When I was at the Edmonton Folk Festival, I walked past a booth from one of the local radio stations - CKUA. I stopped and chatted a moment with one of the people who handed me a CKUA sticker. I took it and smiled. I told him how I grew up listening to the music on CKUA. My mom had a small radio in the kitchen that would play the music. I would listen to the soft and soothing tones of the announcers as they talked about the previous piece of music they had just played. I seem to remember a lot of classical music. I also remember it being called The University of the Air. A phrase that always puzzled and intrigued me. Did this mean if I listened to this station I was, essentially, going to University?
Turns out, it was the only University I would attend. I failed Math 30 thanks to a lackadaisacal attitude toward my teacher and the giggles I had with my friend Karen. (she passed though....) But jobs at that time were plentiful and I didn't miss a beat. And I earned money right away instead of having to pay off student loan debt well into my future.
But as I took the sticker from the man, my first thought was "I need to show this to my Mom. She would get a kick out of it." And right behind it came the realization that, exactly a year previous, during the same weekend of the Folk Festival, my mom passed away. No one else would appreciate this little tidbit of information like my mom.
I've had that more often. Something I see, or hear and immediately want to tell my mother. At the same Folk Festival someone mistook me for a second cousin. I've had that before. I wanted to tell my mother. She would get a kick out of that because she was very close to this second-cousin's father. I could tell someone else, and I did, but it would hit different if I told my mom. And it would lead to other stories which was always fun.
This is one of the things that I lost when my mother passed. Someone who I could tell specific things to, talk about specific things that no one else would understand. Someone I could share memories with.
So where do the stories go now? The ones I want to tell my Mom? Well, I'll just have to imagine telling her. See her bright smile as she remembers. Listen to her own memories. And that's okay too. Someday, when we meet face to face, I'm sure we'll have lots of time to talk. And share.
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