May 11, 2008

A Mother's Day blog series

When Ronni Bennett launched a Mother’s Day series at The Elder Storytelling Place, an adjunct to her blog, Time Goes By, she posted a new story each day, and today, Mother's Day, she has posted mine!

You can read my story, Happy birthday mother. Where are you? and from there link to the other six in the series.

As I approach my two-year blogging anniversary, I look to this story as the one that most reveals who I am. I have struggled with concerns, probably all excuses, about writing anything private or personal in my blog. Well, not too private or too personal. Yet those concerns vanished as I wrote about my mother, now in her ninth decade.

My mother's astonishing life has been marked by prodigious talents, extraordinary adventures, and exceptional accomplishments. Yet devastating tragedies and losses tripped her soul on her long, long journey to today.

Years ago, while she was fully present in spirit, she told me that she felt like an ancient tortoise.

Happy Mother's Day, mother, and to the many women and men who have mothered me along the way.

Update | May 14, 2010
This year, when Margalit Bernstein...  Brill... Chipkin... Balin would have turned 99, it is instead the day of her funeral. Today, at the funeral, my oldest childhood friend and another dear friend since high school are reading this story, which has become my eulogy for my mother: Happy Birthday, eema. Where are you?

3 comments:

BronzeBuckaroo said...

All I will say is greatness of heart, mind, and spirit can be inherited. Your mom, like her daughter in her own right, is one of indomitable spirit and humanity.

Hope I did embarrass you with this comment. I intend to embarrass you with a lot more good words in the future. You deserve it!
;-)

Tamar Orvell said...

Oh, Bronze, you are generous. And I blush;-)

Madeline Rains said...

Yep, you obviously are cut from the same uniquely strong and beautiful cloth as your mama. What inspiring women you are. How difficult it is to have her so close and yet so far. I had that with my grandmother. It must be even more devastating with your mother.