Fate had other plans.
At about 9 a.m. Friday, while I was working on an article at the office, I got a phone call from a cousin living in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.). She was crying, and she told me why:
Her name was Irene, and she was my mom's sister-in-law, the wife of her older brother (He was the oldest of three children, my mom was the youngest.), and I'm sure my mom was closer to her than anyone else in the world--outside of me and my wife, of course.
So instead of visiting the nursing home Saturday, I left work at noon Friday to drive down there and deliver the news in person. All things considered, she took it pretty well. She was sad, but then said Irene she was back with her husband, who had died in 1992.
My Aunt Irene--remember, she's 93--lived in the suburbs north of St. Paul. It's condos and urban sprawl today, with a big school next door. But I remember that back when I was a kid, when we visited, it was all rural homes and farm fields. The old family farm, where she was raised, was right across the road.
After my uncle died, Irene kept living in her house by herself, leading an active life, even driving down into St. Paul at times. My mom (and I) really admired her spunk and spirit. Very easy-going person, very kind-hearted. Very much like the farm girl she once was.
Well, Irene didn't really live by herself. She had cats living around there. Lots of cats. Feral cats. She fed them with bulk cat food, and her back yard was their hangout. You frequently could see at least a dozen hanging around outside. She explained that she never took one inside for a pet--because the other ones would have their feelings hurt.
That's one story. Another was one of Irene's more timeless sayings about larger-than-normal vegetables--that "It don't many of those to make a dozen."
Now she's gone. I quickly reworked my weekend plans. Instead to finishing up the paper on Monday--the day of the funeral in the Twin Cities--I wrote for most of Saturday, getting my stories finished and photos processed. On Sunday morning, I'm laying out my pages, and then we'll leave for the Twin Cities Sunday afternoon. Too bad about the football, but ...
We'll attend the funeral Monday and will visit with the relatives part of that afternoon before driving home Monday night. Maybe we'll drive all the way back home Monday night, maybe not. It's about 265 miles from here to there. As a side note, we'll be driving right through Ladysmith, where we visited over New Year's, and a short visit to the in-laws there is possible. Hopefully, this time we won't get bogged down with Animal Planet.
The last time my mom (and I) saw Irene in person was in June 2004, when I drove her over for a visit. I have a few photos from that trip.
This first one is about 10 miles from my mom's house, in northeastern Wisconsin, after I picked her up. Yes, that's a black bear. It was crossing the road when I saw it from about 150 yards away. I stopped and tried to grab the camera from the back seat. The bear, meanwhile, turned around and seemed ready to go back into the woods when he seemed to suddenly remember, "Duhh, dat's right, I wanted to cross the road!" So he turned around a second time, and that's when I got this photo ...
After that, I was determined to keep the camera closer, in case any other photo ops took place.
Not more than a half hour later, we were on U.S. 8, heading west, when we saw a big dog standing on the other side of the road, about 100 yards away. Wait a second. That's no dog! The brindle coat. The large head. The pointed ears. The intelligent eyes.
"That's a wolf!" I said, braking my car and plunging my hand under my legs for the camera bag. My hand found it--just enough to push it across to the other side of the seat. I fumbled around excitedly for it, finally found it, then fumbled to undo the latch on the case, then lift it out, take off the lens cap, turn it on and get it pointed in the right direction.
While all that was going on, the wolf slowly ambled our way, sort of a trot. He passed right outside my driver's side window (as I continued to fumble the opportunity away), circled around behind the car, off the shoulder of the road and into the woods. Gone. The opportunity ... gone. I was upset, to say the least.
At least I got some photos of some buffalo. Just after you cross over from Wisconsin to Minnesota on U.S. 8, there's a big bison ranch, so I stopped to get a few photos of some of the most majestic animals in North America ...
We arrived and visited for a while, going out to dinner. The camera came out that evening when Irene went out to feed the cats. As soon as she went back inside, the cats made a beeline to the dry food ...
And they weren't shy, either. As long as I got photos from the kitchen window, I was fine. If I went outside, they would run away.
The next day, we decided that my mom and aunt would spend the day talking, while I drove around to see the sights of the Twin Cities. I got myself a new camera bag at one shop and eventually wound up at the Mall of America, to the south of the Twin Cities. This is the mega-mall of all mega-malls. If it's not the biggest in our continent, it's darn close. I took a few photos. This one shows a kids' amusement part, Camp Snoopy, entirely inside the mall ...
I also got to see the space shuttle and International Space Station--made entirely of Lego blocks. See the little Lego logos? ...
The more unusual sight of all, at least to me, was a Green Bay Packer fan shop--right in the heart of Minnesota Viking territory. They had big photos of Brett Favre, green and gold uniforms, cheeseheads and everything ...
We all went out to dinner that night. Then, the next morning, it was time for us to head back home. I took a picture of my mom and Irene ...
And I got a photo of Irene getting a photo of me ...
Never had a chance to see her photos.
Over the last couple of months, I had been thinking to myself that if my mom feels good enough this summer, maybe I could take her to visit Irene again this summer. The last two visits (the previous one was in 2002) were (in my mom's words) "probably the last time I'll get to see her."
She was right about the 2004 visit. These photos were their last moments together.
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