1996 Boulder Colorado
My Trip with Bernie to Denver
This is the last in a series of my trips to Denver with Bernie. This story happened on the same trip as the photo of the bikini girls and the hunk-a guys in Estes Park.
We arrived in Denver after I got my purse strap untangled from my wheelie luggage and slung if over my shoulder the rest of the trip. Arriving in Denver International Airport (DIA) and getting to your destination is a trip in its self.
The airport is situated in the middle of a large cow pasture in the middle of nowhere, easta of Denver. Bernie’s good friends from Erie, Lillian and Chuck picked us up and took me to Boulder where my sister, Ginger and Mom lived. Bernie went home with Lillian.
My Mother was so glad to see me in her own little fashion, frail and old, suffering from the first stages of Alzheimer’s but full of big smiles.
I unpacked the next morning and showed Mom a hat the Bernie had made for me out of cute purple flower fabric. The brim could be bent and shaped in any form you chose. It also had a big purple fabric rose pinned to the side. Mom fell in love with it.
I wore it, she wore it, I wore it and she would take it off my head and put it on hers. We played the hat game all day. The next morning the purple hat was resting on the dresser next to my bedroom door. I looked up just in time to see an old wrinkled hand with a crooked finger, grab the hat. Mom poked her head in the door of the bedroom, slammed the hat on her fuzzy, gray haired, head and skip-ran down the hall, smiling and laughing “tee hee, tee hee.”
She pulled out a chair and sat down at the breakfast table and started eating her oatmeal with the purple hat on. If I came near her she would grab the brim of the hat and pull it down around her ears and say with a big grin “IT’S MINE!”
She wore the hat off and on each day I was there. We had so much fun with the purple hat. When I left the hat was in her bedroom and I told her she could have it. “Thank you!” she said with a big big grin. I have a feeling that hat was hers the very first day!
When she passed away, my great niece Kaylie wore it and then sent it to me. I wore it off and on and gave it to Susan so she could wear Grandma’s hat.
I treasure the memory of My Mom and the Purple Hat. Thank you Bernie for the wonderful memories.
Make sure you make memories every day. They are important!
