Grandma and Stewie Plotting From Heaven

The weirdest thing happened to me this week. It is things like this that make me KNOW that God in Heaven exists and KNOWS and cares what is going on in my life. 

For the past few months, I have been editing my mothers memoirs. Before she passed away, we paid someone to publish her book. She wrote a book 50 years ago and started editing it over and over through the years and her "big regret" in her life was that she never published her book. 

She has talked about this book my entire life and in my mind, the book was written for the people 50 years ago and isn't as relevant now.
 
My family all said they were too busy to edit it and that they didn't know the stories or about the pictures so I ended up with it. 

At first, I was stressed and frustrated as there was only supposed to be a few questions in each chapter but as I have started reading it, it is much more time consuming than I thought it would be. 

BUT, the reality, is that I have been enjoying reading about my mothers life. I had no idea of the things that my mother gave up to have a family. 

Because I am so busy, I take the book with me when I am going somewhere I think I may have a few minutes. 

I took it with me the other night to the National Honor Society meeting and got a few pages edited. On our way out of the meeting, I ran into my mothers best friends daughter. 

My mother had a best friend since she was 10. Many of my early memories were with her best friend, whose nickname was "Stewie."

Stewies grand-daughter was being inducted into NHS. Her mother asked how I was doing and I was in a hurry so I said, "great" and was going to head off and she asked what was going on in my world. I had the book in my hand and told her I was busy trying to edit the book and shared that it was taking much longer than I thought. 

She commented that she found some pictures of my mother in her mothers estate stuff recently. She said they are of my mother in her mom's wedding party. I have been through all my mom's pictures and have never seen any pictures of my mother in her wedding. I was excited to see what she found. 

Yesterday, I went and picked up the pictures and took them to Walmart and scanned them and made her a cd disc of them to thank her for allowing me to borrow them. 

I was SO excited when I saw my mother in the crown as she was only allowed to wear it for two occasions as she had to have an armed guard with her when she wore it as it was made of real jewels. 

She also had pictures of the big 21st birthday party they had for my mother. The picture at the top is my mother with her best friend and the actress Judy Holliday.        

My favorite picture is the one of my mother, her best friend and her friends mother who was a famous poetess. I also love the one of my mother in the wedding party as the maid of honor. 

Back to the original comments at the top, I KNOW that my mother and her best friend wanted me to have these pictures as my mother mentions "Stewie" in the book in several spots and I didn't have any good pictures of the two of them from back then. I have many from my life when they threw parties for each other etc but none from before they were married and none that were very good. The ones I have were all from my mothers little "brownie" camera and weren't that great so to have these adorable pictures is so wonderful. 


I can see my mother and Stewie maneuvering us to help me find the pictures for the book. I wasn't even supposed to be at the NHS thing as my daughter wasn't being inducted but I am SO glad I was. 

I am so grateful for the pictures and for the opportunity to edit the book and getting to know my mother in a whole new way. Hopefully I can finish the last 150 pages before the new year so I can get a few more things off my list!