When mom knew we was coming home she would always start cooking.  The menu always consisted of homemade:  Macaroni and cheese, Baked beans, Potato salad, Scalloped Potatoes.  Then days following would always be a big pot of spaghetti and meatballs, bbq chicken (her own sauce).  Mom was the best cook ever.  woo hoo ... Dad even hired her out as a cook in Melbourne,  Florida the first time we moved there in the 50's.  

My mom and dad spent years hunting, fishing and being together in everything they did.  On one of their hunting trips they encounter a deer.  Dad let mom shot as she claimed to have such a good shot.  She told him:  "Barb I got him ... I shot him right between his eyes."  Well, needless to say it was far from between his eyes.  She had shot him under his tail ... and the bullet went straight through his body from his back-end.  All her friendly deer hunter friends and others got a big laugh about where she struck the deadly shot.  We would often say:  " yep I shot him right between his eyes."   Anyway she still levied the deadly blow ... but she never lived down the (tail) of the story.

The greatest thing I miss most of all about my mom is she always called me DARLING.  I so miss her saying this to me.  When I left home we had this pact.  She said:  "Look up and I will look up ... then we will be together."  I am looking up.  No one ever makes you feel like your mom and then if you are as blessed as I was ... maybe she will call you darling to.