Mom

Mom on a trip with my sisters

Having just returned from the market up the street, I am flooded with memories of my mother.  I waited in line behind an older (relative term!) woman and watched as she carefully maneuvered the check-out line.  As I left the store her daughter, who had been waiting for her, helped her with her groceries, a reminder of my mother.

Mom & Sparkle

The first memories came as a slide show of my mother's last few years.  I had many opportunities to help her with her shopping, cleaning, gardening, and bills.  We spent hours just talking, mostly Mom, of her friends and activities.  Those were healing years for me, as I came to grips with the truth that my mother, wonderful as she was, was not perfect.  I learned to love her in a new and special way.

I think this may have been Switzerland, 1949.

The second wave of memories concerned my mother when I was an infant and came in the form of unanswerable questions.  She came to post-war Europe with my father and realized that she was with child-me.  I can't help but wonder if terror and fear occasionally filled her heart as she contemplated becoming a mother and the issues of a birth in postwar Europe.  Fortunately for her, they moved from Paris to Zurich before I was born.

Mom and I walking in the garden in Rome

I also wonder about her daily life in Europe.  She did not seem to like languages, so how did she do her shopping? Who were her friends?  I have 500 potential English-speaking friends here, not counting the many Germans who speak lovely English.  How did she cope when her husband traveled to other places and sometimes could not get back when planned?  Who did she lean on as she learned to raise a child in a foreign land?

One of several ocean crossings we made.

As memories of Mom and questions about her life roll over me, I am thankful for her and her courage.  I only wish I could tell her now how much she means to me, how much she truly is one of my heroes.  I wish I could hug her one more time.  I wish I could ask her all my questions. But, as my mother used to say, "If wishes were horses, then beggars could ride."  I find comfort in the warm memories of Mom instead.