A Birthday Salute

Today is my mother's eighty-fourth birthday. She was born in 1929, a terrible  year by historical standards for the financial world.

She is an only child and never suffered because of the Great Depression. Her grandparents were farmers and loggers and one grandmother was a mid-wife.

They made do, I reckon.

Her mother had rheumatic fever as a little girl and was told to never have children, because of the damage it had done to her heart. Obviously she ignored that, twice.

She had a miscarriage before she became pregnant with my mother. She was alone in a cafe' that she and my grandfather owned. A drunk man came in and attempted to rape her. Although he was unsuccessful because of my grandmother's fight, she miscarried later on that day.

My grandfather set out to kill the man, but he disappeared into the mountains, never to be seen again.

Anyway, Mother was one cherished little girl.

She was involved in everything in high school. She was on the staff of the annual, she was in the glee club, she was one of "our queens", she was also on the first squad of cheerleaders the high school ever had.

She was married to my father from age twenty-two to age almost fifty-nine when he passed away.

They kept it a secret for several days, both going back home to their parents house.  She got a friend to spend the night with her before she got the  nerve up to tell her parents she had married.

You see, my daddy was a bad boy. A rebel. Not someone her dear old dad would have picked.

Oh, well.

After my father died, realizing my mother was still a fairly young woman, I approached her with the idea that if she ever wanted to date, I wouldn't object.

She looked at me like I was crazy. She said, "I love your daddy and would take him back tomorrow if he could be healthy, but  honey, I am done with men."

And so she was.

Except for, of course, two sons, a grandson, a son-in-law and now that grand great-grandson.

I guess that's enough men in any woman's life.

So here she is at year eighty-four.

Time really has flown, and I know time is shorter -  not just for her
- but for all of us.

That means we are to  live it to the fullest, to be the best we can be and to honor others.

So if your mother or father is still living, don't forget:

Honor thy mother and father so that thy days may be long....

Mama must of done a good job.