Remembering: My Mother's Birthday

Finally this morning: today is my mother's 89th birthday.  She'd turn 89 today, if she were still living.  And, of course, she is much in my thoughts these days.  I don't want to let the occasion go unmarked, as I remember and pray for rest and grace for a mother to whom I owe my life, and for all those who labor along through the difficult passages of life and hope for safe harbor at the end of their lives.  

I'm recycling a picture of my mother that I've used before on this blog, I think.  It's one I've always liked, taken a year or so prior to her marriage in 1948.  It captures her as I remember her--in glimpses--from my earliest childhood, before my father's often strange and sometimes violent alcoholic behavior began to wear her down and sap her vitality.

May my mother and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.