Birthday Thoughts

This is an ancestor nicho I made a while back. It features my mother's high school graduation photo from 1939. She was born on 5/15/1922 and gave birth to me 38 years later on 5/15/1960.

That makes me 51 today, and my mom would have been 89. She passed away on December 17, 2003.

Every year on our birthday, the first thing either of us thought to do was wish the other a happy birthday.

"Happy birthday, Mom," I would say to her.

"Happy birthday, Baby," she would reply.

I miss you, Mom. Happy birthday.

African Violets

Ironically, the orchid our friends Jeff and Ron gave us for our wedding last year has actually started to send out new shoots. It gives me hope, despite the tone and subject matter of today's poem.

African Violets
My mothers' windows bloomed
purple, pink, and white,
explosions of color nestled
in dense mats of soft, succulent
green leaves.

I try to do her proud,
time and again, hopeful and hapless
and never intending things to end
the way they inevitably do.

How long does the terra cotta
pot of dirt sit dormant
on the sill before I admit
the uncomfortable truth
about the color
of my thumbs?