Memories...

My mom would be 96 today if she had not succumbed to ovarian cancer back in 1996. I still miss her. Sadly she did not live to see my first book released although she had read preliminary drafts of a couple of my novels that eventually were published and liked them. She wrote some poetry herself, many themes and views not that different from mine, done some twenty to thirty years later!

It took me a long time to appreciate her. Maybe this is common for mothers and daughters. She was quiet and mostly seemed very meek. I always thought she let my dad run rough shod over her but that was not always the case. There were times when she stood solid as a rock and would not budge until he did what she felt was the right thing. She was a very brilliant woman and I also thought she often wasted her abilities but now I am not so sure. At any rate, it was her choice and I do not think she had too many regrets. Although she got a good education and made top grades from the start to the end of her schooling, she still belonged to a generation where being a wife and mother was the epitome of a woman's work. Actually we were both tomboys, to some degree, as she had enjoyed going hiking to gather berries and nuts and see the wild creatures with her Dad as a girl. I was just a bit more of a "cowboy girl," growing up in Arizona instead of Kentucky!

In retrospect, she excelled in her chosen career and nurtured and encouraged her three children in many ways, certainly instrumental in whatever successes and achievements we each were able to claim at various times. So happy birthday, Mom, wherever you are. I am sure we will be together again in time and I hope that you can look down or across and see me and not be too disappointed. I know I did not meet your standards in all that I have done but much that you taught me lives on today in a thousand different ways. Thank you for being my mother.

Today I look in the mirror and sometimes see a lot of your face in mine. And that is not a bad thing! I have the Witt eyes at least and some of the bone structure although there is a lot of Morgan there as well. Genetics are a funny thing. I can't really remember you as young and pretty as you were in some of the early photos I've been scanning. I saw you more as you aged and became careworn and troubled by the problems the family encountered and endured. In most way I have had an easier life than yours was.

Here are a few old photos. The first picture is Mom with her parents and tall brother in the summer of 1942, shortly after she was married. The next one is a close up of her at about the same time. Then the third one is our whole family. I was about sixteen and a half, Charlie was not quite eight and Alex was a baby, maybe five months old. At that time, Dad would have been 47 and Mom 39. So long ago... Now only Charlie and I remain in this realm.