A year...

It's been a year since my mom passed away. I didn't have it in my to write two posts and I've shared some of my feelings in a post over at Beyond Little House. I know it's Laura Ingalls Wilder related, but that's often where my thoughts go. I hope you'll take the extra few minutes to go read it.

I've added the passage, in Little Town on the Prairie, which is what my friend Rebecca and I were talking about and what lead me to write my post of at Beyond Little House:

For the next Literary, there was music. Pa with his fiddle and Gerald Fuller with his accordion made such music that the schoolhouse and the crowd seemed to dissolve in an enchantment. Whenever they stopped, applause roared for me

It seemed impossible ever to have a more marvelous evening. But now the whole town was aroused, and families were driving in from the homestead claims to attend the Literaries. The men in town were on their mettle; they planned a superb musical evening. The practiced for it, and they borrowed Mrs. Bradley's organ.

 On that Friday they wrapped the organ carefully quilts and horse blankets, they loaded it into Mr. Foster's ox wagon and took it carefully to the schoolhouse. It was a beautiful organ, all shining wood, with carpeted pedals and a top climbinb up in tapering wooden pinnacles, tiny shelves, and diamond-shaped mirrors. Its music rack was a lace pattern in wood, with red cloth behind it that showed through the holes, an on either side was a round place to which to set a lamp.

The teacher's desk was moved away, and that organ set in its place. On the blackboard Mr. Clewett wrote out the program. There was organ music by itself, organ music with Pa's fiddle, and organ music with the singing of quartets and duets and solos. Mrs. Bradley sang,

Backward, turn backward,
Oh Time in they flight.
Make me a child again,
Just for tonight.

Laura could hardly bear the sadness of it. Her throat swelled and ached. A tear glittered on Ma's cheek before she could catch it with her handkerchief. All the women were wiping their eyes, and the men were clearing their throats and blowing their noses.