I Remember Mama
I Remember Mama Forty years ago today, my mother died. She was 57. Forty years hence, I am the same age. "If only we can get through February," my Great Aunt Margaret used to say: all drawling Virginia, ironic wisdom. "It's the longest month." The hardest snows. The coldest nights. The most painful memories. In my family, it always seemed to be that the most trying times were squeezed into 28 or 29 days. 1979 was a case in point: the culmination of my mother's two-year struggle with cancer. I remember around my 15th birthday getting the news. “They found something on my shoulder," my mother said - breezily telling me with a smile to ward off teenage worries. I can't recall exactly where I was when she told me, but I remember her demeanor: we'll take care of this. We were probably in the kitchen, or maybe in her car where she was teaching me to drive. Wherever we were, she wanted to make sure that I wouldn't worry. ...