Mom’s birthday

I’ve been trying for the past couple days to come up with something to say to mark today, what would have been my mother’s 97th birthday. As is often the case, the words just wouldn’t arrange themselves, no matter how much I begged them to. I kept at it.

I've mentioned my mother in several different posts, and if they were all pieced together, they'd make a reasonably complete picture. But her birthday is not about mere biography.

She was one of the earliest, most important influences in my life. My dad was important, too, but more so later on. Besides, he's not the subject of his post.

When I was a kid, my mother was a stay-at-home mother. Most of my friends’ mothers were the same, and I assumed that was the normal way of things. That wasn’t the only thing I thought was universal.

She was very creative, as I've mentioned several times before. But because she was so creative, I grew up thinking everyone was, or could be, creative, and trying creative things was just what people did. Of all the things I got from her, this is probably the one thing for which I'm most grateful. It led to this blog, my podcasts and all the other stuff I do.

Among other creative things, my mother was a poet. Originally, I wrote short stories because I didn't want to "compete" with her. I eventually moved on to writing non-fiction, something my dad influenced, actually (I'll talk about that another day).

Even so, over the years I've actually written a fair bit of poetry, but I don't share it with anyone, anywhere. I don't care if people don't like one of my blog posts, but poetry is so much more personal. And yet, every once in awhile I think about publishing some here. That's my mother's influence again.

That's a little more about my mother, her influence on me, and even a little bit about me. It seemed like a good way to observe her birthday.

This is also my 365th post this year, which means I’ve now hit my goal of an average of one post per day. So, I get the present, really.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

The photo above is of my mother and father on their wedding day in 1942.

Related:
Tears of a clown – one of my favourite posts about my mother

Previous years’ birthday posts:
Mom’s treasure (2012)
Remembering birthdays (2011)
That time of year (2009)
Memories and words (2008)