Happy Birthday, Mom

September 30th is my mother's birthday. It's been about 6 years since mom passed away. She would have been 94 this Wednesday. I miss her. I miss stopping by her studio apartment in the assisted living facility and sitting on the pretty little tapestry covered sofa she bought when she moved there. We'd have coffee and I would tell her all about what was going on with my life, and ask her advice. She would listen sympathetically then look at me with those clear blue eyes that were soft as clouds on good days, but could be cold and tough as steel when she was angry; and say, "What are you going to do?" She never told me what to do. Oh how I wanted and sometimes felt I needed her to say, "do this", or "don't do that." But she didn't. Instead she'd tell me a story about how she took in ironing during the Great Depression and Dad cut wood. Or about the time they moved into a ramshackle old cabin near Mt. Baker with only wood for heat and a wringer washing machine that she used to wash my brother's diapers. She told me how Grandma Youngdyk, her mom, came to live with us when I was just a baby. Grandma was dying of throat cancer; and though my folks were poor, they brought Grandma home so mom could take care of her. It wasn't easy for my mom to take care of a colicky baby and her dying mother- but she did it. In the '60s Dad got sick with emphysema and subsequently died. Without Mom's job at the Auditor's Office, I don't know how we'd have survived. In later years, things got a bit easier for her. She was able to purchase a nice little mobile home next to a quiet pond with cattails and mallard ducks. She went to dances at the Senior Center and even traveled a bit. But the point is this...though Mom never told me what to do; her stories did. Her stories had this one common theme running through them...NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU, YOU CAN GET THROUGH IT. BE STRONG. SURVIVE. This is the advice I took from my mother as I sat on her little tapestry covered sofa in the assisted-living facility. I carry it deep within my heart today. I'll tell it to my children and grandchildren... my mother's stories...and my own. Happy Birthday Mom! I miss you. But I remember everything you said.

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