Day 10. Little bit of backstory

I am working on an entry for the 11^th but there is so much back story that it is going to take 2 entries.  So consider this back story and necessary to the advancement of the plot.  So this is COMPLETELY not the Phantom Menace of my blog. 

When I was in college my Mom was very involved with social justice causes in Tucson AZ, and one of the ones close to her heart was the plight of the homeless.  There were so many homeless people living on the streets in Tucson, some sent there from other states by city officials to clean up their cities homeless problems.  My Mom organized the parents of her school to provided food for the Casa Maria, she volunteered some nights when the church provided emergency shelter for the homeless when the temperatures dropped below freezing, and annually she camped out at the capital on Christmas eve as part of a big demonstration to remind those in power that Jesus was homeless himself when he was born.

In addition to these traditional ways of showing support for the homeless community my Mom also participated in a few civil disobedience protests that had to potential to get her arrested.  One year, December 1989, the Homeless Coalition broke into a vacant house that was in the university/downtown area and claimed it as a homeless shelter.  The home was owned by the city, had been vacant for years and had running utilities.  The point of the demonstration was to let the people of Tucson know that the city owned dozens of homes like this that were not being used for anything, so the argument that there was no funding to provide temporary housing for families in crisis, and nowhere to house them was something of a misrepresentation.  Since the protest was over Christmas break I was there with my Mom. 

Mostly the protest consisted of standing around outside in the cold listening to speeches and then later going in the house where it was warm and having a cup of warm apple cider and then going home.  All in all, it was a relatively minor event in my history.

In December 2000 I was back in Tucson with my Mom for a surgery that was supposed to be for an ovarian cyst but turned out to be cancer.  A few days before the surgery we were driving around town and happened to drive past that house where the protest was held.  I said to my Mom “Hey was that…” and before I could even really formulate the rest of the question she said “Yes it was”.  Then she said words that stick with me, even today.  She said “I know, remember that Jud, I know”.

The summer of 2001 when I was in Tucson after she passed away I’d drive by that house and I’d hear her say that “I Know”.  When I miss her and I want to call her and talk to her I hear her say “I Know”.  At Christmas when I sing the wrong Joy to the World like she did, I hear her say “I Know”.  Most of all when I want to show her how amazing my sons are and how proud of them she would be I hear her say “I Know”

Do me a favor? Love your Mama for me.