As I cleaned out some digital files, I came across one titled Mom’s List. This file contains an interesting mix of items commonly requested by Mom and other tidbits, including two quotes from Mom. On July 5, 2021, four months before she died, she told me what her epitaph would be: her coloring was out of this world.
Crayons, colored pencils and markers
Coloring
She was right, you know. Her coloring was amazing. I always admired her coloring and wondered how she made kids’ coloring pages look so cool. I found a photo on my phone from the spring of 2016 where she was showing my sister some of the pictures she had colored. We were taking a break from the yardwork we were doing as a birthday present for her.
Her media were mostly crayons, markers and colored pencils. Her coloring pages came from both kids’ coloring books and the more intricately designed adult coloring books. In 2021 when she was in the nursing home, she continued to color.
My sister and I got to join in on certain coloring pages. My sister would color some of the page while she was visiting with Mom, and then I would add to the page when I visited Mom. Mom, of course, usually started the page and would add to it after my sister and I had done our parts (we started coloring this horse together, but Mom died before the picture was finished). Even though Mom was unable to do so many things while she was in the nursing home, she could still amazingly add color to pictures.
Photos and videos
Shenanigating
Coloring was one of many ways she showed creativity throughout her life. Other artistic outlets for her included dancing, interior design, and writing. Through her creative endeavors, I learned to appreciate all colors, beauty, differences, challenges and nonconformity.
Speaking of nonconformity, I recently participated in the national Festival of Shenanigans, which was a 17-day event sponsored by Escape Adulthood. The event provided a list of 100 challenges to complete. Each challenge was assigned a total number of points with the points ranging from 10 through 60. Eight challenges offered bonus points ranging from 11 through 40 if certain conditions were met during the challenge. Photographic proof or video evidence was required to earn the assigned number of points and any bonus points if applicable.
I printed the list of 100 challenges because I’m a paper kind of person – the event app was not going to work for me on a daily planning basis. Throughout the festival, I would look at the list and choose the challenge that was doable at that moment based on the people around me and the items I had available. Once a challenge was completed, I would highlight it so that I would stop looking at it thinking I still needed to do it. Toward the end of the festival, I put days and people’s names next to challenges on the list so that I could focus on what needed to be done that day and with whom.
Titles and ice cream
Supporting
Besides just taking the festival one day at a time, I had the universe on my side providing serendipitous moments like my sister, brother-in-law, and his brother going to Chicago on the day before the festival ended. They offered to take me along. We got one of the GPS challenges done at Navy Pier. Then, on the way home, we completed two more challenges because they were so willing to co-shenanigate with me.
With the help of more than 45 family members, friends, co-workers, strangers, and some people’s pets, I completed 97 of the 100 challenges although I had set out to complete only 10. I have often been accused of being an overachiever. I guess I accomplished that yet again with the Festival of Shenanigans. I also earned the title of Grand Shenanigator and won a year’s worth of ice cream.
Mom would have participated with me if she had been here. She loved lists and crossing things off of them. She loved supporting me unconditionally no matter what hare-brained idea I was completing. She also is the one who taught me to be confident in me – a skill I definitely needed in order to complete 97 shenanigans in 17 days.
Lists and life
Experiencing
The Mom’s List document has items numbering about one-third the number of challenges listed for the Festival of Shenanigans. Mom’s List also has no points assigned to any of the items. No bonus points were given even if I found a particularly difficult item that had been requested. (Mom could be very specific about what she wanted.)
However, finding Mom’s List now reminds me of so many things like my always pondering how a human being could survive eating only the cookies called Pinwheels, cottage cheese and peaches.
As I mentioned earlier, Mom’s List had two quotes that I had noted about a month apart. On June 6, 2021, Mom told me the following while she was in the hospital after I had found her at home early that morning experiencing a heart attack.
She said, “I might not be long for this world ... it’s been a good life.”
Sending you wishes for opportunities to shenanigate and live a good life,
Angela Jane
The Grand Shenanigator