Mom's Birthday

I'm a 64 year old man who still calls his Momma with regularity, several times a week, because, well, I don't know, I cannot imagine life without her.

Oh we both have impending issues with death but we don't let them get in the way.

We talk about health a lot these days, mostly mine, but we cover family, friends, on rare occasions politics and Mom tries her very best to keep up with our girls which is, of course, impossible but fun.

There's something about my Mom.

She's special.

I mean everybody's special, unique wonderful gifts to life, but Mom's a special concoction of love, patience, determination and  grace. People easily trust her. She quietly does little things with big consequences.

An uneducated southern woman, Mom blasted through glass ceilings at the disgust of her male bosses, ending her banking career on top, leading the way for women to occupy top floor corner offices.

After that she got into antiques with her friends and spent another decade enjoying success.

After Dad died, she remade life again, quieter this time, focused almost entirely on family, friends and the house.

If she's not working in the yard she's fixing or painting something to keep the last home they built together working in top notch order. She got our sister Nanci to move in with her amending family structure so that Angie's no longer the only sister.

Mom didn't make it when Sarah and I got married but hasn't skipped a beat since, relishing everything about our family now, which is far more significant to anything before.

Happy Birthday Mom!

What a life you're living!

 A couple of weeks ago, Mom, David, Age and I sat together with no one else for the first time in, well it's been so long none of us remember.

We were all different then.

Dad was still alive.

We couldn't fathom the end of things.

Now we can and it makes us appreciate everything we've lived though, the Holy and the profane, to get to now.

We laughed a lot, and whenever David stopped talking, the rest of us caught each other up on our lives now, so different from when we lived in that little house in Port Wentworth.

Mom has a gazillion kids and grandkids, too many really for someone her age to keep up with.

That's really going to irritate her.

According to my Mom, there's nothing she can't keep up with.