Just Like Mom

By:Cherie, Green Bay, WI

For almost 25 years, mom was there for me -- and our family but after many years of suffering, she died from cancer in 1985. For years people have told me how much I resemble her. In fact, I don't look anything like my brother, sister or my dad...just my mom.

A few years ago a friend of mine was having a workshop about scrapbooking. I had no idea what this was but went anyway. I found the idea of making scrapbooks and writing down memories about past events so exciting that I soon became addicted to scrapbooking.

My first thought was to scrapbook something about mom but how to do something special. After thinking about it, I decided to first focus on the last gift she gave to me before she died. In fact, this gift was started a few years before that by my maternal grandmother...a crocheted afghan I saw on the cover of Good Housekeeping magazine. I wanted that afghan so badly. Grandma and I bought the yarn and materials and she started working on it. Unfortunately, Grandma also got cancer and died relatively soon after that in 1982. For a couple year that afghan remained unfinished in my hope chest. I used to take it out and look at it and wish and remember. Then I asked my mom if she would be able to help finish it. She agreed even though she was already quite sick at the time. It took her a while but she finished my beautiful afghan....beautiful in so many ways because of the memories and love associated with it.

I keep this afghan on display in my home that I now share with my husband and daughter. We snuggle under this afghan on family nights. I cry under this afghan when I have one of those moments and remember....and now I also have a scrapbook depicting this wonderful memory of both my grandma and my mother. The afghan and scrapbook will both be prescious gifts I will pass down to my daughter in time with the hope they will mean as much to her as they do to me.

Scrapbooking was my way to say "thanks" mom and grandma in a very special way!

Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: Scrapbooking the Moments, by Becky Meadows