would squeal on you first to Diddy, and once he got home would sit on the toilet with the lid down, make you pull down your pants and lay across his lap. He would always start with "This hurts me more than it hurts you."  I doubted that fact til I had three kids.

He didn't beat us, but it never felt good. Once done though...you learned your lesson!

The above photo is in fact my favorite. Can you see the love between them?  He had just walked in from work. The photo was taken in our kitchen by  my sister with her "Swinger Polaroid." If you click on it you can even see the tooth pick sticking out of his mouth...but can't you also see how much my Momma loved my Diddy?

The trivets on the wall behind them hang on my own kitchen wall today. The memories in that kitchen are marvelous. I remember the Cape Cod curtains on the door behind Diddy. I remember being in that kitchen like it was yesterday.

Had I not grown up with the two most amazing parents in the world, I think I probably would have been a failure.

When I felt my life was in the toilet a few years back I would look at this photo and think "This is Tim and me."

We signed up for having a family and nobody said it would be easy.

The goal is to raise kids who make you proud. If they falter along the way, that's okay as long as they learn from their mistakes.

I was a slow learner ...but they loved me all the while.

I aspire to be the parents I had. If I do just that...I will be happy and so will my kids.

Oh , for the days of black and white photos, rotary dial phones and butt whoppings in the bathroom!

 I had two great parents even if they were snatched from my life too soon... to fail would be a personal defeat .

My parents taught me better than that!

Happy Father's Day, Diddy !!

The "Waiter" In Me...Literally

I have waited seventeen years to see my son, Zach smile this big again. I will have to wait until I (hopefully) walk through the pearly gates to see my Diddy smile this big again.

This is my favorite photo of Zachary with his Grandpa. It was taken at a surprise party for his retirement at Johnny's Pizza where I worked.

It was a time when Zach was too little to speak...much less complain about the corrupt and vile system he has to mainstream into to survive..."HIGH SCHOOL."

It was a time when my Diddy had finally somewhat overcome the sudden loss of our mother and could look in his grand son's face and truly laugh with happiness.

Nine years ago this week the twin towers fell. Eight years ago this week... my heart fell.

Eight years ago I pushed tubes, wires and monitors to the side and laid down next to a man that will always be my hero and lucky for me also happened to be my "Diddy." One stinking mosquito bite took him from all of us but sent him quickly on to his much deserved reward.

I haven't been hit with such a hard blow since I saw my mother die just as unexpectly when I was 17 years old.

To lose a parent is awful...to lose a tremendous and wonderful parent is even worse.

I am told things happen for a reason.

I believe now the reason both of my parent's were taken too early was to urge me on. They gave up their life so I would realize the value of my life...the urgency and the reason FOR life.

I have a wonderful husband, three great kids (overall) and a life worth living.

I have learned what waiting is. " Waiting Game"... is described in Webster's as "The stratagem of deferring action and allowing the passage of time to work in one's favor."

I come from sturdy stock. I come from two parent's that were not only incredible, but who incredibly taught me how to survive.

I have often wondered in the past year how we would survive. I have wondered how we could make it. I have wondered IF we could make it.

I know now, looking over the past year how fortunate I am ...how blessed I am and how downright "LUCKY" I am.

I've made many mistakes and will most probably make many more. But I have two wonderful parents sitting upstairs cheering me on and a host of family and friends down here... too many to name, that have helped us through and never asked for recognition or reward. They love me and my family. They have taken over where my parent's left off and have filled my life with a spirit and a feeling of love that will never be forgotten.

I am "WAITING." I am waiting to pay back all of these people...family, friends and people that I don't even know. Without their help and without their love I wouldn't be sitting here typing on my computer. I would be under the bridge at Turner Field trying to shove a mattress under the upper most pillars. I would be standing in line at a soup kitchen. I would be standing by the highway exit holding a sign.

But I was lucky enough to be born Frank and Ann Leach's daughter. I was raised to respect people and to always have compassion for others. I just didn't know that one day I would have to accept compassion from others as an adult.

