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My best friends mother died on Saturday October 18th, 2008.  I was in shock.  When I was 15 years old I had left home and gone to her house to live there.  She was a woman that would take in kids that had no place else to go.  I didn’t know her from Adam, I was just told that I could go there and stay.  She let me move in and I was just one of many that lived there for short periods in their lives.  She let me move in with her family and stay in her daughter’s room with her, who was a year younger than me.  She took me to get my workers permit and I got a job at Kenney Burger in Vinton then.

My mom had never taught me how to clean the house or do chores because she was a perfectionist and no one but her could do the housework like she did it.   Hilda was in awe that I did not know how to do any housework so I had to do chores there too.  Her daughter, who now is my best friend in the world, and has been for 37 years, showed me how to clean the house and everyday we had to do certain things in the house because Hilda worked long hours and was not there very much at all.  She wasn’t a single mom, her husband was there, but she may as well have been a single mom because everything was left up to her.

I remember Hilda fixing chili beans for us for dinner one day before she left for work and teaching me how to make them.  They were the best chili beans and never again, no matter how hard I tried, could I ever get mine to taste as good as hers did.  Hilda was a great woman and throughout the next 37 years of my life she was there during certain periods of my life.  Her daughter, my best friend, has been there for me during the best and the worst times in my life but Hilda was there at times as well.  If Hilda had not have let me move in that day so many years ago my life would not have included Bonnie my best friend, and so I thank my lucky stars every day for her letting me live there and letting me be a part of their family long enough to meet Bonnie and have her with me the rest of my life.  Thank you Hilda and you will be missed by so many!!!

When Bonnie called me Saturday morning and told me about her mama, I threw my clothes on and my youngest daughter and I went over there to be with her.  I sat there all day and most of that night with her and her family and her brother and his wife and there was no place else in this world that I would rather have been that day.  I didn’t know what to say to comfort Bonnie but I was there and I was close to her and it felt right.  My oldest daughter came over there too and we were all there together to comfort them and be there for them.

I will never forget how I felt as I sat there and looked around.  Bonnie’s mom was gone and nothing will ever be the same for her but Bonnie is still the luckiest person I know.  She was surrounded by her 2 children and her 3 grandchildren and her husband, her brother and her friends.  It was sad and seeing Bonnie cry broke my heart.  I had a very hard time dealing with it but I had too.  I had to try and be even 1/2 the friend to her that she has been to me over these past 37 years.

We don’t often express to our friends how much they mean to us and to some it would be very uncomfortable but I can truly say that I love Bonnie.  She is like a sister to me.  No, she is my sister.  Just like that poem that you see everywhere…she doesn’t walk behind me, she doesn’t walk in front of me, she walks beside me and we both are there for each other.   There have not been so many times in Bonnie’s life that she has needed me, she lives a pretty uneventful life plus she does have her husband and she had her mother.  There have been so many times that I have needed Bonnie and she has been there for me…never failing to find a way to comfort me or just be there.  On Saturday I knew that I had to be there for Bonnie and I will be there for her during the coming days when she needs me.  This has been the hardest thing she has had to deal with and she needs me now more than she will ever need me.  No matter what is going on in my life I have promised myself that when she calls I will drop everything and be there for her.

Bonnie’s mom was her best friend.  Bonnie is my best friend.  See the difference there.  I have never been best friends with my mom.  Hell, my mom and I are not even friends.  I have spent my entire 52 years trying to find some way to make her love me and everyone says, “Debbie, give up on it!!” and I need too.  I need to realize that my mother will never love me…not the way that Hilda and Bonnie loved each other.  I will never know the feeling that Bonnie is feeling now.  Well, I will if something happens to Bonnie before me but that is something I don’t have to worry about.  Bonnie will outlive me many many years over.  So I will never know that feeling that she feels now.

I will say that Hilda was a strong person.  Stronger than anyone I will ever know.  She lost 2 children…not one…but 2 children that she had given birth too.  That has to be the hardest thing that anyone in this world could face.  I would literally want to die if anything happened to one of my children, much less 2 of them.   Oh my God that is my biggest fear.  I pray that I never have to know that feeling.  But Hilda did and she still stood strong for the 2 remaining children and was there for them until she herself went to be with the rest of her family that had gone ahead of her.  Just like the poem that Steve read at the funeral…eventually that chain will be linked back together again.

