Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #3441 - My New Indoor Shoes: PRIDE: Ghost 15s
I bought a new pair of indoor shoes.
My lower back was starting to hurt. When that happens, it's past time for new shoes. It had been over a year since I bought the last pair of indoor shoes, though I had switched the inserts once.
Any shoes will lose their support after 400 miles of wear or so.
I spotted these Brooks Ghosts last year but couldn't afford them. But then a year later, Prime Day, a gift certificate.
Sold!
I only wear Brooks, and most often the Ghosts as they are light way and neutral balance. Size 11.5.
Also, new inserts. Green Feet - size E.
I was encouraged by a doctor to wear shoes all the time years ago. Though my feet are better these days and so I do go bare foot some of the time, but if I am going to be on my feet for extended periods, I need to be in shoes.
I liked these shoes because they reminded me of the Peter Max shoes from the 1970s (1968 originally, apparently) as I had a pair around the age of ten or eleven -- pictures below.
Every month is Pride month, and everyone should celebrate Pride.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2407.20 - 10:10
- Days ago = 3305 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #460 - A Trip to the Mall with Mom
Hi Mom,
Maybe I am being silly. Maybe this is wholly unnecessary. But it was your birthday, Mom. Your 80th birthday. You have been gone a year and three months, and I wanted to keep my promise to you.
As your last mother's day gift, I gave you the thing that you would love most: a day of shopping at the mall. Not a full day, surely. Not what you used to do when you shopped the mall. After all, the mall is very different now. But I offered to take you there and wheel you through every store, so you could look at everything. And then you died before I fulfilled my promise made by that gift.
And so, on your 80th birthday, I thought it a fitting tribute to go walk around the mall and think about what it would have been like to take you and show you around. I do not strongly regret not getting you there after Mother's Day because in part it was due to your decline that we didn't. And I had taken you on many shopping trips in the last fifteen years, so this would have just been another. In fact, I gave you the gift only because Dad told me you didn't need anything else, that you didn't want anything else. I think we all knew deep down that we were nearing the end even though we had not admitted it to ourselves.
It's also fitting that after I shopped the mall I went to Meijer and did the grocery shopping. You loved Meijer, too, and I took you on MANY expeditions to the "hypermarket," during which I would wheel you up and down nearly every aisle in the entire store, not just grocery, something Dad did not often do (and fairly so). I made mention of these Meijer expeditions here: Hey Mom #14.
Also, I had forgotten that I wrote about this promised visit both in the first post and in Hey Mom #70, in which I officially proclaimed that I had this IOU to you, Mom.
It only took me 390 days from the time of writing the IOU to fulfill the promise (more like a year and a half since I gave the gift).
You loved shopping, Mom. Other people may find this insignificant. It's not like I went to an opera you loved, a favorite museum, the waterfalls in Uruguay, or something like that. For you, it was shopping. You found great joy in shopping. I loved seeing how much you loved it. And you rarely bought things. You mostly just wanted to know what was in the stores, you know, for future reference. You were not really very materialistic. You were not super brand conscious, at least not in a way that conveyed status. And when you did buy things, they were rarely for yourself. You basically spent all year finding little gifts for Christmas and birthdays. Lori benefited more from this shopping method as she liked those knick-knacks and special little things that you would find and buy months in advance.
I always enjoyed how thrilled you would be when I wheeled you along all the aisles in Meijer or the stores in the mall. I loved seeing the happiness on your face. I miss seeing that.
And so, I tried to somewhat re-create our shopping trip, your shopping trips.
Here's where I like to park. As you can see, all the handicapped spots are taken, so we would not have been able to park here. I find this odd as it was Friday afternoon, but apparently that's a major time for handicapped persons at the mall, unless these are cars of employees, which is possible.
I like to enter via Macy's on the upper level. This goes back to when I worked in the mall. But this is my preferred entrance, and, as it turns out, it's also Liesel's preferred entrance. Not that either of us go to the mall very often.
Here's the main entrance. You and I may have entered here, Mom, as the parking may have been better down here.
I like maps.
The mall looks the same as it always has in many ways. Though very few original stores remain.
I many ways, The Crossroads Mall is much nicer, cleaner, and has more seating and gathering areas, COMFORTABLE areas, than it did in the 1980s and 1990s.
Apparently there were Girl Scouts in the mall leaving notes like this for people. I found this on the display bed in Sleep Number.
I am sorry to tell you, Mom, that I did NOT go through every store. In fact, I entered TWO stores only. Sleep Number was one because [a] it's in the spot where Walden Books used to be and where I worked. I also worked at Arby's which was in the current Food Court area, but I try to forget that I worked there, Also, Liesel and I need more bedding since she bought the king size bed for us.
Should I leave feedback on the web site and share this link?
I am concerned because years ago I was told NOT to photograph anything in the mall as apparently competitors do so or something.
Also, despite the feeling that the mall is like a town square and is public property, it is not. It's private property, and I could be kicked out.
This was your favorite part right here on the second floor heading to JC Penney.
