Memories...

Today is my mother's birthday.  She would be 98 years old, and were she still alive I bet she would still be entirely clear-headed, up-to-date and a joy to be with.

We didn't always agree on things in our lives (she shocked me by crossing the picket line when we both worked for National Defence in Camp Valcartier; I shocked her by being the first woman to wear slacks to the Sergeants' Mess Sunday dinner) but we respected each other and shared the same basic values. 

We wore each other's clothes when we lived near-by, which was only on and off after my parents settled in Barrie at a time when I was zipping around eastern Canada and Germany.  We also wore each other's shoes which did neither of us any good because we were both buyers and wearers of shoes that were almost too small.

She looked after my father for the seven years he lived after having a stroke.  She learned how a Hoyer lift worked, and how far she could push his wheelchair around the neighbourhood when the weather permitted.  And in all those years, she never changed being the best and most supportive mother and grandmother. 

from left, Julia, Emma, Sarah, Lorna with Mom in the middle

I miss her every day, I still file thoughts I'd like to share with her, I wish I could call her to remind her that figure-skating was on TV and know that we'd both be watching it.  I wish that she knew that her great-granddaughter Phoebe had the words from my parents' gravestone tattooed on her ankle.  Still, no regrets, just treasured memories.