Happy Birthday Mom...Well, Tomorrow

It's Friday as I write this, but most will read my blog post tomorrow, which is October 27th, my mother's birthday. I think each year--or many years since I began this blog in 2011--I've written about my mom's birthday and the pre-Halloween tradition I've kept up for decades.

Each year, on her birthday, I carve a pumpkin.

I used to give it to her and it would be one of the pumpkins we put on the stairs at our house. Now, I place it on my parent's grave. I carved the pumpkin today, tomorrow I'll take it over and place it on the grave. I would have placed it there before I went to work this afternoon, but last year, someone smashed it when I checked a few days after the 27th.

A trick I've been using the past couple of years is to use one of those rechargeable yard lights to light the pumpkin at night. I just cut a hole the size of the light and voilá, I have illumination without resorting to a candle or a battery-powered light.

I sure miss my mom. She'd be turning eighty-seven. She'd love watching her grandkids get bigger, seeing and being with the great-grandkids, and making our lives become a part of her own. But, as with all things, since we have a beginning, we must then have an ending and her time came over eleven years ago. 

Tomorrow I'll drive over the the cemetery, place the pumpkin on the headstone, and hope no one smashes it, at least until tomorrow's over. This year, I chose a "witch hitting a tree" pattern. I'm sure she would have loved it. Happy birthday, well, tomorrow.

A Pre-Halloween Tradition...

Today's my mom's birthday. Last year I wrote a special birthday message about her. You can read it: HERE. She would have turn 80 last year, so 81 this year. One tradition I failed to include last year was the carving of a pumpkin.

Since her birthday is just a few days before Halloween, I had a tradition where I would carve her a pumpkin. Sometimes it was the only present she got from me, I say with a tinge of embarrassment. Oh, if we could just go back and do things differently... Last year I did get a pumpkin but I didn't carve it. I only set it on my parent's headstone.

This year, however, I actually took the time to carve the orange orb and I left it on the grave. I guess it's strange to leave a pumpkin in the middle of a cemetery that reads "Happy Birthday." I was thinking this as I carved up the thing. Then again, what should I have carved...Boo? Happy Halloween? Trick Or Treat? Bats All Folks? Best Witches? I See Dead People? Probably not (seriously, sorry about those...).

We loaded up the kids in the van on our way to the pumpkin patch to buy the ones we'll carve for the kids. I hope my kids know how much that little lady meant to me So, when it's all said and done, I guess this year is like those others--I got her a pumpkin for her birthday...