The photo below, of my mother and my two daughters, was taken in August 1969. Nina Renee turned thirteen that month; Beni turned eleven the previous March. Mom turned forty-eight in May of that year—yes, she was barely thirty-five when she became a grandmother!

Today is my mother’s birthday. She was born May 30, 1921. She died February 17, 1986. She lived sixty-four years, nine months and seventeen days. That is not a long life span now in Western countries, and she was so sturdily healthy that I assumed she would live into her eighties like her parents. I used to joke that because she was only sixteen when I was born, we would be old ladies together–when she was eight-four, I would be sixty-eight. Sixty-eight seemed old back when I used to joke about it. People in their sixties now seem young to me, still in the midst of life.

My mother’s life, though short by today’s standards, did not feel like a life cut short. She had started adult life when just a young teenager, marrying my father when she was fourteen, giving birth to me at sixteen; my sister Nita when she was nineteen; my little sister, Jacque when she was twenty-eight. Marriage and children, a family of her own, was what life was about in her eyes, and she got that. She was married fifty years; she saw her children grow up into healthy adults; she got to be an important part of the lives of four grandchildren. She would have liked to live longer, but there was no sense of unfinished business. The adult life she took up when she said Yes to my father when she was fourteen felt complete. More years of life would have been bonus years, nice but not necessary.

Mom was such an important part of my daughters’ lives. She gave them the same gift of patient ‘mindedness’ that had made my own childhood feel secure and relaxed. She was a haven of peace not just for Beni & Renee, but for me as well. Being with her, I relaxed. With her, I could be completely in the concrete present—cooking, sewing, watching my daughters play. I could set aside all the pressure and stress of the rest of my life. She was my refuge during years when the responsibilities of adult life often felt crushing. I was grateful then, and I’m grateful now, deeply grateful.

Bless you, Mom. And happy birthday.