The prompt yesterday was to "tell us about your grandparents". Wow that seems like a lot for a single post!
Unfortunately, my grandparents have all passed away. My mom's dad went first:
Ray S died when I was about six years old. His was the first funeral I ever attended, and I can recall seeing him in the coffin and thinking that was weird. But I don't remember anything else about it. He was only in his 60s when he died, not yet retired. The story of his passing, as I recall it, was that he and Grandma were going to dinner at some friends' home. While driving in a bitter cold winter night, the car stalled, so they were walking up the road or driveway when Grandpa keeled over and died. No autopsy, but the assumption was heart attack. I remember my Grandpa smoked a pipe. He was a county engineer. He met my Grandma when she was a teacher and they married on the last day of school (in those days, female teachers had to quit if they got married), which was also her birthday. Grandpa was also drafted into WWII at something like age 42 and the only story I remember about that is that a sniper shot at him once and he had a overcoat or a cape-like outerwear item with a bullet hole through the hood that was hanging off his back. I don't really remember my Grandpa but there is a story told that he asked me once when I was three or four how I liked my mother, and reportedly, I thought for a moment and then told him sincerely "well, she's not as bad as a wicked stepmother". Nice! This grandpa was 100% Swedish - his parents immigrated to the US in the late 1870s, as far as I know.
My mom's mom went last:
Helen S was a really great person who I enjoyed immensely. She was 100% German, with her parents having been Mennonites (I believe) who first left Germany for Russia, but then immigrated to the U.S. in the 1880s. Grandma was at least six feet tall in her prime, as was one of her sisters. She had 3 sisters who were very close, even though they moved all across the country. I remember looking through an old photo album some years ago, and finding a photo of Grandma, wearing pants and shooting a rifle. She laughed at my surprise - apparently she and her siblings did all kinds of stuff. I always knew I got my height and bone structure from Grandma Helen, but came to learn in my adulthood that I also got a good share of stubbornness and independence from her too. She was only 62 or so when she was widowed. Once, after my first divorce but before I met Sean, she and I happened to get on the subject of dating. She told me that while she might have liked to have been taken out on a date after Grandpa died, she never ever wanted to remarry or share her home again - she liked being alone. Tag that similarity up to me and Grandma too! Helen was smart as a whip and interested in almost anything and everything and she loved to travel. But she had no patience for gossip or judging other people or overt silliness. And emotional moments were very very rare. She has been gone now for nearly eight years ... gosh that's hard to believe. She died just shy of her 95th birthday, having lived alone for over 30 years and independently until the last few months.
My dad's dad was John W. He was born in Norway in 1906 and immigrated with his mother and his 3 siblings in about 1922 after his father died. He ended up in western North Dakota. Grandpa passed away kind of unexpectedly in 1988. He'd been sick though - I got married for the first time that fall and it was uncertain if he'd be able to come. Then he fell a couple weeks later and broke his hip, went to the hospital and ended up with pneumonia...he died just before Christmas 1988 at age 81. I visited him in the ICU shortly before he died - he had a ventilator so he couldn't talk but his eyes were just snapping and alert, and I knew he was so happy to see me. I regret not asking more about his immigration and early adulthood when I had the chance. He was a laborer without a lot of education. He met my Grandma and the story we learned around the time of their 50th anniversary was that they married in January but, as she was a teacher, they kept it secret until the summer. And Grandma's father died before summer, so he'd never known they were married. My Grandma was educated and Grandpa was so very proud of that. He was a terrific Grandpa - never shy about his bald head or his heavy Norwegian accent, and happy to let us tease him about it. He rode a bike all over town and I would spent a week with them every summer, biking around and going to Dairy Queen. He kept pigeons for a number of years. He liked to have lump sugar with his coffee, he poured his coffee into his saucer and then would dip his sugar cubes into it and eat them, and then slurp the coffee. I can still picture his usual cup and saucer, and learned to love coffee flavored sugar! I distinctly remember the year that my sister usurped me as "Grandpa's girl" - as I hit the tweens/teens and she was still a cute little kid. Hated that.
