Monday, July 21, 2008 ;
12:27 PM
ANGIE - By Patricia Walls Perrelli
Today is my daughter, Angela Rose Walls’, birthday. I am using Marg’s blog to take the opportunity to write a little tribute to her.
Angie made her appearance 27 years ago on a hot, sultry July day in Wauseon, Ohio – a small town in northwest Ohio. I was in labor 36 hours with her because my doctor was on vacation and the only other doctor on call was out playing cards and drinking with his buddies Thursday night and the nurses didn’t want to bother him. They let me go all night with back labor every three minutes until the doctor was sober enough in the morning to come in. I finally delivered Angie at 12:24 pm on Friday, July 17, 1981.
We had picked out the name Jessica Lee if we had a girl but looking at our baby, she just didn’t look like a Jessica. I don’t know how someone can or cannot look like a name but it just didn’t fit her. She had a round face with a dimple in the middle of her chin. One ear flopped over endearingly like a little rabbit. Since the hospital was small, there were only about 8 babies in the nursery and Angie was the only girl. So when the nurses lined up the babies in the viewing window, they put Angie in the middle surrounded on both sides by the boys. She has spent the rest of her life surrounded by the male species! The nurses kept saying what an angel she was so Angela she became.
I was so thrilled to finally be a Mommy. That’s the only ambition I can ever remember having – to get married and have children. As a child, I had loved playing house with my sisters and our dolls. We would spend hours dressing up our dolls and taking them to “church” which was on the steps leading from our basement playroom up to the kitchen. The steps were the pews and we lined up our dolls for church while one of us girls preached a sermon at the bottom of the steps. Our dolls always acted up in church and we had to take them out to spank them. I wonder what life experience we got that from?!
When Angie was a few days old, I remember sitting in my bed holding her and I just started crying because I loved her so much and felt such a responsibility that I had brought this living creature into the world and now I was accountable for her – for her physical well-being and to help determine where her soul would spend eternity. It was overwhelming.
I’ll share a couple of my memories of Angie which I hold dear. One was when she was in the brownies. She was going through a difficult time of low self confidence and negative self image so when it came time to sell Girl Scout cookies, I determined to help her sell the most cookies and get an award. We sold cookies like crazy. She stood up on a table in the cafeteria at Asbury Seminary and announced her wares, we went door to door, we sold outside WalMart…in the end she had sold the most cookies in the county. I don’t remember the exact number of boxes but it was in the hundreds and I had cookies stacked everywhere in our little apartment. Of course you-know-who then had to go deliver all those cookies. But Angie got an award in front of all the Brownies and Girl Scouts in the county and she was so proud, all the hard work was worth it.
Another memory is when Angie was in the sixth grade. She tried out and won a lead in the sixth grade Christmas play. Angie played Mrs. Claus. She not only had her lines memorized flawlessly, but she had everyone else’s lines memorized too and could prompt them when they faltered. Aunt Liz came to Kentucky that night as a surprise to see her perform and once again, we were so proud of our little Angie Baby!
As the years have passed, Angie has grown into an incredibly beautiful, loving, young woman. She persevered to finish college even though it took her 7 and a half years and many people doubted that she would ever finish. She has struck out on her own in an exciting adventure, moving to Florida to pursue new friendships and to start a career. I miss her so much but thank goodness for cell phones and email. We keep in touch daily.
Angie and I have had our differences and misunderstandings over the years but in the last several years, we have grown so close that I now feel like she is one of my best friends, as well as my daughter. She is always there to listen and sympathize when I have a problem, she gives wonderful clothes and makeup advice, and I know she loves me unconditionally. And I don’t think one could ask more from a daughter than that. Unless it would be to get married and give me grandchildren.
Angie, I love you and I am so proud to be your Mom!
♫♫♪♫♪ from Marg
Marg Marshall, 12:27 PM
