Parcheesi...the game of India

 Dear Mom                                                                                             

January 25,2021

Hello for Tennessee.  This is Kathy, your middle daughter writing you.  It is a cold rainy day today and really nice to stay inside.  I am writing this on my computer while drinking some hot tea and listening to Christian music.  Our little dog Oreo is asleep in his bed next to me all warm and snuggly.

   Your great-grandsons Oscar (12), Charlie (10), and Henry(8) love to play board games.  I taught all of them how to play Parcheesi.  I told them it was a game you learned to play as a child and that you were a really great player.

    I told them how you love to build blockades and made everybody wait for you to break them.  I told them that you were very good at rolling fives to get on the board and how you always knew where to put your players without having to count all the spaces after you rolled.

   I also told them that I played this game with my grandmother (your mom) (their great-great-grandmother) when I was their age.  She always won but never made me feel bad.  My grandsons have favorite colors.  Little Charlie loves red, Henry loves green, Oscar takes blue so I am always yellow.  I remember coming home one evening and you were playing all 4 colors by yourself.  I asked you, “Who’s winning?”  You just smiled and said, “Well I am! Of course!”

   I recently saw an old black and white Christmas picture of Bobbie and me playing    Parcheesi at grandmother’s house one Christmas Day while we were still dressed in our pajamas.  Bobbie and I had gotten a child-size card table ( Red and White) for Christmas.  Again, I was losing but didn’t mind because Bobbie was actually playing with me.

   You were amazing at throwing doubles in the game and always zipped around the board before I could get a single player out.  You were ruthless when it came to sending someone back to their home place.  You would get mad at me much later on in life when I had the chance to send you home but didn’t.  I would tell you that I chose to “extend mercy” and not take you home.  Actually, I really didn’t want the game to go on any longer than it needed to be since I was already losing!     

    It broke our hearts when you lost your vision and couldn’t play any longer.  I know you enjoyed the fellowship of your card games with other ladies in the church.  Your great-granddaughter Emma just turned 14 years old.  She had an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen for her birthday.  I told her about the time you bought an ice cream cake for your best friend Violet Elliott’s birthday and planned to serve it for dessert after the card game but you got distracted by a phone call and left the ice cream cake in the garage on top of the washing machine instead of the freezer in the garage.  She laughed and said that could happen to anyone.  Emma still has fond memories of you and asks about you whenever we speak.

I hope this brought you some sweet memories for you .  Charlie and I love you and pray for you every day.  We miss you so much and pray for the day when we can visit you.                                                 

 Love,   Kathy