Eighty-eight

Happy Birthday mother mine! She's 88 today!

I went down yesterday with a card and a dozen roses and stayed for lunch. I also took her some other special treats that she will enjoy, a big piece of quiche Lorraine, some jumbo cashews, and a large print Reader's Digest. I'll take her out to lunch sometime soon as well. Simple things, really, but she loved the roses, and showed them off to all of the other residents and workers in her special care home (so she told me today).

She was born in 1920 and grew up in the 1930s. Like so many who lived through it, that Depression mentality never really left her. She has been frugal and thrifty all her life. "Waste not, want not" was her motto. That and, "A penny saved is a penny earned." and she lived modestly, but well and continues, for the most part, to enjoy a happy and fulfilling life - something I have to remember when she has nothing but complaints about her arthritis and her preceived constipation! As Brad told me the other day when I was a little fed up with her complaining, "It's not easy being 88." And I'm sure it isn't.

When all is said and done, I love her dearly. She raised me, mostly on her own, in times that were very difficult for her. She would read to me by the hour, got up at 2:00 a.m. and fix me bread and molassas, and she sacrificed many things, things I'll never even know of, so that I would be happy and safe and unaware.

Ya vas lubliou, te amo, je t'aime. I love you, mamma. Happy Birthday.