My cousin sent me this picture of my mom. I'd seen it before . . . in fact, there's a copy of it in the family photo album . . . but my sister has the album, and it's been decades since I saw the picture. I don't know how young mom is here . . . my sister thinks she was sixteen, though. Hard to tell, as people from back then always look older. But if that's right, that would put the date of the picture at 1941. And it's obviously a black and white picture that's been hand colored.
And it just seems so strange, doesn't it? She's been gone for almost 9 years, after living a pretty long life (83). But once she was a young girl who dressed up to look pretty and went to work and hoped to find a nice guy to marry and have a family with. She loved to read and she loved music and talking to people and going to church.
What happened to all of her memories and dreams? I can't believe that they just disappear. What would be the point of that? Eileen was a very sweet, good-hearted person. She didn't understand bigotry in a time period when casual racism was the rule. She only had an eighth grade education, but she was smart and funny and clever. She loved to paint. In another world she would have been an artist, painting pictures of birds on wooden plates, painting pictures of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Madonna with child, vases full of flowers bursting with color.
She always believed in me. She was proud of the fact that I was a high school teacher, and she read my stories and poems and novels and listened to my songs, and we talked a lot.
And I still have those little moments when my first thought is, "I should call mom to talk to her about this." Except that my brain cuts in right around the word "call."
She was a good mom, and the best person I've ever known.
Merry Christmas, mom.
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