I want to think that Hilda died with no pain and that God waited for her to find out that her other children were doing good before he took her.  Steve had a heart attack 3 years ago and survived that and is doing great now, and looks great too…ask my oldest daughter.   Bonnie has been the sickest in the past 2 years and couldn’t find out what was wrong with her.  She had been going to a quack doctor here in Vinton that kept giving her all this medication and not finding out the real problem which was her gallbladder.  When they finally took her gallbladder out and found that it was so diseased that it had hurt her other organs it was too late.  Plus the quack just kept giving her more medication and then all the medication put her pancreas into a tailspin and it became so inflamed that they didn’t think Bonnie was going to make it.  Finally a doctor took her off all of her excess medication that she didn’t need and she went to UVA and they ran tests and just last Tuesday the 14th of October the test results came back that her pancreas had healed.  It was OK…she was going to be OK  Hilda was so happy that Bonnie was going to be OK now and I want to think that God waited until she got that news before he took her home with him.  She had stook beside Bonnie throughout all the sickness for the past 2 years and then when she heard it was all over she went home to be with God, her 2 sons and the rest of the family that had gone ahead of her.  That is my belief and that is what makes me happy.  It couldn’t have been any other way.  Bonnie is fine, Steve is fine and Hilda is home with her 2 boys and will be waiting for Bonnie and Steve to come home too.

Eventually I hope to get around to making a memorial for Hilda online.  I want to do a story of her life in a slideshow/movie and put it on YouTube.  She was a good woman and she deserves to have a memorial for her online.  When I get it done, I will write in my blog and let you all know.

I have to go now.  Bonnie just called and said her and her daughter will be over in a while to see the pictures that I took at the funeral.  I can’t wait until she sees them.  There are so many great shots of her family and friends.

Have a good weekend and I will be back eventually.  I promise.

The sad thing is I don’t think there is anything I can do about it.  Will be back to finish this later, American Graffiti is on and I haven’t seen it in years and if I can stay awake long enough, I would like to watch it.

Wow, I am looking at my blog days after I posted this, today is Oct. 24th, 2008, and I do not remember writing this entry.  This is insane.  I believe I am losing it.  I am going to get off of this entry and start another one for today.

After all this time, waiting and wondering if I would ever get to see Washington, DC and going up there last March with a dumb ass attendant I had and having to turn around immediately and come home, I finally got to go last weekend (September 19th and 20th, 2008). 

 I was so impressed.  I got to see so much that I thought I would never see except on TV.  The Ronald Reagan National Airport was AWESOME!  I could have sat at the little park beside it and watch the planes for days.  I was amazed at how one would leave on one side, another come in on another side and a minute later they would do the same.  The planes were huge and I got some great pictures. 

We had 5 people that went…my friend, her daughter (who is my daugher’s best friend), my daughter, her boyfriend, and myself. 

It started off that we were supposed to tour the White House at 9am on Friday September 19th.  We didn’t get out of Roanoke until 3:30am and by the time we actually got into Washington it was 8:40am and I had let my friend drive into Washington and once we got there I was going to drive.  I got out of the car and my daughter’s boyfriend told me that my pants had ripped.  Well my jeans didn’t just rip, they shredded into pieces right at my butt.  Guess what?  There is no drive thru McDonalds or Burger King or any place like that to go too and change my pants so we didn’t get to the White House for the tour.  I hope we can go back in maybe December and tour it then when the Christmas decorations are up. 

Anyway, we stayed at The Raddison in Crystal City and it was great.  They have the “Sleep Comfort” mattresses and if I ever get my room cleaned out and a bedroom back I want one of those.  That was the most comfortable mattress I have ever slept on in my life.  Besides staying at resorts on vacation,  The Raddison was the best place I have ever stayed.  I wish we had known more about Crystal City though.  When we got home we found out that Crystal City has an underground shopping mall that you can go too and we missed it.  That really sucked that we didn’t know it until we got home. 

We got to see all the monuments and familiarized ourselves with Washington a lot.  We went through some of the tunnels that were in the city itself and they were kind of scary to me.  Cars were flying past us and all I could think of was when Princess Diana got killed in that tunnel and how I could see why if the cars were flying around them like they were us. 

My daughter finally got to visit the Holocaust Museum and that was a real adventure for her.  She was sad after they came out of that. 

I did learn that I don’t think I would want to live in a huge city like DC.  The car horns blowing at every little thing and getting lost constantly would drive me crazy.  LOL  As long as I could find 14th Street I was Okay but if we got to far from that then I was totally lost.  We did one time on Friday night get lost and ended up in what I called the ghetto of Washington and it was a little scary but ya know, all in all, the people in DC were very friendly.  They do cater to the handicapped a lot I think and that was good.  I got to park close to the places we wanted to go and see where others were riding tour buses,  walking for blocks, which I could not have done. 

The one thing that blew my mind was when we finally got to the Lincoln Memorial and saw the Reflection Pool.  I can get cold chills just from thinking about it.  That was the highlight for me and my camera was clicking every few seconds.  I took over 800 photo’s on our 2 day trip and if you want to see some of them then click on the link at the bottom of this page on the right where it says Flickr Photo Gallery.  That is where I put the majority of my photo’s now. 

Be back later with more about my family reunion and going to the Medieval Faire and lots more good stuff.