Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful mother today!

My parents with me, age 1 1/2

We didn't have a camera in the family most of the time, so there aren't a lot of pictures except the formal, gather everybody together occasions, and school pictures of each of us as we grew up.  I would love to have a copy of my mother's wedding portrait, but the closest I can come is this one, taken when I was a year and a half, and Mom was expecting Carolyn but no one knew yet.  I guess I was still the center of the universe, but that would come to its natural end soon. 

Once we were married and living across the country, the chief times that Mom came were for babies.  These two are from when Geoff was born.  She was only able to come for a week, so he's not older than that. His hair grew in blonde, and didn't look quite as dark to start out as this seems. The second picture is of all of us, using our van as the sitting space, and I can't find the original, just this paper copy, so it's not as crisp

Newborn Geoffrey

All of us (except Dad, playing photog) 1988

Mom was always help, never strain, and she made such a difference when she came.  There have also been a couple of great visits with both of the folks, and trips we have made to Friday Harbor (in the San Juan Islands, WA) and Victoria, British Columbia together--I seem to have pictures of Buchart Gardens, the Empress Hotel, the kids, but not of them.  I am definitely deficient, unintentionally.  For that vacation, we rented a 15-passenger van and took off for ferries and international borders.

My mother gave me a love of music, a love of poetry, and a love of the truths of the gospel.  She enjoyed being our mother, and had a good time.  She gave us freedom to play and have friends, to roam, and get dirty.  She also took it very seriously, and was an effective teacher.  We knew the rules were real, and she always made the reasons for them understood.  She did her job well, and blessed all of our lives.


"Glory be to God for dappled things..." (Gerard M. Hopkins), Shakespeare, John Donne, Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay.  Fairy tales, mythology of Greece and the Norse tales.  I had a book of poetry I would check out from the library periodically and read.  "Abou Ben Adam, may his tribe increase, /Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace..."  Kipling, Nesbitt, George MacDonald, writers that kids don't read anymore.  (My mother refused to take us to the animated Jungle Book because she didn't want to see it ruined.)  She and my father gave us a strong sense of family, both in terms of our immediate connections and our heritage in the Church.  They live their testimonies, and we learned to find ours.

I knew that my mother and I were unusual in the topics--philosophy, religion, literature-- we discussed, working in the kitchen or just between demands of our activities, but until I went to college I didn't realize how unusual it was that my mother and I would talk.  I just assumed that other daughters had different subject lists, but enjoyed the same kind of relationship, and that was often not the case.

My mother is 82 today, and we were just there for a great visit, where Alison snuck this picture at the end of dinner, our last night.  Alison and I and our other halves were the last ones left, and you can see the reflections in the glass doors to the balcony, behind the dining room table.  You can see the reflection of the art from the inside wall as well. Happy, happy, joy, joy!--in loving seriousness and not irony, Mom.  Happy birthday!  If Dad takes you back to the Tea Garden to celebrate, make sure he gets in the door intact.  Have fun.

End of family dinner, Dec.'12


[ed. to add:  that's where they went, and the entry was now brightly lit, no mishaps]