Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today would have been my mother's 90th birthday. Last year on her 89th birthday she was in the hospital, which is a sad memory, and since I didn't want to think about that birthday, I tried to think of other birthdays I had shared with her.

The one I remember best is the one that I captured in a few photographs.

It was in 1997, her 75th birthday, and we had a birthday lunch or dinner for her at my house.


Jim and Glenn traveled here to join in the festivities, and Jean came up from southern Maryland with her husband and two children, neither of who were married yet, much less had children. (It's hard to remember a time before their wonderful little ones were born! ) Dad had been hit by his stroke, but was otherwise well. Jim's daughter, Melinda, clearly enjoyed her seat right next to Grandma. Ben was also there, but I'm not sure about Jim's wife, Kathy. I'm sorry to say that I can only "remember" what the photos show.

The pictures solve a mystery that Jean and I wondered about a few months ago as we packed up Mom's house -- who gave Mom got the wooden painted key holder that hung in her kitchen for years. From the way she's looking towards Jean's end of the table I think we can assume that it was a gift from Jean and her family.


This was also the family gathering where Jim and Jean broke the hammock!

That's one memory I do have that doesn't come from the photographs!

A friend told me that "...your mother is smiling down on you today." I'm sure Mom would smile to see these old pictures again and remember that special day back when she was still young.