 | Blogs > Mrs_CIGAR > Happy NAILS to you!!! > When did those people get old??? |
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I had the extreme pleasure of visiting some old friends in Sacramento. When I was 13 or so I started babysitting for a neighbor. She had two little girls and was pregnant with #3. As time went by I bacame very attached to the 3 little girls and then little girl #4 came along. Shortly after that the parents divorced and the mother who was my LIFESAVER went to Nursing School. Obviously she was gone many hours and so I was with the children for many hours. Back then I babysat 4 kids and cleaned house for 50 cents and hour, but I would have done it for free. They were an island of sanity in the slightly warped world I grew up in. I grew up in my house hearing that children would ruin your life, but I learned from the Family next door that it wasn't true. Children were blessings and not curses. The Mother of that family was always so good to me. She's the one that talked to me like I had a brain. She taught me so much. I was 17 when I left home and went into the military, but they were always the main part of what I carried with me. Of course, as years went by we lost contact. But my kids grew up hearing all about the girls and their mother and how much I still feel I owed to them. Well, I got ahold of the Mother when I first got back to California and just this past weekend there was a combined birthday party for several of kids the girls went on to have and I was invited but it was kept a secret. Saturday morning we set out to go see them again. I have never realized til then what a blessing they really were to me. Walking into the yard I saw tons of people. It took me a while but then the faces started to come back to me. There were aunts, cousins, and about 18 small children. A few teenagers, bunches of people with grey hair. The first of the girls I cam face to face with was holding a boy of 2 and for a moment she looked my way, then stared for a minute then came the OMG!!!! She remembered me! Another came walking over and said "Who are you?" blinked and then through her arms around me. Another one stepped out the door. She was slightly taller than me so she was kind of looking down, but she had the same stare she had since she was 2. The quiet one that never said a word but you knew she was sizing you up from the time she was a baby. She says "I know you" and hugged me like she was never going to let go. They all remembered. And they were happy to see me again. Unbelievable. Then one by one several of the other people began to realize who I was and made a point to say they were so glad to see I was there. Everybody was having a ball. The kids of the Girls all ranged from age 2-16, some of them spitting images of their mothers. It was funny how the family resemblences had carried on and on. The Girls are now 42, 40, 38 and 36. Unbelievable. Number 1 lost her leg in a near-fatal car crash when she was 16 and I saw her for a couple hours after that. Even then you would never have known she wasn't born that way. Good family surrounded her every minute and she recovered miraculously. Number 2 and I ran into each other for a few moments in 1989 after the earthquake near San Francisco way back when. She and her grandmother had traveled to check out some property damage they had from the quake. When they came walking up the road where my kids and I were staying at the time I was dumbstruck. She was the starer. Even then she just stood kind of quietly while her grandmother and I talked for a bit but we were all still in a state of shock from the quake. Number 3 was my biggest surprise this weekend. What a character!!! And what clear recall of the time we spent together. Had I known she would remember so much I might have been a little more careful! LOLOL! Number 4 still looked exactly as she did at the age of 3 but her memories of me were more like stories she had heard so I was safe there. What I thought was very sweet to hear is that all 4 of the girls had CDs of the Beach Boys Christmas album. When they were little that's all they wanted to hear - year round. So we would put it on and all sing and dance around to it for hours on end. They all remembered sitting for hours and putting on make up and the day I painted the youngest one's toenails black and she went into hysterics! They remembered the boys I had crushes on, the times I ran to their house for safety when my father got violent, and the times their Mom just sheltered me. If they were out of town they would leave a back window unlocked so I could escape my house if I needed to and find quiet in their house. Number 1 inherited my rollerskates when I left for the military and says she wishes she still had them and we joked about her only needing one now. Their faces were still the same. I could still see each of them just as they were when I went away. And my heart was glad. Their aunts were there. Everyone there just to celebrate the new generation of kids. Both of the girls's biological parents and extended families were there and you never would have known everyone wasn't just old friends. That's the way it should be. Current spouses, current girlfriends, friends of friends, and a few gaps from people that should have been there but had passed away. At one point there had to be at least 16 children under the age of 6 running around and I never really figured out till the end who's was whose because of the way the kids just flowed from one person to another and everyone was watching over them all. Most everyone ended up in the pool. My Hubby is child-phobic and even he said he can't wait to do this again in July!!!!! |
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8/23/2008 2:51 am |
One of my best friends was in that shaker in 1989. Her FIREMAN got his BIG BIIIIIG PROMOTION thanks to the quake of 1989. He worked 9 days without sleep. He did not stop until he was SURE the victims had been found. I had just flown back from the bay area from a ROCKIN ROD STEWART concert. Remember him??? Made that spandex look REAL GOOD!I was working at an account one afternoon and i looked up from the other edge of an indoor swimming pool...teetering on some fancy smancy rocks....  and this elderly womans granbabys had arrived. A boy 18 and a girl 15. All of a sudden that girl hollered loud enough to have me in the water!! I KNOW YOU!! you were our BABYSITTER!! they sure were. i got the same and did the cleaning just like you said here. OMG! i was so happy to see their mom and by then she was divorced with the kids. Lived right across the street from our home. Real nice lady. I had no clue that her mom was one of the richest women on the west coast. She was one i never hesitated to sit down and have breakfast or lunch. And she would fix it!!!! Right before my move here i saw the obituary page and hers was there. I cried for a long time. She was like family to me. The grandson was killed about a week after i saw him in a headon car crash. It was horrific and i was so sad for them and that loss. The granddaughter went on to college and i expect married or shopping in Paris by now!!!! grandmaw was a MAJOR SHAREHOLDER in none other than EXXON. IMAGINE THAT INHERITANCE!!!!! Life is short....play HARD!!!
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6/16/2008 12:56 pm |
Nice to see a bit of good news and happiness and whatnot! Cheers! 
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