I think in many ways this last year has been the greatest year of my life. I have not only learned humility but learned how to accept help and more than all of this...how to feel not only grateful but learned the urgency of "Paying it Forward."

I keep telling Tim that we will laugh about this difficult year one day...but I don't think that is true now. I think that this last year will serve as a reminder.

Where you come from often determines where you will go.

Be grateful for what you have. If you come from a great home you are lucky. If you aren't from a great home, know that you are the person in charge of your life and with God's help amazing things can and WILL happen.

I miss my Mother and Father every day. I used to think I got screwed with losing them both so soon. Now I know they both did me a service beyond belief...made me into a strong woman and made me realize the power of not only prayer but perseverance.

The towers fell and it was devastating. What struck me even more was losing my last parent . When Diddy died it was like the second tower crumbling to the ground.

From destruction and chaos comes a calm when you believe. You build your life with your own building blocks. I was lucky to have two great engineers. If you don't have help, never be ashamed to ask for it. "Ask and ye shall receive."

One LUCKY Cotton and one really lucky LEACH...

Happy Birthday Old Man

When my sister, brother and I were younger we used to call my father "Old Man."

He would always quip "That's Mr. Old Man to you."

My father demanded respect... earned respect and deserved respect.He was hands down my hero...still is.

He died in 2002 and left a gaping hole in my heart and the heart of many others...That would be you , Elizabeth . (Gotta read older blogs to catch up.)

He joined the Navy at the tender age of seventeen after talking his brother, Pont into signing their parent's name on the enlistment form. He told his brother that if he signed it he would leave all his clothes to Pont. My father said he had a LOT of nice clothes and Pont couldn't find a pen fast enough. This was only a decade and a few years after the country was coming out of the great depression and I guess nice clothes to a teen were in high demand.

He met and married my mother... and kinda like Elvis and Priscilla, almost nine months to the day my sister was born. Must have been quite a honeymoon!

Then four years later my brother was born. They should have stopped with him and probably intended to...but "BAM" I came along three years later just to add to the already tight budget.

My parents were married for over 25 years. Growing up in my house was the most wonderful experience I could have ever been blessed to have. Lots of love lots of laughter and lots of home made clothes. My mother could have sewn for Armani. Instead she sewed for all the cheer leaders , majorettes and Russellettes at my high school. She sewed evening gowns for my sister who went to more formal dances in high school than I have attended in my entire life (so she was popular...I will always be YOUNGER.)

My Diddy (as we always called him) worked like a dog. He never griped but he had his schedule. Monday nights: visitation for the church. Wednesday night: prayer meeting. Thursday night: he usually played tennis. Friday night was high school football games or a trip to The Varsity...I still love Chili Steaks because of those trips!

We didn't have a lot of money growing up but that never occurred to me. I always had what I needed and the love that consumed my house drew in our friends, my parent's friends and our house was always a happy place to be.

My Mom went first...to be honest I am still a little pissed about that. I think that maybe she did so much for so many that she had to rest first.

We struggled on without her for 25 years (I hope my math is right) and then the other shoe dropped.

My Diddy died within a ten day period . He contracted West Nile Virus from a stinkin' mosquito. A tiny little nuisance of a flying, buzzing irritant.

I still hate mosquitoes to this day and never see one without thinking of my "Diddy."

Still...ten days is much better than ten years in a nursing home. It is better than ten months in a state of despair for everyone who loves you. He went quickly, he went to meet his Maker and meet my Mother. He earned his reward and earned the respect of all three of us kids.

I can still picture his smile, still picture him shaking his head in disgust at something one of us kids did.

He was truly one in a million.

As I have said many times...I am blessed. I had the most amazing parents you could ever have. I lived a life that many only dream of.

I have learned values and what it means to "Be true to yourself."

"Happy Birthday, Old Man...I mean "Mr. Old Man."

If there is Internet in Heaven I hope that you are connected. If not, I know you peek over my shoulder every day and hope that you read my blog.

