Always Your Baby . . .

Mommy had a bad day yesterday. She will be 86 in January. She is the most amazing woman I have ever known. I am honored and blessed to have had her for my mother for almost 56 years. Mommy is very small...barely "five-foot-two...eyes of blue"...she still sings that song and dances around, shaking her hips to the "choochy, choochy, choochy coo". Lately, she forgets little things, and it frightens her. She has been sharp as a tack all these years. She has been a little "stinker" her entire life. I supposed that came out of necessity, growing up during the Great Depression, first generation American, born of two Polish immigrants. She adored her father, although he was an alcoholic. Of the four children, she was her father's favorite. "Helcha", he would call her. She called him "Pop". Of the four children, she was the one who endured the physical and emotional abuse of her mother. How she was able to be a loving mother to my brother and me, I will never understand ... she was able to give us what she was never given. She broke the cycle of abuse. Mommy is the strongest woman I have ever known. But yesterday she cried. Because she forgot something. I told, "Don't cry, Mommy. I will never forget".