Happy Birthday, Mom

My mother celebrates a milestone birthday today. This picture was taken a little over a year ago before she began her chemotherapy. We thank God that all is well now and she's back to being herself again.

Mom grew up in a small coal camp in West Virginia, a place she recalls with much fondness. She wrote her memoirs about twenty-five years ago for all of us children and called it Grandpa, because she loved her grandfather so very dearly and spent much time with him. Those were days before folks scattered across the country and left grandfathers behind. And before the days when grandparents scattered and left grandchildren behind. Our current culture has left much. But I digress.

Mom's grandmother died when her mother was quite young, and Grandpa raised his three children alone. Mom writes, "I loved him because he was Grandpa.... I was always underfoot. Wherever he went, I was always there with "Can I go and help?" When he went to the woods to gather wood for the stove and fire places I always went with him. "Can I drag one?" "Of course." And he would cut a smaller one for me and we would drag them home. "Can I help you plant the garden?" "Yes, come on, you can pull the plow." I would pull and Grandpa would guide. My, but he was a patient man. Then it was time to plant. "Can I help?" We always had a fine garden. "We're finished." "Yep, let's go wash up."

Mom asks a little farther on, "Are we our memories?"

I think of the memories I've had of my grandparents as a child and wonder what memories will linger with my own grandchildren. Drag the firewood? Maybe at Christmas. Help plant the garden? Maybe pull the weeds that will always be growing most any time of the year. But I digress again.

My mother in her later teen years.
Happy Birthday, Mom