Even though both have been gone many years, I'm still struck each year when the birthday of one of my parents comes around. I'm certain I'm not alone in this regard. If you are lucky enough to still have your parents with you, I hope you honor them regularly, on birthdays and otherwise.
Although I don't know anyone with a parent who is one hundred and four - the age Mom would be had she lived to this day - I know several people with parents doing reasonably well despite their advanced age. I have one friend who turns ninety-four later this year and my list of active friends who are eighty and older continues to grow each year. I lost my mother way too soon.I've often wished my mom had the chance to meet my wife, lived long enough to watch her seven grandchildren grow up, been there when I got my master's degree at forty-eight. There are many landmarks I would have liked her to witness. Mostly, I would like to have had a lot more time to simply hang out with her.
Happy Birthday, Marie.
ReplyDeleteThanks on behalf of my Mom, not so anonymous.
DeletePat, I share your sentiments. I lost my Mom too early as well. On June 17th she would have been 108. She was the kindest, most loving person. She missed out on watching my sister's children growing up and having great-grandchildren. She is still in our hearts.
ReplyDeleteInes; Thanks for the comment.
DeleteThanks for you post. Though I traveled a lot with my mother -- sharing hotel room and spending lots of hours on planes together -- I almost daily think of questions I wished I would have asked her about her life: growing up in the depression, having immigrant parents, losing an 18-year-old sister in the 1940s to a disease easily treatable today, having a brother in Pearl Harbor on that fateful day and another in a submarine in the North Atlantic, being a classic 50s housewife then getting a job in the 1970s, etc. What were we talking about on those long plane rides together? Probably small talk. Wished it had been Big Talk.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous; Thanks for the heartfelt comment and memories you shared of traveling with your Mom. Memory is an elusive thing. Who knows? Maybe you were having "Big Talk" on those plane rides or in those hotel rooms and you simply don't recall. Because I was a self-absorbed and broken young adult when my Mom died at 57, I'm reasonably certain my conversations were more about me than her. Hence the wistfulness of this post. I'd like a do-over.
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