To my amazing San Saba friends and devoted readers, this will be my final column in the San Saba News and Star. Mom and her dachshund group, Patches, Herman, and now me, have been writing for this paper for a very long time. Patches with his tales of Rowena the squirrel, Herman and his complaints about parental mistreatment and being left alone while they went shopping! I guess I got the charmed life, the stuck at home mom, no valid license mom, the really old and well used version. I will take her every single day though, she has a caring heart, maybe too caring.
Mom and I moved back here expecting to find it as she left it, but of course that never really happens, does it? Mom smiles and says it looks the same yet feels entirely different. I hug her and tell her perhaps because her place in it is entirely different. She isn’t galavanting all around, having coffee and conversation with her ‘old man’ coffee buddies every day, volunteering as a legal advocate for the Dove Project anymore, a member of the Rotary, etc. These days mom’s only job is not to collapse in the middle of the floor.
Which brings me to why this will be my last column…I don’t leave mom’s side much anymore. If she is outside painting on a canvas, I am right there with her. If she walks into the kitchen to get more unsweetened tea I follow her until she is safely back in the living room. It was recently discovered mom has a fracture in her spine causing her unbearable pain, so yes, I have a new full time job…looking out for her as lovingly and beautifully as she has for me these past three years.
I want to thank you, my San Saba loves, for allowing me into your lives, homes, and hearts. I can honestly say you have a high tolerance for nonsense if you can put up with goofy dachshund antics. Mom and I have so enjoyed the many years we have been writing for this paper and best donation of our time we ever made. Take good care of yourselves dear ones… we genuinely love you!
Love, Lenny