pride and a wonderful woman
One of my most treasured memories of my mom, from years back:
She had spent the week with me, piggybacking on one of her Longaberger basket demo trips, and we had a wonderful time. She heads home to Ohio on a Friday, I call her that night and tell her it's a shame she'd had to leave because the San Francisco Pride Parade was that Sunday.
We laugh, finish the conversation, say our love-yous and talk-to-you-laters, and went about our evenings. An hour or so later, my phone rings. It's my mom, giving me her flight info and asking if I could pick her up at the airport the next afternoon.
Um, hell yes!!
This woman got off a *cross-country* flight after more than a week away from home, then without hesitation turned around and booked a last-minute flight *right back again* for the next day to come join her daughter in California for a Prideful day in San Francisco.
How incredible was that?? And how much fun did we have?? So many smiles, so much laughter, so much joy. Somewhere during the day, she was adopted by a fantastic lesbian couple who loved that she flew out just for the parade, and their daughter was so giggly and animated and absolutely loved the beads and candy and stickers that Mom was snagging for her. It was a perfect day.
She flew home the next morning, tired, sunburned, and still smiling ear to ear. Such an amazing time, such an amazing person. I miss her so much.
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(A side story: This was back in the Olden Days, when taking photos meant you had to take film out of your camera and give it to someone to be developed into paper pictures. We had to get her photos developed here in California, because there was a risk that the store back in Ohio would either refuse to give them back to her or even call the police if they didn't like the content. I wish I could say we'd progressed since then, but <waves around at the state of things>.)
