Dear Mom #1

I won't ask how you are - dead nearly four years and probably not much is happening.

My life is moving forward. Not only would you have wanted this, you would have insisted on it and been angry with me in your sarcastic, controlled way if it wasn't so. I miss the sarcasm, by the way. I find myself slipping into it more and more, in my own encounters. In fact, I think I'm starting to turn into you. Carolyn asked me if this was a good or bad thing and I said I think it's just a 'thing'. No value judgment needs apply.

I'm like you now in that I've gotten heavy - but I'm working on that. My face seems squarer, like yours, my glasses thicker, my expressions sometimes reminiscent... but I'm still me. I let my teeth go to hell, but now I've fixed them, which you never got a chance to do. I am getting a little more cynical, but fighting it. I'm still a redhead, and often remember you saying, "Redhaired or redhanded, I love you."

I'm teaching, finally. Started as a public school substitute - which you would have found truly funny - and now an adjunct instructor for the history department at the local community college. I have so many stories for you. My students are amazing, my classes so much fun... I created a course in Tudor/Stuart England and it was accepted. I teach it for the first time this fall! I know you found that era boring - you preferred the middle ages. Well, guess what? When I'm teaching Western Civilization I, I get into those units, too. And think about you and how you might have seen the material.

M and I are still going strong, celebrating 17 years this past February. Some people tell me that you didn't really like M, you were just being a good mother. But while I do think you were a good mother, I believe you really cared for M. She's gone to school to study the arts, especially photography, which is transforming her life.

We have a dog. You'd have lots of fun mocking us, because we anthromorphize the hell out of Banjo. However, I remember catching you unawares on one of your visits to us in Boston - or was it DC? You had expressed disdain for the cats the night before - and don't think I don't remember that you used to send us recipes and uses for a dead cat - but in the morning I came out to the balcony to ask if you wanted coffee, and you were saying to one of the cats, "You'd better listen to me - I'm your Grandmother!"

I'll be doing this from now on - or trying to - whenever something happens that makes me say 'I've got to call Mom and tell her' - just before I remember that I can't anymore. If there's an afterlife, do you think it includes internet access?

Love,
Barbara