sixty-six

This weekend is/was a special one.
This is the weekend of my mother's birthday.
The titular number of this entry is her age as of this moment...another notch on the belt.

She was born in a city named Independence - for her, quite fitting!
She had a rich life of adventure long before I came into the picture, loving long before she met the man she was to marry, the one who I would know, albeit briefly, as "father."

She has an air of serenity about her that would rival Mother Teresa. For a long time, I despaired of ever possessing that serenity myself. (But I do now, ah! I do!)

She has defied the odds in her life time & again:
She had a healthy child when it was 50/50 that her child would carry the same deficiencies that plagued her (phosphate-deficiency rickets, among other things)
She is still walking long after the doctors predicted she would be confined to a wheelchair.
Yea, she is still breathing, upright, & mobile years after several of those same doctors predicted her demise!

True, she is on the descent of the curve of life, but she is proceeding forward with grace & humor, leavening to her kvetching about the aging process. "Growing old ain't for sissies!" she quips often these days.

Yes, many times I wonder if we're even reading the same book of life, let alone whether or not we're on the same page! But there is a bond between us that is frankly missing between many mothers & daughters in this transitional age we move through today...and for that, I'm very deeply grateful. :-)

Happy Birthday, Mom.