I am the Mother, Wife and person I am because of you. No...not because of you, but "Thanks to you." Tell Mama I love her and to have my wings ready...I know she probably already has them sewn... I just hope that I can fill them.

Til next time...COTTON

Another Anniversary...

Seven years ago today I lost my father to the West Nile virus. I lost my mother when I was seventeen. I was crushed by both unexpected deaths, but as I have grown older... have come to appreciate God not making me watch both of them suffer for years, forget who they were or who I was. They both went quickly and both without years of pain or suffering. The only ones left to suffer were us...I'll take that bullet for both of them ANY day. My dad was as healthy as you could imagine at the age of 77. A vibrant and sharp man... who just got bit by a mosquito. The ten days he was ill with the virus are embedded in my memory forever. The virus took my only remaining parent from me but brought me, my sister and brother closer together than we had ever been and where we remain today . He was an amazing man and a terrific father. As I go to more and more funerals of my friend's parents who have suffered and battled with illnesses for years and years...draining every one's energy, resources and mental well being...I realize that I am the lucky one. My parents went quickly and spared us from watching their demise with a calendar but with watching it with a wrist watch . My father joined the navy at the age of 16 with his parent's forged signature by his brother...he said he had a lot of nice clothes back then and his brother knew he could keep them if my dad joined the service . He came home and met my mother, worked blue collar jobs all his life to provide us with the wonderful upbringing we all so fortunately had. He is up in Heaven with my mother today, looking down on all of us smiling and saying that us kids are doing okay...he knew we would. He is my hero and he is my father. He is missed today as much as he was eight years ago. Maybe even more. I love my parents and the way they instilled "doing the right thing" in me...I hope I make them proud because I am very proud to have been blessed with two of the greatest parents a kid could ever dream of . I still dream about them both and they are the sweetest dreams I ever have .

As Time Passes By, I Realize...

I went to the funeral of one of my dear friend's parents today. She was one of my many "Running" buddies in high school. I haven't seen her in over thirty years but we have kept in touch through cards, letters and the Internet.

Another of my "Running" buddies was there as well and it was a bittersweet reunion.

Some friends from high school fall by the way side. Others stay in your heart forever...these two girls fall in that category.

One of them I was on the cheer leading squad with, the other I was in the band with. Boy, did we have some good times!

In the words of my 14 year old daughter "OMG."

Thursday night band practice on the football field, Friday night ballgames, Saturday night Rolling parties. We rolled probably two yards a night. We got caught a couple of times but usually got away clean...til we cranked up my friend's mustang with the cherry bomb mufflers (that generally gave way who we were.) There were about ten of us that were all close. Some were seniors, some juniors, I was a sophomore when we all first met and started hanging out...but we were all equals when we were together.

Our favorite hang out was McDonald's on Main St. There was a former police officer from our home town sitting in front of me at the funeral today. As I sat looking at the back of his now balding head, I wondered how many times he had to run us off from McDonald's...they always tried but we'd just circle the block til they left and resumed hanging out.

This was back when the world was a much safer place and Underground Atlanta was still "underground." We'd go to "Broadway", "The Mad Hatter" or "The Pump House"...nightspots in Underground, back when the drinking age was eighteen (what were our law makers thinking?) "Penny a beer night" (what were bar owners thinking?) Of course one Hurricane and you'd be done for the night. It was just fun to go hang out in downtown Atlanta. Our parents would have had a stroke if they knew about some of our antics, but it was basically good clean fun (except for the few fake ID's required) and thankfully we all survived without any major mishaps.

Today is a different time and a different world.

I often think of how lucky I was to grow up in the seventies.

Building homecoming floats, rolling yards, bonfires and pep rallies, powder puff football games and school dances (complete with the disco ball.) We were good kids (except for the Underground thing) and we all knew what morals and consequences were. None of us were into drugs, we were into high school and each other and having the most fun we could.

We were all lucky to have parents that loved us, came to our games and dances (maybe THAT part we didn't like) and raised us all to be pretty decent kids...and thanks to them we all seem to have turned out to be pretty decent parents.

