Welcome to Walmart...

Walmart day: I called my mom and told her hey mom I am on my way to come take you to the Walmart.  I was in the car and on my way to her place.  I thought for sure she would be ready and waiting for me to arrive and take her considering how excited she was about going to Walmart.

I arrive at her place and look all over for her.  She wasn't in her apartment, or on the back yard area and then a little lady in the lobby tells me she is in the laundry room.  I go into the laundry room and there she is putting  the last shiny quarter into the machine.  She talks to me as we are walking back to her apartment and once we get inside, she tells me that she cannot leave with her clothes in the washer.  Oh this was so frustrating! I thought to myself, well we have been talking about going to Walmart for four days now. She says to me, "You go on ahead and go without me to Walmart."  I told her, "Mom you wanted to go to Walmart, I don't need to go to Walmart.  I am here to take you to Walmart"  After a few tense moments she finally decides that she can trust Lori the lady in charge of her senior housing to transfer her clothes to the dryer and put them in her house.

Off we go to the Walmart.   I am too busy helping her push the cart I didn't see it until we almost tripped a guy with her cane.  We get inside and  start our shopping and I remember that I left the stupid list back inside the car.  So I told her to just wait for me and I would hurry back to her.  I went to the car and sure enough there was that list sitting right on the front console where I'd left it.  My mom has limited sight because of cataracts since birth and a stroke inside her eye, that left her good eye with partial fields of vision.  That is what requires her to use a cane.  She was able to go to a state funded center so she could adjust to her limited vision and stayed there a good part of a year, a few years ago.

We go down her list and get everything she wanted.  She was so happy to get those horrid bright orange circus peanuts.  My grandpa used to eat those and I tried them when I was a little girl and have never liked them.  I am surprised to find that she is a big fan of those orange candies that are shaped like a peanut on one side.  We got her stuff all to the cash register and she checked out.

Our next stop was to Hobby Lobby to get flowers to put on Michael's grave.  I wrote a few days ago that it was on Saturday the 21st but realized it was Sunday the 22nd.  I don't know how I got that date wrong.   She was a little disappointed that they didn't have red carnations and shared with me that Michael had gotten her a bouquet of red carnations when he was a little boy.  That was always his favorite flower.   We found another bouquet for my grandparents and their little baby boy Rickey that was born and lived for just one day.   Michael's bouquet had several nice red roses mixed with different colored flowers.

We stopped at my bank and got some money so I could put gas in our car.  I was on the "big Iguana"  The big empty we used to say that, when the kids were little and laughed when we realized Iguana wasn't spelled with an e like it sounds.  Anyways we ended up at McDonald's because my mom had to go potty, and while we were there had two yogurt parfaits and a soda and just chatted.  We talked about how thankful I was to have the grandparents I did.  How they lived their lives making a monument for themselves in their children's hearts.

We got to the cemetery and the dark sky started to just sprinkle rain on us as we went from grave site, to grave site, putting flowers on graves and remembering our loved ones.    My mom mentioned that she wanted some donuts and I took her by Scotty's on the way home and she got a dozen to share with her friends there at her senior housing.

I kissed and hugged her goodbye she told me that she was planning to go to her bible study tomorrow.  I told her to call me if she needed me and I would come back over.