I left Paris….Illinois and headed back to Indiana to visit my Mom’s home town. Worthington, Indiana. We visited it a lot as kids, through the sixty’s, and seventy’s it almost every summer, didn’t matter if we were heading to Colorado, the trip always went through Worthington first.
We visited family and cousins, played at the park where they had real World War II guns we climbed on. Walked on top on low walls along the sidewalk, and caught lighting bugs in jars. We would visit the Rexall Drug Store where my Aunt Kathryn worked downtown(she later moved to Florida and lived with us and worked at Rexall at Westgate shopping plaza). Along with the family get togethers and cook outs there was the always expected, visit across the railroad tracks. Across the tracks was where the cemetery was. My mothers parents were there and some other relatives I never knew. But it was part of the trip, somebody had to do it and it was my mom.
You see my mom was the baby of her family, one of five siblings. Her name was Martha, but they called her Little Marti, she once told me. She always kept an eye on the others and they were a handful, as I learned growing up around my Aunts and Uncles. My mom worried about them and everyone connected, it’s who she was. I have learned the impact she had on the love ones I have visited on this trip, she was special for sure, one of the most loving persons ever.
So over the years, my folks visited Worthington and continued the same routine. After My dad passed away, my mom would enlist cousins or her children would drive her up. She hated to fly so driving was the way. Over the years as families grew the trips to Worthington slowed. We still tried to get her back. The year her oldest sister Kathryn turned 90 it was a no brainer, she would be there. I told her I would drive her up. We took her Toyota van and headed north. Her sister was in a nursing home in Speedway, Indiana where her son Larry lived. Some others flew up and it was a great party. The next day we went to Worthington to the cemetery, flowers for everyone. We went back 10 years later for Aunt Kathryn’s 100, but this time we flew, as I didn’t have time to take off to many days so she reluctantly flew. The day after the party, we went to Worthington.
I have now been there three times since my mom passed away. I came up twice to check on cousin Larry, my mom always worried about him too of course. He was in declining health and I needed to see him, so during the week I spent with him, I of course, went to Worthington. I returned a few months later for Larry’s funeral, Back to Worthington on my way home.
So it only made sense that while I was up here I would do what I learned, and went to Worthington. There is a new headstone this time, Aunt Kathryn, my mom’s oldest sister had passed away at 104, I last saw her when she was 103. So I made my rounds, put out flowers, and memories of the ones I loved and the one’s I never met. But I made it to Worthington.
