06/25/2026 – Here is an old photo that was digitally enhanced by AI. This is of my grandma. She died in the very early 80’s when my mom was just 12 years old. My mom shares a lot of memories, like her liking Muskrat Love; she used to send my mom to the library to rent the vinyls. Imagine renting a vinyl from the library. Today, we have iTunes and YouTube. What a different world. What was life like for her as she fixed dinner or made a drink, cleaned the house, and did laundry? Did she know the short life she would live? She only lived to be 34 years old. What would she think about on those snowy days when she would send my mom to the library to get her favorite record?

Also, you would think they would all be loaned out by now, especially new releases, that they would be completely loaned out and no copies available. Especially through a decade like the 70’s, when for music there really were no bounds, no shortage of fly-by-nights and one hit wonders. What must it have been like, in that bustling suburb of Chicago, on a cold winter’s day? She died in January. What must her cozy days or not-so-cozy days have been like, waiting for her eldest daughter to come home with the loaned version of Muskrat Love, especially on the weekend or the month it first released? Did she have to wait? Did she record it on a cassette tape? No, I think not – I don’t think there were cassette tapes in the early 70s. What an interesting time it must have been for her and for the family. There was a blizzard that year. The ambulance came one night and took her away.

Then, my grandpa went to work. Apparently, they had many nights like this. If she would drink too much then be taken away in an ambulance or go to the hospital. I guess it became routine. And we were too strapped for cash. Back then, there wasn’t holiday pay, or sick days, or vacation days for manual labor workers like my granddad – there was only get up and go to work, make $5.50 per hour, and hope that you can make your bills until you can find something better to do. Education was a factor; my grandpa didn’t make it past 5th grade.

He was at work when the police showed up. He and his brother were there working. The police told him what had happened. Later on, he wrote in a journal how shocked he was; it was just supposed to be nothing, just that she drank too much, and she would sleep it off after getting fluids. There is a part of the story that I think falls by the wayside, the part that makes it all make sense is perhaps too dark, too haunting for it to have made the final cut in family history. There is no death certificate, no life insurance, no word uttered. Just here one day and gone the next. It’s been over 50 years now, half a century – a lifetime that she has been gone. But the memory of those days still lingers on, those cold winter nights of when she passed, my mom walking in the snow to borrow a hit record from the local sleepy library. What a life to live and what a day to remember, what a thing to reminisce.