Heaven seems to filling up with a lot of our parents...my mom has been there for over thirty years, my dad for six, several other's have passed as well.

Today they were joined by one more. They must have quite a Booster Club going up there!

It was sad to see another friend lose another parent, but quite heart warming to see old friends from the past even if was for a funeral. Her dad lived to be 87... that ain't too shabby.

When I put my arms around my friend today after the service, I felt just as much love for her as I did when I was in high school.

You know what is crazy? None of us look like we are ole farts, none of us look like we should have kids in college or out of college or kids in high school.

We are still the same old girls with the same love for each other that we had over thirty years ago.

That, in a nutshell... is the meaning of true friendship.

"Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other one's GOLD."

Thoughts and prayers out to my friend and her family...thanks for letting me be a part of your life and for making mine all the richer.

My "Diddy"

This is a picture of my "Diddy" just a couple of years before he died. He had the name "Diddy" long before Puff Diddy was even a twinkle in his parent's eye. He is over seventy in this picture and I hope I pickle as good as he did. The following is a blog I wrote about him shortly after his death and I thought with Father's Day coming up I would pull it forward to let people who don't dig way back in my posts to see a glimpse of how lucky I was to have the parents I had. As my brother says..."No long suffering for our parents, luckily they both took the express check out." If you are lucky enough to still have parents...call them today and tell them that you love them.

Ain't Life A Crapshoot ??

I am back home, two days back into work...ignoring the unpacked suitcases, stepping over the $300 worth of fireworks that my two "boys" bought in OLE "BAMA"...and have decided to start yet another book. (I read usually 2 to 3 books a week).

It is about a young woman in her thirties (WHEN did I get old enough to call a woman in her thirties...YOUNG)???? Her boyfriend (at this point in the book) has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

At this point in the book , I put it down on the patio table where I was reading... and began to ponder my life and circumstances.

I am 48 years old. I lost my Mother (I always capitalize my parents..they deserve it) when I was seventeen. I lost my Father when I was...umm... thirty twelve.

I always thought that I got a raw deal .

I lost my Mother when I was a complete "bitch"...no other word for it.

I didn't mean to be that way... it was just the "Way to Be" your senior year in high school.

She took it with grace and a grain of salt.

The day she died... she did it exactly the way that ANN LEACH would want it to happen.

It happened in the span of about thirty seconds. She was with me and my sister one minute, picking out and trying on clothes (only for my sister and me) but would pay for our selection of clothes...then she would go to Cloth World, a discount fabric store and buy herself some nice fabric on sale and go home and sew up an outfit for Sunday church service.

Don't get me wrong...She could have worked for Calvin Klein. Her sewing skills were legendary in our parts of the south west part of Atlanta.

As she fell back onto the floor, I knew in my tinny, whinny 17 year old brain that my Mother had just died on the floor in front of me.

It possessed me for years....I had been cheated !!

I gradually (about 15 years down the road) realized that God had smiled down on my Mother.

He knew what a fabulously talented woman and Mother that she was, and decided that she would not be left in a vegetative or impaired state.
He would just take her then...and WE could deal with the consequences.

As it ended up..the "Consequences" were vast and far reaching.

Our family fell completely apart...rebooted , readjusted and soldiered on.

Although it seems likes six months went by, it was almost twenty five years.

My Father at the age of seventy seven, was diagnosed with West Nile Virus. It was a rapid and unforgiving decline. (read my previous post).

He was healthy and vitally alert on day one...and ten days later he was taken off the ventilator.

I have often thought about these two days in my life.

But I realize that I could have been subjected to visiting my Mother in a nursing home, hoping for miracles that may have never happened. Instead, she went to her Heavenly home....so she could sit on my shoulder every day and be with me in my dreams every night.

As far as my Father was concerned..he HAD reached his late seventies..was sharp as a tack and was as happy as a GRANPA without his GRANMA could be.

He had his "lady friend" (was he OLD school or what)..and we all loved her.

