Happy Birthday, Mother

Mother’s Birthday lunch. Far left, Phyllis Barrington, center front Kathleen Swain, back center, Linda Bethea, far right, Marilyn Grisham

Today, May 5, 2016, is Mother’s birthday. I am not permitted to say which one. Suffice it to say, she is more than eighty-five and less than ninety. She and my father were married thirty-five years and raised five children. She is a remarkable woman, goes to the gym twice a week, and walks at least a mile a day. She likes to get next to puny men at the gym so she can show off how tough she is. She works in her yard every sunny day and keeps a cooler of water out on her back steps for walkers and children in her neighborhood. She’d never worked a public job till after my dad died, but worked for many years first as a pre-school teacher, then as an office manager. I can’t imagine how it must have felt to have to seek a first job in one’s fifties. She is long retired, though never unoccupied. She is active in her church, community, family, and goes out in her car every day to her coffee group and to run errands. We are all so lucky to have her as our mother.