Cissie's 80th

Five Years Ago, surprise party at 75

Cissie Campbell would have been 80 today.  We would have had a party, despite her telling us to not make a big fuss about it.  “The Gang” would have been there, along with grandkids and a great grandkid. Jan would have dropped by from the tennis tournament. We’d have shown pictures and laughed a lot.   Ah, what should have been. 

To remember Cissie, Shelly, Heather and I went to dinner at a coastal Italian restaurant tonight---they wore red, spangley, bright things including Cissie's own reading glasses.  I wore a red tie Mom had given me. In her honor, we talked to strangers at the other table and struck up a conversation with the owner, tasted each other's food, and commented on how fun it was to be eating fish across the street from the ocean.  We ate the desserts and laughed about spending our childrens' inheritance. On departing, we told the other diners "arrivederci" . .  and were carried away by the beauty of the evening in a place far from home.

It was a quintessential Cissie time.  To make it a real Cissie evening we would have invited the other diners to join us for a tee time at the golf course in the morning. The next best thing happened . . . Jay emailed us this picture of four roses under Cissie's tree at her favorite golf course: 

We love you and miss you, Mom.  And thanks for leaving lots of you in us, and around us, all over the world!