Her name is Carolyn and she'll be 83 in about 10 days.
She married young, but has been a widow for the past 20 years.
She has lived in the same house for the past 38 years, near the mountains of SC.
She goes to the gym a couple times a week for "Silver Sneakers" workout time, and she still drives.
We insisted that she take an actual driving test last year, all the while dreading the expected failure because we were sure life as we knew it would end if she couldn't drive.
But, alas, she passed with flying colors, and her little half-smirk/half-smile told us what she thought about that.
The hardest thing for her and for the rest of us to get used to these days is that she can't remember details.
So, almost everything we ask her, the answer is the same, "I don't know," or "I just don't remember.
" Then she smiles sweetly and tells us that she doesn't like this any better than we do.
I am the oldest of 6 children; there are 4 girls and 2 boys.
There are 14 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Including spouses and stepchildren accumulated along the way, there are 50 people in our immediate family.
Two more babies are due this summer.
It's a genuine tribe.
For special events, we have to plan outdoor activities and hope the weather cooperates.
Last summer we rented a lodge with 10 cabins and a large dining hall and commercial kitchen, for almost a week.
We even had a wedding for one of my nieces there on Saturday night and didn't even have to bring in outside help -- my son is a pastor and did the ceremony; my daughter is a professional musician and did all the music; one niece is an extraordinary wedding planner and decorator; a sister's boyfriend owns a Greek restaurant and he cooked the wedding dinner on site; my husband is a photographer...
and the list goes on.
There are benefits to having a large family! Two more nephews are commercial audio engineers, and they set up the finest sound system ever, and we danced and did karaoke until we literally fell over with exhaustion.
Even the small children stayed up VERY late and dropped into a deep sleep one by one onto air mattresses that we had put into the corners of the large dining/dancing hall in the main lodge to catch them as they fell.
We didn't even bother to move them...
they woke up the next morning just in time for breakfast.
My mother sat in the middle of all this like a queen.
She was my dad's queen for 42 years and now, she's our queen, sans the king...
with a bunch of rowdy princes and princesses.
She is a very loving mother and she has devoted her whole life to nurturing babies and then caring for her children as we grew.
None of us have even come close to living our lives as mother has lived hers.
In some respects, our ways are better and in some ways, they're poorer.
But, as I say so often, "It is what it is.
" I don't connect on every level with my mother, and I know she looks at me sometimes and wonders if she really gave birth to me -- after all, she was SO conventional and proper and I've been anything but.
But there's one thing I can say absolutely: "I have been loved unconditionally every day of my life on this earth.
" And so has she.
It's a good deal.
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