My dad's mom was Signe W. She was born in the US to Norwegian immigrant parents. She had a host of brothers and a pair of sisters. She got her teacher's license and, eventually, got a college degree after she was married. I'm told she was a smart, hard working woman, who ruled with an iron fist and gossiped like a fiend with her sisters in law and other ladies around town. She took good care of us when we visited, was a good cook, and was very kind to her grandkids - though I know I got spanked a few times too. If her hair hadn't recently been "done", she'd let me comb it and put bows in it and such. I know she laughed. By the time Grandpa died, Grandma was pretty weak and dependent, as she had Parkinsons disease. I'm told she was as tall as 5'9" but I only remember a pretty small Grandma, and I can remember in my childhood that she was pretty heavy with an enormous bosom, she wasted away to nearly nothing in the last ten years of her life. She was in a nursing home for the last five or more years - many times not aware of who and what was around her. I was living in Seattle at the time, so only saw her once or twice a year, but she "woke up" every time I was home, and every time someone brought one of her great grandchildren to see her. When I saw her last, she had been asleep, nearly comatose, for several weeks, and yet when I came in she opened her eyes, and when I left she squeezed my hand and said "good luck to you", which was always her form of saying good bye to me. Brings tears to my eyes even now to remember that. I didn't make it home for her funeral, which came just over a month after I saw her, a week after her 90th birthday.
What I know is that I come from a long line of strong women, who partnered with men who recognized and valued that. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree...
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
...and now it escapes me
Last night, on my way home from work, I had a pile of posts in mind. In fact, I was going to start the first one with "beware readers, the next 24 hours are likely to be busy..." because I expected to write post after post after post to liberate all the swirling thoughts from my head.
Our usual Friday night goes something like this: I get home from work and change clothes and walk the dog, then we go to Subway for supper, then we go to a facility that hosts not only an AA meeting but an Al Anon meeting and provides child care (because of some signage in the daycare area, my kids have dubbed this "going to Rainbow Club"), and then we come home and after a little bit of wind-down time, get the kids to bed, usually followed shortly by me heading to bed too. Add to last night's schedule, my need to watch my niece play BB via live stream on the computer and the disappointment that comes with watching her play her heart out but lose the game. So by 9p, when I had gotten the kids to bed, I had lost all of those swirling thoughts to the Friday night exhaustion.
This morning I got up and had some time with myself, my coffee cup, and the laptop. But not much was forthcoming. I honestly have no clue what the topics of those swirling thoughts were yesterday. I think between wrapping up the River of Stones challenge, and then starting the February NaBloPoMo challenge, I was feeling that I hadn't done much of my usual writing, and then all the possibilities started presenting themselves...but, alas, they are now gone with the wind.
Our usual Friday night goes something like this: I get home from work and change clothes and walk the dog, then we go to Subway for supper, then we go to a facility that hosts not only an AA meeting but an Al Anon meeting and provides child care (because of some signage in the daycare area, my kids have dubbed this "going to Rainbow Club"), and then we come home and after a little bit of wind-down time, get the kids to bed, usually followed shortly by me heading to bed too. Add to last night's schedule, my need to watch my niece play BB via live stream on the computer and the disappointment that comes with watching her play her heart out but lose the game. So by 9p, when I had gotten the kids to bed, I had lost all of those swirling thoughts to the Friday night exhaustion.
This morning I got up and had some time with myself, my coffee cup, and the laptop. But not much was forthcoming. I honestly have no clue what the topics of those swirling thoughts were yesterday. I think between wrapping up the River of Stones challenge, and then starting the February NaBloPoMo challenge, I was feeling that I hadn't done much of my usual writing, and then all the possibilities started presenting themselves...but, alas, they are now gone with the wind.
How's that "word of the year" working out for you?
So there was much talk around the blogs and Facebook this year about choosing a "word of the year"...I'd never heard that before and I was intrigued. The word I chose was "resolve". Like most good New Years decisions, I found myself floundering with my resolve just a couple weeks into the new year and then had a bit of an "aha!" moment when I remembered my word, and got to thinking that embracing my resolve might mean not giving it up when I start to flounder but to re-commit myself to my path instead. I was out walking the dog one night, feeling all sorry for myself, when this revelation came to me ... it was so obvious and so basic that I wanted to slap myself in the head. And just like that, I found myself leaving the past behind and deciding to keep moving forward, with the realization that I can't let others impact my forward movement. I can't make that forward movement alone if others won't walk with me, and I can't use someone else's loitering on the path as an excuse to loiter there myself. And on I go.
