Mother's Day

That's my mom and me, taken in 1945. We're looking at a photo of my dad who had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for "extraordinary heroism in action," in Italy during WWII. She was just a young chick then and I was 3 years old.




This is my mom holding a pan of homemade pierogies which we had just finished making for Christmas dinner this past December. She turned 83 last March.

She lives in an apartment that my husband and I created for her in our home in 2001. She had been living nearby but had become quite ill. We had just moved into this house ourselves in January of the same year. Besides its location on the river, the house also attracted us because it had a small apartment that we could easily make larger, ideal for the situation we were faced with when my mother became sick.

I'm very happy to say that she is still here with us today. She was declared in remission from lung cancer this past December, but suffers from emphysema. She drives her own car, goes to the gym 3 times a week where she walks on a treadmill and is "stretched" by a physical therapist. She is as feisty as ever and though we do make each other crazy from time to time, we have an wonderfully peaceful household.

I 'm extremely grateful for having had the opportunity to be with my mom these past 5 years. We continue to learn and grow together having been given the gift of time. She has always been a wonderful teacher. I credit her not only with my intense love of plants, animals and the natural world, but for the joy I feel in being alive.

Here is a poem I wrote about her just after she moved in with us.

Our Lady Of The River
for my mother

At dawn I open drapes
watch the day take flight
above a bank of leafless trees
steely clouds cloak the light
in a blanket of solace
through eddies of mist
an apparition drifts

Robed in white she clutches
a wooden staff her cap
of silver hair rises and falls
like dew laden webs
that brighten the meadow
she stops to bless the geese
prays for rain and picks
pearly everlasting for her table

I watch as she slowly climbs
back up the hill her staff surrendering
to the weight of her effort
later she’ll tell me how this river
takes her back to another place
where time stretched out
so far ahead of her
she cound not see its end

Jzr