A Few Words About My Mom

Blanche Schenkel

February 6, 1939–March 20, 2020

It has been almost a year since my mom passed away. That's 40 Saturdays that I didn't see her. One Mother's Day. One birthday. One Thanksgiving. And yet the hardest day for me was the day I drove by the new Runza in Longmont. I know what most of you are thinking: Runza what? I say "most of you" because if you are from Nebraska, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Runzas. Dough wrapped around hamburger, cabbage and onions. If you know me, you know I despise them. But my mother loved them, and she couldn't wait for the new Runza to open. She'd been reading about it for a year and had cut out the first article she'd seen. She showed it to me on one of our Saturdays, saying, "I know you don't care, but I'm saving it for your sister." Yes, I was the odd man out in our family where runzas were concerned.

At any rate, I saw that the Runza had opened and just burst into tears.

Grief is funny that way. It sneaks up on you when you least expect it. At least, that's how it works for me. I haven't had a big emotional breakdown, but I'll see something that reminds me of Mom and smile a little smile while my eyes brim with tears.

Fortunately, I have all my memories of her, and these fill me with comfort. One of my favorite memories was when she surprised me with the Royal Lipizzaner Stallions for my birthday. They were at Pershing Auditorium in Lincoln, and every time we drove by Pershing, Mom was afraid I would see the sign and the jig would be up. She took Laura and me to see Elvis Presley at Pershing, and the Osmond Brothers at the State Fair. (Well, she may have just dropped us off for that one.) I remember when Dad was making wine and something happened and the huge glass bottle of fermenting wine blew up in our dining room. Grape skin and purple liquid all over the white walls and the hardwood floor. Mom just stepped over the shards of glass and ignored the spreading stain and said, "This better be clean when I get home, Larry." She took us to work with her and to the bowling alley on bowling night. When we visited her in Nebraska, she would drive Vic and me around Lincoln so he could see her favorite places, and when she moved here, Vic drove her to the mountains so she could see his. We must have gone to Red Lobster a million times. She loved Red Lobster.

And I loved her.

To read more about her life, you can visit her obituary here:

Mom's Obituary

When she passed away, I wrote a blog post about her last days that included a bunch of pictures of her. You can find that here:

Mom — Her Life In Pictures

I recommend just skipping down to the pictures, because they really tell the story of her life far better than I could.

Oh, and here's one more picture that isn't in that set of pictures. I mentioned that Mom would take us to the bowling alley—Mom loved bowling. She was on a league until she was in her 60s. She had a funny hop just before she threw the ball, and it was adorable. Every year, she and her team went to a bowling tournament. They always got patches and pictures from the tournament. She was also a very good bowler, often bowling games over 200 and series over 600. After she passed away, Laura and I found a container full of her pins and another container of patches and a huge stack of pictures. Vic thought it would be nice to make a mosaic, so one day I just took all the pictures and patches and pins and made this little tribute.

She was a wonderful mother, and I will miss her all the rest of my days.