My Mom

My mom used to sing to us when we were kids, sing us to sleep. That was before the horrors and tribulations of life began to gnaw at her soul. She taught me the difference between a "d" and a "b " when I was learning to read (on which side of the "l" the "c" went confused me for a while). I remember her hanging clothes and my playing with the wooden clothespins as I sat in the grass under the warm sun with the wind billowing the clothes.

My dad and granddad were working in the shipyard building ships to help kick Hitler's ass. My mom made do at home with rationed sugar and margarine like playdough in a bag with a red dye spot to knead until it turned the goop to a more butter-like color. She made biscuits and my brothers and I liked to count them as she placed the raw dough in the pan, leaving our fingerprints on their surface. Sometimes she would add some "baby" biscuits just for us.

She was a very tender person with the fierceness of a taloned eagle if she or hers is threatened. The tender and the tough did a dance at her core.