Reflections on my Late Mother's Birthday

I was about halfway to town when I realized that today — January 26th — is my late mother's birthday.

She passed away 17 years ago; today would have been her 104th birthday. Yes, I'm that old...

Most of us end up living long enough that our parents die, and some part of us suddenly feel orphaned, as a result of realizing that we are suddenly no longer attached to something in our past, anymore.

Of course, my mother was thousands of miles away when she died and that distance was ironically symbolic of the other "distance" between us.

It's hard to put my finger on it exactly, but what we considered important in life pretty much lived on opposite poles of existence... and we never quite met on the topic of "how to live your life."

At first, the "distance" was uneasy, but eventually we made a sort of peace over the reality that there was no meeting place in the middle.

While we perhaps didn't exactly reconcile, we were able to steer most of our interactions towards things we both enjoyed, like cooking and good food.

And that just had to be "good enough."

I was just never going to become part of the status-conscious, social climbing country clubby lifestyle, and she was never going to give up her snobbishness, racist undertones and bigotry.

I've been told that the rose-colored lenses of passing time helps us forget the parts of others we had issues with, but there are certain things I simply will not see as acceptable, no matter how far in the past they might be.

Just to be clear, I harbor no ill will... and when I say that I remember my mother's birthday today, my choice is to remember the times we spent trying out new recipes, and the times I spent in the kitchen as a kid... learning about the many aspects of food and cooking.

I am also grateful for the lessons I was taught about keeping a garden and growing things to eat at home. To this day, when Mrs. Denmarkguy and I are working in our vegetable garden, I am often sharing tales from my childhood garden.

It was a BIG one!

My parents had originally wanted to put a tennis court at the end of the garden — but didn't — so our vegetable patch was the size of a full tennis court + surround.

My mother's birthday was midwinter, of course, so the gardens lay fallow... but my dad would bring home several fresh hyacinths that would live on the windowsill in the kitchen and offer a fragrant counterpoint to the cooking smells.

As I wind down these self-indulgent reflections on my mother's life, perhaps the posthumous lifelesson that comes through for me is that I'm not entirely sure she was happy with her choices... choices that were more likely made to impress/silence the demons of her past, rather than offer her a measure of peace and contentment.

Self-examination was not her strong suit; in fact, it was often something she dismissed as "nonsense," should it arise within her circle of friends.

The message was that we simply didn't have emotional and psychological struggles in our family... so if you actually did you'd better hide them well, lest anyone should think you might belong in a "nut house!"

As I said, my mother would have been 104 today, so she was from a very different generation... and I am just going to leave it at that.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful remainder of your week!

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Created at 2026.01.26 22:46 PST
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