This morning I was going to include with this the dictionary.com definition of my word - resolve. Imagine my surprise when I found so many meanings! See for yourself:
This morning I was going to include with this the dictionary.com definition of my word - resolve. Imagine my surprise when I found so many meanings! See for yourself:
verb (used with object)
1. to come to a definite or earnest decision about; determine (to do something): I have resolved that I shall live to the full.
2. to separate into constituent or elementary parts; break up; cause or disintegrate (usually followed by into ).
3. to reduce or convert by, or as by, breaking up or disintegration (usually followed by to or into ).
4. to convert or transform by any process (often used reflexively).
5. to reduce by mental analysis (often followed by into ).
7. to deal with (a question, a matter of uncertainty, etc.) conclusively; settle; solve: to resolve the question before the board.
8. to clear away or dispel (doubts, fears, etc.); answer: to resolve any doubts we may have had.
9. Chemistry . to separate (a racemic mixture) into optically active components.
10. Music . to cause (a voice part or the harmony as a whole) to progress from a dissonance to a consonance.
11. Optics . to separate and make visible the individual parts of (an image); distinguish between.
12. Medicine/Medical . to cause (swellings, inflammation, etc.) to disappear without suppuration.
verb (used without object)
13. to come to a determination; make up one's mind; determine (often followed by on or upon ): to resolve on a plan of action.
14. to break up or disintegrate.
15. to be reduced or changed by breaking up or otherwise (usually followed by to or into ).
16. Music . to progress from a dissonance to a consonance
While I appreciate all the ways these various definitions of "resolve" fit into my plan, I actually am quite fond of #12/16 - "to progress from a dissonance to a consonance" That's really the goal.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Seize the Day people!
This was my daily reminder yesterday and it is a good reminder for me!
Possibilities and miracles are one and the same.
--Anonymous
Many of us have seen happiness as a goal we couldn't find. When we were children, we were taught that "life is a hard row to hoe." We carried that over into our adult lives.
Seize the day - We let too many of our days just slide by. None of those hours can be replaced. Why worry over past failures if there is a victory to win? Why keep thinking about our faults when we could be practicing virtues instead?
Seize the day - Hold each moment tight and look at each one with wide-open eyes and mind. They are our lives, special to each of us. The moments pass swiftly into memory. Let those memories be good ones, filled with joys large and small.
Yesterday's unhappiness can't be changed, but today's happiness is my own responsibility.
Easy Does It © 1999 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the permission of Hazelden.
Possibilities and miracles are one and the same.
--Anonymous
Many of us have seen happiness as a goal we couldn't find. When we were children, we were taught that "life is a hard row to hoe." We carried that over into our adult lives.
Seize the day - We let too many of our days just slide by. None of those hours can be replaced. Why worry over past failures if there is a victory to win? Why keep thinking about our faults when we could be practicing virtues instead?
Seize the day - Hold each moment tight and look at each one with wide-open eyes and mind. They are our lives, special to each of us. The moments pass swiftly into memory. Let those memories be good ones, filled with joys large and small.
Yesterday's unhappiness can't be changed, but today's happiness is my own responsibility.
You are reading from the book:
My siblings - NaBloPoMo 3
Prompt 3 - do you have siblings? what are they like?
I have an older brother and a younger sister. My brother and I were two grades apart in school and grew up together. My sister came five years after me, and was six grades behind me, so we were never in school together and I recall very little of her (which feels awful to say).
I would say that my brother and I were very similar in many ways for a lot of years, and we were quite good friends for a long time. Somewhere, probably in our 30s, we underwent a significant divergence in our views. I know this is slanted with my own feelings on the subject, but it seemed that I responded to experiences outside my comfort zone with acceptance and an expanding view of the world as being in shades of gray, while my brother seemed to pull back into a much more conservative, black and white world. We are wildly divided on our religious and political views, though I think we both work hard to avoid those topics and maintain a connection, despite our differences. I enjoy time spent with his family and I hope he would say the same.
My brother is a dentist (and a good one who doesn't inflict pain!), a Harley rider, a hunter (new hobby in the past few years), a card player, a basketball player, and a hell of a Scrabble player. I suspect he'd love to still play Dungeons & Dragons, if he had a group to join him. He is a good singer and a natural musician. Sometimes I think he takes himself too seriously, but he has a good sense of humor when he lets it out.
