May12th, Mother's Day, will be here in a couple of weeks. I won't see my kids this year because Dave and I will be traveling. But I take Mother's Day seriously. As we just learned last week in Boston, life can change forever in a heartbeat.
This is a photo of me and my mom. A year or so after this was taken she gave birth to my little brother, Paul. Shortly after that she got sick, was sent to a tuberculosis sanitarium, and, after seven years, in 1949, she died. She was 34 years old.
I don't know much about her. I wonder what she would have been like if she'd lived out her life. I know she was a writer and dreamed of make a living at it. I have several of her poems. They're really all I know about what she thought and felt.
Here is one she wrote while she was in the sanitarium. It's my favorite.
What goes into this frock that I'm sewing,
Besides a short skirt that leaves panties showing,
And a wee bit of ribbon and buttons and such,
And a small piece of lace - not much,
As I baste it and press it and turn in a seam,
With each careful stitch, I sew in a dream.
- Carmen Strange Riley
Happy Mother's Day, Carmen
***
This is a photo of me and my mom. A year or so after this was taken she gave birth to my little brother, Paul. Shortly after that she got sick, was sent to a tuberculosis sanitarium, and, after seven years, in 1949, she died. She was 34 years old.
I don't know much about her. I wonder what she would have been like if she'd lived out her life. I know she was a writer and dreamed of make a living at it. I have several of her poems. They're really all I know about what she thought and felt.
Here is one she wrote while she was in the sanitarium. It's my favorite.
What goes into this frock that I'm sewing,
Besides a short skirt that leaves panties showing,
And a wee bit of ribbon and buttons and such,
And a small piece of lace - not much,
As I baste it and press it and turn in a seam,
With each careful stitch, I sew in a dream.
- Carmen Strange Riley
Happy Mother's Day, Carmen
***
