We're all here now
We sat on the back porch talking yesterday afternoon, and then Mom said, "There's something I forgot at the grocery store, so I'm just going to run out for a little bit," and took off for the small airport in Columbus to pick up my brother. She came back in due course, and walked onto the porch and said, "Well, I didn't get what I needed at the store, but I got something else." And in walked my brother.
"My word!" exclaimed my father, joy just lighting up his face.
"I got lost," my brother said, grinning. "Isn't this the way to Brooklyn?"
"Well, you know how it is," Chet was joking in the kitchen a little later. "Heather [his wife] heard how Betsy and Cindy and Peg were all going to be down here, and she insisted, 'You get right on that plane and get down there, because if you're not there, they'll manage to get you cut out of the will!'"
Dinner was great fun. We all sat around the old dining room table, in the same positions we sat in as children, although we had never all gathered around it in this place (we grew up in a Chicago suburb, and Mom and Dad only came down here to Georgia when Dad decided to go to graduate school at age 55). We ate with the old family silver, and drank from the old water goblets that had come from my grandmother, and we talked about our kids and our lives. It's been wonderful to catch up. Dad told us all about the program he had arranged with his Rotary group over the past year. In collaboration with a group called Center for Citizen Initiatives, Dad made all the arrangements to have a group of 13 Russians, doctors and administrators, to come over for three weeks to meet with American doctors and clinics, to learn about how medical systems are done in America.
Will write more later. Mom is calling us all to gather around so she can go through all their estate information. They are so organized. Concert and dinner out later tonight.
Peg
"My word!" exclaimed my father, joy just lighting up his face.
"I got lost," my brother said, grinning. "Isn't this the way to Brooklyn?"
"Well, you know how it is," Chet was joking in the kitchen a little later. "Heather [his wife] heard how Betsy and Cindy and Peg were all going to be down here, and she insisted, 'You get right on that plane and get down there, because if you're not there, they'll manage to get you cut out of the will!'"
Dinner was great fun. We all sat around the old dining room table, in the same positions we sat in as children, although we had never all gathered around it in this place (we grew up in a Chicago suburb, and Mom and Dad only came down here to Georgia when Dad decided to go to graduate school at age 55). We ate with the old family silver, and drank from the old water goblets that had come from my grandmother, and we talked about our kids and our lives. It's been wonderful to catch up. Dad told us all about the program he had arranged with his Rotary group over the past year. In collaboration with a group called Center for Citizen Initiatives, Dad made all the arrangements to have a group of 13 Russians, doctors and administrators, to come over for three weeks to meet with American doctors and clinics, to learn about how medical systems are done in America.
Will write more later. Mom is calling us all to gather around so she can go through all their estate information. They are so organized. Concert and dinner out later tonight.
Peg