As I said earlier, I don't have many childhood memories of my sister. She was always there, of course, but just part of the background in many of my memories. She was always a happy kid and I don't recall fighting with her (though my mother might). By the time she was in high school, I was gone to college, so my "memories" of her teen years is filtered through stories I heard from my parents. She was the wild child of the family - breaking curfew and running around with her friends. One summer when she was in college, she went to work in Glacier Park. I had a job with an 800 number, so she started calling me. We got to be friends that summer, and have been best friends ever since. My oldest nephew publicly refers to us as the 'crazy aunts', which we learned when we helped host his graduation party last year. Folks say we talk alike - we know that and are spooked frequently at how we are forever saying the same thing at the same time - but they also say we look alike which is freaky. I think they are nuts but we hear it all the time. We talk most mornings on our way to work and often in the evenings too. I consider her daughters to be nearly mine, and I hope she feels the same about my girls.
My sister works in marketing and she is hugely creative. But beyond work, the rest of her time is dedicated to her three kids and their activities. She is the best multi-tasker I have ever met and I'm often exhausted just hearing about what she has going on day in and day out.
I have an older brother and a younger sister. My brother and I were two grades apart in school and grew up together. My sister came five years after me, and was six grades behind me, so we were never in school together and I recall very little of her (which feels awful to say).
I would say that my brother and I were very similar in many ways for a lot of years, and we were quite good friends for a long time. Somewhere, probably in our 30s, we underwent a significant divergence in our views. I know this is slanted with my own feelings on the subject, but it seemed that I responded to experiences outside my comfort zone with acceptance and an expanding view of the world as being in shades of gray, while my brother seemed to pull back into a much more conservative, black and white world. We are wildly divided on our religious and political views, though I think we both work hard to avoid those topics and maintain a connection, despite our differences. I enjoy time spent with his family and I hope he would say the same.
My brother is a dentist (and a good one who doesn't inflict pain!), a Harley rider, a hunter (new hobby in the past few years), a card player, a basketball player, and a hell of a Scrabble player. I suspect he'd love to still play Dungeons & Dragons, if he had a group to join him. He is a good singer and a natural musician. Sometimes I think he takes himself too seriously, but he has a good sense of humor when he lets it out.
As I said earlier, I don't have many childhood memories of my sister. She was always there, of course, but just part of the background in many of my memories. She was always a happy kid and I don't recall fighting with her (though my mother might). By the time she was in high school, I was gone to college, so my "memories" of her teen years is filtered through stories I heard from my parents. She was the wild child of the family - breaking curfew and running around with her friends. One summer when she was in college, she went to work in Glacier Park. I had a job with an 800 number, so she started calling me. We got to be friends that summer, and have been best friends ever since. My oldest nephew publicly refers to us as the 'crazy aunts', which we learned when we helped host his graduation party last year. Folks say we talk alike - we know that and are spooked frequently at how we are forever saying the same thing at the same time - but they also say we look alike which is freaky. I think they are nuts but we hear it all the time. We talk most mornings on our way to work and often in the evenings too. I consider her daughters to be nearly mine, and I hope she feels the same about my girls.
My sister works in marketing and she is hugely creative. But beyond work, the rest of her time is dedicated to her three kids and their activities. She is the best multi-tasker I have ever met and I'm often exhausted just hearing about what she has going on day in and day out.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
My father - NaBloPoMo 2
Prompt 2: Tell us about your father.
My father is Jon. He has a very strong personality, and plenty of opinions, and while he is stubborn as hell, I have also known him to change his opinions on many things over the years and give him a lot of credit for that. Dad will be 76 this year. He is entirely sick of upper Midwestern winters and would prefer to be at their home in Tucson from October until May, but we stubbornly force him to stick around until November and are begging for him to bring Mom home by Easter.
My Dad had a rough childhood and I think there was not a lot of nurturing from his parents but plenty of corporal punishments. He spent 2 years in the Army (stationed in a pineapple field in Hawaii) but he won't talk about it at all and told me over Christmas that he had no photos from Hawaii as he had long ago burned them all. I have no idea what that's about. He then went to college and met my mother. He proposed to her nearly immediately but she wouldn't agree to be engaged for over a year after he first asked her. I used to think the high school and college photos of my Dad looked like "young Elvis" and I have no doubt he was charming and funny and sweet.
