Ernest and Pepita Butcher
THE BEST START ON LIFE YOU COULD GET
Life has been biting at my ankles this year, and I’m almost at the point of telling you you can have 2017. I don’t want it.
Mother, 94, has gone to Heaven to be with Daddy, who died three years ago at 91. We imagine them dancing together again. We all thought they would be here forever, even if diminished from their prime of being one of the most vital and alive couples we ever knew.
My sisters and I, growing up in Mexico City, agreed many times that they were the best parents we knew, and we wouldn’t trade them for anybody else’s parents.
So many stories we can tell, and will remind each other of, but I’m sure everyone has their own family stories, and I can’t do them justice. But they SHOWED us what love is.
And we hope we are passing it on.
liebjabberings 
You got a lucky break to have such a good start in life. I think you are passing the love on. Obviously I can’t speak to the love in your family, but I can certainly attest to the love in your writing.
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Doesn’t make life necessarily easier, but a good start is very helpful. As I said, we wouldn’t have traded our parents, however imperfect, for any parents we knew.
I didn’t know about an awful lot of things except through stories. That should be the norm for children; sadly, it isn’t.
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My condolences, Alicia. That’s a great picture of your parents and now very true to life, without a doubt.
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Wish I were as much fun as Mother, and Daddy with her, were. My grandfather called her ‘Peppy’ – and it was a perfect form of her nickname. She had so much energy. She was one of these people who was really good at the ‘hate the sin, love the sinner.’ Her standards were very high – but she never looked down on a soul in her life (well, she didn’t even like Nixon). And her apple pies were coveted all around.
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I wish I could have known them both. (((hugs)))
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We have an awfully big world now – she loved to travel, reserrved her earnings from classes and such for taking Daddy on vacations. They went to Europe with an Eurail pass at least twice, packing only what would fit in one suitcase. And she visited a family we still know in the South of France to practice her French for a month several times.
We have legends of Pepita and her good friend Lillian and margaritas in the hammocks on the porch of my grandfather’s house in Acapulco.
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I’m so sorry for your loss, Alicia. I remember when my grandmother passed: She had been more and more ill as years passed, and said often that she was ready to go; when she left us, it was a release for her, but I discovered that she didn’t just take the ill old woman when she left, she took the vibrant, fun lady I remembered from years past with her. It’s hard to say goodbye to all the people our loved ones have been, and all the people they were outside of our knowledge that we’ll never know. ❤ And, yes, you certainly share the love you learned from your parents.
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It’s so hard to remember a life, and you’re absolutely right. It isn’t fair to remember only the younger, but that’s what she would have done.
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HUGS
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I’m sorry to read of your mom’s passing…no doubt she is up there dancing with your beloved dad!
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Thank you, Kelly. She was a kick – I hope it gets easier, as it should be now for her.
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Write a book – tell the stories.
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Another of the curses of being chronically ill is that you have to pick your enthusiasms so carefully. One of my sisters – or all of them together – should write the book. I’ll be very surprised it it happens.
But in some way, WE are Mother’s book, and Daddy’s book.
I just wish I had the energy to do them justice. They were so full of life.
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You are the book. Yes, I like that. ❤ You do them justice all the time. They dance now to celebrate you all.
So sorry for your loss.
2017 has probably been kinder to me than to you, but it has been a really strange year for me. I had the same feeling in 2003. I hope it's only every 14 years, and I sure hope 2018 sweeps you off your feet.
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I always say: You write what you ARE. They are a BIG part of who I am, by example – and by rebellion! There was always plenty of love, but we did fear disappointing them. You get morality that way – and Mother was always big, not on lecturing, but on stories. I guess you could say she told parables – little tales of consequences right there in people we knew. I do the same – learned from a great storyteller.
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Wonderful.
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