Thursday, April 25, 2013

Happy Birthday, Mama


This is my mother, me and my little Boston Terrier, Miss Bubbles, at the beach in the 1950's.  My mother would be over 100 years old today if she were still alive, and I believe she would be alive if she hadn't smoked cigarettes.  When she passed away at the age of 87 from Emphysema there was nothing else physically wrong with her; mind sharp as a tack, heart in excellent condition. Everything fine, except her lungs.  No one knew how murderous tobacco was back in those days.  She quit smoking when she was 70 but by then it was too late. 

Oh, the changes she saw in her lifetime!  From horse and buggy to cars, from cars to airplanes, from airplanes to men walking on the moon.  (Mama and I were both very upset about that last; we felt humans had no business mucking up the moon).  She saw the world progress from mail to telegraph to telephone, from radio to television.  She witnessed two world wars and the 'police actions'  in Korea and Vietnam. She went through the Great Depression of the 1930's.  In the 1960's we cried together over the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  She was active in the Civil Rights movement; as half Oglala Sioux and half Italian, Mama experienced the hatred of racists more than once.  She survived the great Flu Pandemic of 1918, was a 'jazz baby' in the 1920's and we marched together in demonstrations for the Women's Liberation movement of the late 60's and 1970's.  No burning of bras for us though: Mama said, "Seeing women without bras will just make men happy and happy men aren't what we're marching for!"  

Happy Birthday, Mama...I wish you were here.

4 comments:

  1. Seeing women without bras will just make men happy and happy men aren't what we're marching for!"

    Oh my! That's great!! I would have loved to have known your mother.
    The tales she could tell of her life's experiences!

    Wonderful to have so many great memories.
    What an honour to have such an amazing woman for your mother :)

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  2. I'm grateful for those memories, Vicki, and you're right, it was an honour (and a blessing) that she was my mother. I think she would have loved knowing you, too.

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  3. Wow she was a spirited lady, and wow at all the changes the she had seen, what an experience it would have been, from buggies to the moon, watching fairy tales, science fiction turn into reality, it would have been a magical journey, she lived and saw magic, I am sure she must have thought so sometime. And the treasure of memories she has left behind for u.

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  4. Victoria - your mom sounds like a wonderful lady and I can read through your words not only your love but your deep respect for her. Bless you for sharing.

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