He and my mom both had education degrees but Dad didn't manage too well in the school system. He lasted a few years and then switched over to sales. He did quite well in the booming farm industy days of the 1970s but then took a stab at self-employment which ended badly. Now, looking back, I can't imagine how my Dad got through those years when we were economically devastated. He tried a variety of jobs, including some that he hated, to put food on the table. But I can't recall ever worrying or even knowing that things were as bad as I know now that they must have been. Thankfully, in his 50s, he landed a job that allowed him to make up a lot of financial ground so that he and Mom could retire and I have been so grateful for that.
I'm not too surprised, given all that I realize now, that my Dad was very erratic at times in my life. I have my suspicions about the cause(s) of that, but for all that he did a lot of emotional damage, one thing that I always knew and never doubted was was that he loved my Mom and he loved me and my brother and my sister. Unconditionally and without fail.
Last week I wrote a post about a car accident I was in back in 1985...crazily enough, I was home on Christmas break from school and we got to talking about things that were important (like your child's health and well being) and I remember saying to my Dad "are you telling me, that if I smashed up your car, all you'd care about was that I was OK?" and not really believing his assurance that he woudn't give a goddamn about the car. Well, fast forward about one month and I did, in fact, smash up his car, and had to call him from some stranger's house, crying I said 'DDDDDad, I ssss-sss-smashed the car..." and he said "Are you OK?" and "where are you?" and "we're on our way". On our way home that night, he reminded me of our conversation over Christmas and said "couldn't you have just taken my word for it?" Makes me tear up a little, just thinking about that.
Dad has one bad retina, so has only limited vision in that eye. About five years ago that he had macular degeneration in his good eye. We were all terrified because my Dad without the independence of his driving abilities etc. is really really scary. His opthalmologist started giving him SHOTS IN HIS EYEBALL a few times a year, and I'll be damned if it doesn't keep the disease at bay! It is a freakin' miracle.
For all our relationship has had its ups and downs, and for all that we both have a myriad of shortcomings that cause some friction at times, I love my Dad.
My father is Jon. He has a very strong personality, and plenty of opinions, and while he is stubborn as hell, I have also known him to change his opinions on many things over the years and give him a lot of credit for that. Dad will be 76 this year. He is entirely sick of upper Midwestern winters and would prefer to be at their home in Tucson from October until May, but we stubbornly force him to stick around until November and are begging for him to bring Mom home by Easter.
My Dad had a rough childhood and I think there was not a lot of nurturing from his parents but plenty of corporal punishments. He spent 2 years in the Army (stationed in a pineapple field in Hawaii) but he won't talk about it at all and told me over Christmas that he had no photos from Hawaii as he had long ago burned them all. I have no idea what that's about. He then went to college and met my mother. He proposed to her nearly immediately but she wouldn't agree to be engaged for over a year after he first asked her. I used to think the high school and college photos of my Dad looked like "young Elvis" and I have no doubt he was charming and funny and sweet.
He and my mom both had education degrees but Dad didn't manage too well in the school system. He lasted a few years and then switched over to sales. He did quite well in the booming farm industy days of the 1970s but then took a stab at self-employment which ended badly. Now, looking back, I can't imagine how my Dad got through those years when we were economically devastated. He tried a variety of jobs, including some that he hated, to put food on the table. But I can't recall ever worrying or even knowing that things were as bad as I know now that they must have been. Thankfully, in his 50s, he landed a job that allowed him to make up a lot of financial ground so that he and Mom could retire and I have been so grateful for that.
I'm not too surprised, given all that I realize now, that my Dad was very erratic at times in my life. I have my suspicions about the cause(s) of that, but for all that he did a lot of emotional damage, one thing that I always knew and never doubted was was that he loved my Mom and he loved me and my brother and my sister. Unconditionally and without fail.
Last week I wrote a post about a car accident I was in back in 1985...crazily enough, I was home on Christmas break from school and we got to talking about things that were important (like your child's health and well being) and I remember saying to my Dad "are you telling me, that if I smashed up your car, all you'd care about was that I was OK?" and not really believing his assurance that he woudn't give a goddamn about the car. Well, fast forward about one month and I did, in fact, smash up his car, and had to call him from some stranger's house, crying I said 'DDDDDad, I ssss-sss-smashed the car..." and he said "Are you OK?" and "where are you?" and "we're on our way". On our way home that night, he reminded me of our conversation over Christmas and said "couldn't you have just taken my word for it?" Makes me tear up a little, just thinking about that.
