They live on

As the second game of the Florida/LSU College World Series came to an end, I could just hear our daddy.

"I love it!."

If there's one thing that we knew about Earl Huffingham - "He was a Gator."  I think he went to his first game at what was then known as Florida Field when I was a toddler.  My siblings and I have often remarked that our blood is orange and blue.  All four of us continued to follow the Gators throughout adulthood.

When I lived away I would call home and talk with daddy about whatever sport the Gators happened to be playing.  In 1981, my parents visited our home in Louisville, Kentucky the weekend of the Heisman Trophy presentation.  Becca was 10 and enamored with Hershel Walker.  She just knew he was going to get the Heisman.  When he didn't, daddy assured her that Hershel would win next year.

By the next year, however, my children and I lived in Jacksonville and she had become a Florida Gator.  She barely knew any other college team. That has never left her.  And it has been a no-brainer but that her children are major Gators.

So the love for the Florida Gators lives on. Tonight I will watch the baseball game.  I will be happy that I know some of the nomenclatures and that I've learned a little during the playoffs.  I had not the first clue what a walk-off was.  And when that happened, it was necessary for me to google those words.  Truthfully it makes me too nervous to watch the game in it's entirety unless we are winning by a huge margin. I am guilty of changing the station often.

And if tonight when the game ends and LSU has won - we will all still sing "We are the boys from old Florida," especially the line "in all kinds of weather, we'll all stick together".

So that's one way our daddy lives on in me - and my children.

And my mother???

My parents came to live with me in 2005.  Mother was 78.  She could do remarkable things in my yard  (as seen in this 2012 photo).

And if I would have allowed it she would have mowed the grass using the lawnmower like a walker.

I will never be the same kind of gardener she was.  However, I can get dirty and perspire (remember ladies don't sweat) to such an extent that my clothes are like they have been in a pool of water.  I do mow my yard every 10 days or so.  And I might be like the cartoon I saw recently --

The man was holding a sign that said, "I'm not homeless.  I just need money because my wife keeps buying plants."  If I don't go to my neighborhood garden store every couple of days I'm sure the cashiers may wonder if I have chosen another store.

I was telling my brother-in-law, Robert,  about my yard which is pictured and he said, 

"Like your mama."

And then he said, "That was a compliment."

And I thought I heard daddy

"I love it."

My parents are gone.  And yet - they live on - in me!

May you have enough sunshine in your life

To make you appreciate the shadows