Mothers

Ten days before this past Mother's Day, my own mother died. It was not entirely unexpected, but it could have been years before it happened.

This picture tells more about my mother's life than any of the ones I used for her memorial collage.

In a spotless room, she is sitting as she was posed in a clean, white dress. Behind her, backed into a corner, with a most unhappy look on her face, is her mother.

The photographer was doubtless her stepfather. A hard-drinking, mean-spirited, Korean War veteran, he put them there in the corner.

My mother was raised by these two people, molded by their misbehavior, an injured bystander in their mutual betrayals, and the innocent victim of their unhappiness.

An only child, she had the best clothes, even her own credit card in High School-unusual I am sure in the mid Sixties. But alone, she had no one to defend her. No one to help bear the weight of the whispers of a small town.

She escaped, searching for peace. It is hard to find something you have never known. I know she will find it now.