You did like Bath and Body Works a lot, Mom. I almost went in, but I do not like shopping as much as you do, and I did not want to spend money.
I did go into the Hallmark store, which was among your greatest loves, along with Paddywack, which no longer exists. However, this is not the original location of the Hallmark store.
Sbarro's is in the spot where your favorite lunch place existed: TE Murch's. You were such a regular that most of the employee's knew your special lunch and how to prepare it.
I wasn't going to get food here, but I changed my mind. I was hungry. And it was fitting. You always had lunch here when you could come on your own. And I would have bought you lunch if I brought you for your gift, though I am not sure what you would have eaten... probably Chinese, as I did.
I sat at a handicapped accessible table just for you, Mom. There were plenty of other handicapped spaces, so I was not taking a spot for an actual handicapped person who might need it.
As I ate my lunch, a girl scout gave me this note. Seemed fitting. Even more so, if she knew why I was there.
So I had Chinese food.
And then I took an escalator ride, one you took often, as you left Murch's and went to Paddywack, which used to be at the bottom of the escalator here by JC Penney.
Yeah, so I took a video. I am a weird geek, I know. A nerd. But I wanted to capture the moment.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1610.09 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #70 - IOU a trip to the mall
Hi Mom,
I owe you a trip to the mall. Not the mall in the picture above. The mall in the picture no longer exists, at least not in this form.
On Mother's Day this year (2015), I gave you an IOU for a trip to Crossroads mall and an afternoon of shopping and treats. I knew it would have to wait until summer as Liesel and I were leaving for Scotland and with work and all, I would not be able to fit until early July, right around the time you died.
Once again, Mom, your timing was very good. You died during a work break. I had one class going at Park University but that was the only thing: no CTU classes, no teaching of WMU classes, and no taking of WMU classes. Good timing, if any time was actually "good." I do not really think anything about this is "good." Oh, no. That's not true. I did not want you to suffer. It was time for you to go. As goings go, yours was as good as it could be, I guess.
But we had not yet done our trip to the mall.
My first reaction, when Dad reminded me of the IOU, was that I did not feel like going to the mall simply as a tribute to you.
And then, I reconsidered. I still owe you that shopping trip, Mom. You loved those trips so much. And since you pay such close attention to our conversations, those that take place here and privately, that I have no really good excuse for not going to the mall and going all the places you would want to go, which is basically everywhere.
I have been keeping the "days ago" numbers under my calendar, but I only count out one week at a time. I don't have the heart to fill out the whole calendar.
I am still swallowed whole by work, so this is a short one.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Hi Mom, I went to Meijer today, and I thought of you.
It's weird to think of you in a place like Meijer, but there's so many memories that I can't help it.
You loved Meijer so much. You loved seeing what was new, even in sections that you generally did not review, like the paint aisle. I know you missed how you used to be able to take your time in Meijer, and how it was never the same after you had to rely on us to wheel you around. But I took you to Meijer so much, and spent so much time there with you as a child, that I am not going to be able to go to the store and not think of you, not feel you there with me, telling me to turn around and go back, or telling me not to run off, or asking me to go get a box of brown sugar because you forgot it.
So, I had to fight my emotions the whole time I was in Meijer. I am sure it will get easier to bear, but it's a problem to associate a place with you, Mom, so strongly, a place where I have to go every week.
I feel closest to you there, Mom. Maybe I should have some of your ashes interred there.
I was very fortunate that it was Liesel's idea to go today. I felt a lot better being there with my wife than being there alone. I am going to struggle with being there for quite a while; I may always struggle to be there.
For those who don't know, Meijer is a general merchandise and grocery store. The picture here features "our" Meijer, yours, Mom, and mine, the one near Richland, the one where we went shopping so many times since it was built in the 1980s, especially in the last 15 years when a trip to Meijer was the highlight of your day.
I wish I had some photos of our trips to Meijer in the last fifteen years. It was such a production to take you. I had to get you into the car at home, into the wheelchair in front of Meijer, often when the wind was whipping around crazily, and then get you into the store. I preferred to wheel both you and a cart at the same time, which was tricky when you wanted to be taken down every aisle because Dad would never give you such a tour when you went with him. I wonder why we never thought of touring the store aisle-by-aisle and THEN doing the shopping with the cart? Seems to me to be the right thing, now.
I should go back to the Gull Road Meijer as much as I can, especially once to tell our favorite cashier about your passing. I am not sure if I can do that now. That visit may have to wait until I feel stronger.
I often dream of Meijer, and often these dreams feature me selecting a book or comic, as you would always buy me one when I was a kid. The section is always moved in my dream, and it is surrounded by other great sections featuring great merchandise. I re-arrange the store in my dreams, which I suspect that you did, too.
Do you remember when I was a kid and I lost you? I went to the Convenience Desk and had them page you on the loud speaker? Boy, were you angry... But I couldn't find you. I remember that I was upset, too.
Next time I am in Meijer, I may ask the Convenience Desk if they will page you for me on the loud speaker.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
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