Mom Through the Years
Friday, February 9th, 2007
Today is my Mom’s 57th birthday. (She’s the little one at left). I won’t be seeing her today to celebrate because we are currently crossing paths in the skies between California and Ohio. I am heading there and she is heading home. Before she left, she had been talking up a blue streak about the trip she had already taken there a few weeks ago, as well as about the preparations and plans for the one she is coming home from now. I’m sure she’ll have lots of stories and tiny details to tell us and everyone else. Denise and I will hear the stories upteen times each and will give each other a knowing glance every time she starts to tell it again. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday, February 5, 2006, I attended the funeral of Russell Willeman. The service was nice and full, as friends and family packed in to pay their final respects to this much-loved man. I was not able to make the viewing the day before, but from what I understand, enormous amounts of people paraded through the Littleton & Rue Funeral Home. It was obvious that that nearly the entire town of Springfield had been touched by Russell in some way. He had spent his career as a local high school Art teacher for 25 years. 
After posting the “meeting” story of my 
My Great-Grandmother Mary Edith Heywood Murphy passed away on March 21, 1985. She was 88 at the time. She was the first person I ever lost with whom I was close. I remember that it really scared me when my Mom told me that “Grandma” had passed away, without specifying which one. As close as I was with Great Grandma Murphy, it would have been even more unbearable to lose one of my other two Grandmothers. Her service was held on Monday, March 25th in Dayton and her final resting place was at the Mound Hill Cemetery in Eaton. 
Mom, Bob, Ashleigh, and I took a short weekend trek up to visit with Denise, Aaron, and of course, baby Adam last Saturday, January 27. Just before leaving,