Dad has one bad retina, so has only limited vision in that eye. About five years ago that he had macular degeneration in his good eye. We were all terrified because my Dad without the independence of his driving abilities etc. is really really scary. His opthalmologist started giving him SHOTS IN HIS EYEBALL a few times a year, and I'll be damned if it doesn't keep the disease at bay! It is a freakin' miracle.
For all our relationship has had its ups and downs, and for all that we both have a myriad of shortcomings that cause some friction at times, I love my Dad.
My mother - NaBloPoMo 1
Having finished the River of Stones Challenge for January, I am undertaking a new one for February. NaBloPoMo caught my attention today...
Prompt 1: Tell us about your mother.
My mother is Mary. She will be 73 this month, she is the mother of three, wife of my dad for the past 51 years, a teacher by trade, and one of the least reactive people I know! Living with my dad, and the three smart-aleck children she raised, someone had to be the "straight man", right? But it is nearly impossible to get a rise out of my mother and God knows, I've tried. She is Swedish and German, she was raised to be very stoic and martyr-ish, and I have never seen her cry. She loves to read - I find it hysterical that she reads all kinds of Danielle Steele and other romances, but won't read anything like Harry Potter because it is so "made up" as if romance novels aren't just as fantasic!
My mother had breast cancer when she was 37. She had a radical mastectomy, weeks of radiation therapy, and months of chemotherapy. An awful couple years for her, I'm sure, but she lived. Never had any recurrence or ongoing cancer scares. I was only in elementary school and I can hardly remember that she was sick. She tells me now that she would be in bed all day, miserable, but would get up and shower before we got home from school and then try to make it through the evening with us. In my lists of things I'm grateful for, I can hardly even get through the part where I list how grateful I am to have had my mother for the last 35 years without crying...I can't even imagine what would have happened to our family without her.
My mother's best friend was always her own mother. My Grandma Helen died a few years ago, at age 95. I hope I get a prompt to write about her. She was awesome. I am heartsick for my mother to have lost her best friend.
In all honesty, I don't know how my mother has put up with my dad all these years. When they were approaching their 50th anniversary, I said (only 75% jokingly) that a person ought to just be able to walk away after 50 years with no strings. But they are devoted to each other and when I think of what they have lived through in those 50 years, I do admire their perseverance and commitment to each other and to our family.
I love my mom.
Prompt 1: Tell us about your mother.
My mother is Mary. She will be 73 this month, she is the mother of three, wife of my dad for the past 51 years, a teacher by trade, and one of the least reactive people I know! Living with my dad, and the three smart-aleck children she raised, someone had to be the "straight man", right? But it is nearly impossible to get a rise out of my mother and God knows, I've tried. She is Swedish and German, she was raised to be very stoic and martyr-ish, and I have never seen her cry. She loves to read - I find it hysterical that she reads all kinds of Danielle Steele and other romances, but won't read anything like Harry Potter because it is so "made up" as if romance novels aren't just as fantasic!
My mother had breast cancer when she was 37. She had a radical mastectomy, weeks of radiation therapy, and months of chemotherapy. An awful couple years for her, I'm sure, but she lived. Never had any recurrence or ongoing cancer scares. I was only in elementary school and I can hardly remember that she was sick. She tells me now that she would be in bed all day, miserable, but would get up and shower before we got home from school and then try to make it through the evening with us. In my lists of things I'm grateful for, I can hardly even get through the part where I list how grateful I am to have had my mother for the last 35 years without crying...I can't even imagine what would have happened to our family without her.
My mother's best friend was always her own mother. My Grandma Helen died a few years ago, at age 95. I hope I get a prompt to write about her. She was awesome. I am heartsick for my mother to have lost her best friend.
In all honesty, I don't know how my mother has put up with my dad all these years. When they were approaching their 50th anniversary, I said (only 75% jokingly) that a person ought to just be able to walk away after 50 years with no strings. But they are devoted to each other and when I think of what they have lived through in those 50 years, I do admire their perseverance and commitment to each other and to our family.
I love my mom.
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