May Day May Day

My celebration today is for Becca, my oldest daughter. She was a beautiful baby, don’t you think? She was a crier==she cried ALL. THE. TIME. Whether she was hungry, wet, lonesome, awake, anything was a reason for this baby child to cry. She cried until she was about five years old. When she was two, we lived in a neighborhood of retirees. I was giving her a bath and washing her hair. The neighbor across the street called me to ask if everything was alright because she was screaming so loudly. She did not like to get her hair washed.

She could also be sweet and cute, and often said things that made me smile or downright laugh. She helped me put the milk bottles on the porch one night (yes, we had milk delivered). The next morning, she was awake already when I went to bring the milk in. She looked up at me with eyes filled with wonder, and said “Look, Mama! The cows came!”

When she was in kindergarten, the other kids called her “Rebecca Who Fixes Her Hair” because it was so curly. Just combing it in the morning looked like she had had a perm.

When she was 10, she asked for a tape recorder for Christmas. That gift was the hit of Christmas that year. All three of the kids played with it, making up skits and silly commercials, and taping them, then playing them back. I could hear them laughing all day long for months! One night, after they all went to bed, I picked up the tape recorder to listen to what they had been up to all day. It was hilarious. The skits were all original, and witty, and down right funny. At the very end of the tape, I heard Becca’s voice loud and clear “You can turn off the tape recorder now Mom, this is the end.” She KNEW me too well, even way back then!

Although she earned a four year academic scholarship to the University of Alabama, she wanted to live at home and go to West Georgia College. I said NO! I wanted her to have the experience of living in a dorm and all that going to college entails. About half way through the first semester, she called me and asked if she could come home and go to West Georgia. I told her to wait until the end of the semester, and if she still felt that way, she could go to West Georgia after Christmas break. By the time Christmas break got here, she had made friends and changed her mind. She graduated from U of A with a degree in Fine Arts.

This was taken during Spring Break in 1993. She came home from school for the week, and helped me and Fabgrandpa plant flowers in the back yard.

Just because I like this photo of her, here she is on Christmas Day, 1993 during a fluke snowfall.

Becca chose to stay in Tuscaloosa after she graduated. She had a job there, and that is where her friends were. I stopped by to visit her when I was on my way to visit Seth in Texas in May 1996. It wasn’t long after this picture was taken that she moved to Norfolk, Virginia to go to grad school at Old Dominion.

No matter where she lived, she always tried to come to wherever our family vacations were, and also tried to visit us at whatever place we were working at for the summer. This was taken at R Ranch in Dahlonega, GA in 2003. She was teaching Seth’s daughter, Sarah, how to fish.

Here we are on the bridge over the Rio Grande River on a day trip into Mexico when Fabgrandpa and I were working in south Texas in 2004.

I am especially proud of her because she doesn’t just talk about politics, she gets out there and gets her hands dirty. She volunteers for candidates she believes in, and doesn’t care what others think of her choices. She is one of the very few people I know who actually DO something for what they believe in.

Last year when I was in the hospital, we knew I would need some help when I went home. Becca came from Canada to stay with me for 16 days. I was so glad to see her, and glad that she was able to come take care of me.

Because I love her, and she has made me proud of her, I celebrate her today!