My Little Dove

This is what memories look like. These are the reasons we loved her. This is what we have left. I compiled these photos from all I could find of her. I'm sure there are others hidden away in some boxes and scrapbooks. But I was in a time crunch, preparing for this arrangement. This symbolized the story of her life and the love she had for her family. Oh, how she loved us!

This story will be for a Vocal challenge and because of that, I will only speak on "one" the photo memories of the ones I actually took.

(In order for your submission to qualify, it must be: The photo must be your own original work—using someone else’s is not allowed.)

My choice amongst all these is the one that gives me the most joy to look at, although they all do. The picture is the third one down from the top left. It is of her dancing. This would be her last dance. You can see the joy on her face and in her animation in the one (picture) just below after the dance! She was elated. See, my mother loved to dance. She often spoke about all the times she danced when she was younger.

Women have many roles in life...daughter, granddaughter, sister, aunt, wife, grandmother, and even great-grandmother (if we are lucky enough to live that long.) And we have our school years, careers, hobbies, likes/dislikes, and peculiar habits. We come in all sizes and shapes and flavors. And we all express that best in different ways. My mother loved to dance. That was her expression. That was the part of her that would be forever young and hopeful.

That year I took her to my company Christmas party. She was my plus one because I was single. She wore her nicest outfit and I helped her with her hair and make-up. She looked and felt gorgeous. We were looking forward to a great meal and she would also meet some people I worked with at the hospital she had heard so much about when I'd come home after a long shift. One of them was Cindy, an Intensive Care Nurse on the Neurology floor. She was a sweetheart and had been long-married. She spoke of her husband being a great guy...and he was! He was the one that asked my mother to dance, unexpectedly. I will be forever grateful for that couple. He must have just sensed her love of dancing or seen it in her eyes as she looked out on the dance floor. Cindy and I had the best time watching them!

I can't remember the song they danced to, but I will always remember my mother's joy. That is the way I remember her. I like to think of her now dancing with Jesus and the angels. And with that exact smile on her face.

Her last decade of life had her defined with mobility issues caused from broken bones, and strokes with accompanying seizures which plagued her mind. She didn't like losing her independence one little bit. But she never lost her zest. She was always a stinker, speaking her mind and making us laugh at her many antics. Her last couple of years were spent in a nursing home where she made many friends. We would find out that she even had met a "boyfriend" that she held hands with and they had watched old movies together. He was from Cuba. He called her, "My Estelle." I wonder if she sang the song, "La Paloma" to him? (She had recorded that on vinyl when she had been a stewardess with American Airlines.) I know she must be singing it to Jesus, now though.

English translation of lyrics:

The Dove

A song reminds me

Of that yesterday

When she silently left

One afternoon

She went away to another place

Taking her sad melody with her

All that was left as my companion

Was my loneliness

A white dove sings to me

At dawn

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/la-paloma-dove.html-0