His decline was unexpected and extremely rapid...(God once again smiled on our family).

It was tragic, it was horrendous, but it all happened in the span of ten days.

As I read about these cancer victims, Alzheimer's victims, heart patients... It comes to my mind that God has treated me more than fairly.

I am truly blessed with the fact that I had two amazing parents ; and BOTH of them were spared from the Chemotherapy, the nursing home and the rugged road to a decline that neither of them would have wanted for themselves or for us.

Sometimes I just feel like writing about them. Sometimes I just feel like telling you how I once felt cheated by this "crapshoot" we call life.

And sometimes I feel like looking at my life and saying, "THANK YOU, GOD" for not only giving my the most incredible parents in the world, but for taking them when you did...and for them not having to suffer, or make me suffer over their departing.

It has truly been a battle for me , my brother and sister as well...But to know that their suffering was brief is almost a sigh of relief.

To know that they are out of any discomfort , pain or impairment is just a tremendous amount of comfort to me...and knowing my parents as deeply and profoundly as I did...They would be thrilled with God's decision.

As it is, I have to be content with God's decision to take both of my parents, and live up to the standards and expectations that they not only instilled in but showed me every day of their short but very impressive time in my life.

I used to think I got the "SHORT" stick in life.. but in retrospect...I was a pretty lucky gal.

There are so many people in so many lands that have nothing close to the upbringing and inspiration that I had from my Mother and Father. Although it was brief, although I felt it was snatched from me...at least I HAD it.

It wasn't cancer followed by years and years of unanswered questions or prayers.

It wasn't a fall into the abyss of Alzheimer's that they could never climb back from.

It was simply a loss that I had to eventually learn to accept, and finally realize that I had been spared many years of discomfort not only for me but for one of my parents who may had been labeled to suffer and wither away in front of my eyes...and make their last years not pleasant to remember.

Except for each of my parents unexpected and sudden deaths...all my memories of my family unit as a whole are absolutely the BEST experience a child could ever dream or hope for.

Nothing but good memories(even the few not so good memories were always worth the lesson).

But as the years fly by, as my kids grow older I begin to think how truly blessed I have been.

Although my kids didn't personally know my parents...enough stories have been told and retold and retold. They have all three met my parent's life long friends and love each and every one of them. We have boxes and boxes of old pictures, report cards from first grade and even our "Cradle Roll" certificate from when each of us was enrolled at the church nursery on our first day at church service as a newborn. And know that my Diddy had each of us there on the first Sunday when we were brought home from the hospital; and probably didn't miss more than 3 Sundays over the next twenty years.

Our house was always alive with people , chatter and the hum of my Mother's sewing machine.

Our house was like a magnet for every kid that lived within 2 miles of our house. (Didn't you ALWAYS love to be at THAT house when you were a kid)?

Well that was MY house... and kids, adults and neighbors were always there and there could not be a more wonderful place to be... than to be at 2545 Bayard St.

I had the most fantastic parents that any kid on earth could ever have. I had a secure, loving and safe environment to grow up in, and I thank God for it every day.

Sometimes life IS a crapshoot. But my crapshoot of losing my parents early is totally overshadowed and made all the more bearable knowing that I had Frank and Ann Leach as parents, and that I was truly one of the three luckiest kids on the planet.

Every body loved my folks and that is really not much of an exaggeration.

I was blessed in the short years that I had with them, so many times over that I had to quit counting.

It has taken me till the age of 48 to realize that I may have gotten the short end of the stick...but it was the "best" end of the stick and the end that I needed to grow into the person, wife and mother that I feel like I am continually becoming and aspire to be.

So "Thanks" Momma and Diddy....You were the BEST!! I wish you could be here physically...but know that you are both with me and my kids in our heart and constantly on our shoulder. We are grateful for what we "WERE" able to have...You as grandparents, parents and our personal heroes.

"HEY"!! Maybe life isn't a Crapshoot.... Maybe it is just what WE make of it?

Till next time.............COTTON!!!