Reflections of my Beautiful Mother

Posted on by

…thanks to Marsha for hosting Writers’ Quotes Wednesday https://tchistorygal.net/2021/05/12/wqwwc-24-beauty-mothers-day-revisited/

Looking back on Mother’s Day I’m saddened by the fact that I lost my mother at a young age. She was only 61 and I was 40, a mother myself with young children at the time of her passing. The following Mother’s Days in years to come were strange to me because I had no mother to buy presents for or send cards to.

My mother never considered herself beautiful. I think that comes from having a glamorous older sister. In our eyes, however, we saw her as beautiful and looking back at her early photographs she had a grace and inner beauty that shone through. Her friends always told her she looked like the Canadian gold medalist Elizabeth Manley.

Outer beauty is a gift. Inner beauty is an accomplishment. Randi G. Fine

This is my Mom on her wedding day with her sister on the left.
4-E212-D5-E-8-F31-44-A1-AC39-4-C9-D08-B6-BFCE

One of my favourite photos of my Mom is this one, probably one year after we arrived in Canada. I’m 3 and my sister is 1 and our youngest sister won’t arrive for another three years. Mom would have been 24 in this photo. The next photo was taken in 1962.

05-D9-A48-E-026-A-4279-AFCB-C9-A0949-C3583-1-201-a
E59116-EB-BA41-4934-8998-987-FC18030-D8-1-201-a

Twenty five years later the last of the three daughters is married and later that year Mom and Dad take a cruise through the Caribbean with a group of friends…..one of many holidays that they took every year and continued to take until her sudden death in 1993.

E07-FDA03-7-B40-4-CEF-8838-66154-E75634-F-1-201-a C9-BA1072-0-C4-B-4-E9-A-9960-07122588-A5-AA-1-201-a

“The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole but true beauty in a Woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she knows.”

― Audrey Hepburn

24 thoughts on “Reflections of my Beautiful Mother”

  3. Carol, thank you so much for participating this week. I think your mother was very beautiful in all her pictures. My favorite is the one in the car with three-year-old you and your sister. I can see a great family resemblance and you have not changed in many ways. You are still you. This is a dear post that you can treasure for ever. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

      • I’m so glad. I love those kinds of posts because now you have done the work. One blogger friend wrote his memoirs chapter by chapter online in his blog. Afterwards he published it, mostly for his children, but it was a wonderful book. BTW, we missed you. We had a new person with us, Judy who lives in Mexico. You will enjoy her immensely. She’s sparkly bright.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Thanks Marsha. I’ve been following Judy for years and she recently started following me. I was sorry to hear that I would be missing our first meeting with her. Helping my daughter with her move was important. I probably won’t see her now for a couple of months. They’re moving tomorrow to camp and I won’t be allowed to visit until the end of the summer. Hopefully she’ll get up to our cottage for a day or two this summer but even that is up in the air right now. We’re still in lockdown.

        Liked by 1 person

      • That is so sad, Carol. We saw our son for a second when we moved and he picked his stuff up from our garage, but it had been almost a year at that point. It’s been six months since then and they said they might come in September. We’re not in lock down nor are they. They are still working from home, and swamped.

        Liked by 1 person

      • One of the things that I had to do on Tuesday was pick up the 8 boxes of books that our son stored in her basement when he moved to London, England. He doesn’t want us to throw them out but I really don’t know where to put them in my house. I haven’t seen him for almost two years and the likely hood of him moving back here is pretty slim. They just bought a flat. We’re hoping we’ll be able to fly there in November but I can’t imagine taking all those books on a plane.

        Liked by 1 person

      • I think you just bought 8 boxes of books, Carol! We had our son’s invention, which was really cool and we believed in it, but it costs about $30,000 or more to make, and needs a great marketing campaign. All told with the patents, he spent about $100,000. He went strong with it for about ten years, but then the first prototype sat in our garage. When we moved, we gave it to anyone who would take it. A friend did take it, and we are very grateful. It was piled high with boxes which he went through and took. He is 51. LOL.

        Liked by 1 person

      • We had some of his college books but I gave away tons of books. At the end of our garage sale, I put a notice on FB that if anyone wanted the rest of the stuff they should message me. I got a message right away and her boyfriend came by four in the afternoon. Bam gone! I wish I had done that with all my furniture. It was super expensive to move then both places we bought had furniture. We could have left everything except our bed.

        Liked by 1 person

      • I think our daughter got rid of a lot of furniture and the rest is going into the garage at the house they are now leaving. Luckily the landlady said they could leave stuff there until they find a new home.

        Liked by 1 person

      • WOW, nice landlady! How fortunate. We have half of Vince’s sister’s garage filled with our stuff. We rent the condo to her, but if we ever rent it to someone else, it’s got to go. 🙂

        Like

  4. Pingback: #WQWWC #25: Healing – Marsha Ingrao – Always Write

Leave a comment