Fourteen years ago today my mother died. Each year, on the anniversary, my sister, nieces and I share a sweet memory about Mama, or Granny, or Pearl (her middle name and that's how my sister oft refers to her) or Great Granny - as my grand nieces call her.
This morning, as I was journaling and thinking about Mama, I had an idea for a scrapbook layout. I sent my sister and nieces a text asking them to share their favorite memories. Here are three of mine:
- Reading: I have no idea when my mother learned to read; I suspect it was early on. I do know that by the time she was in the 4th grade, she'd read all the books in the children's collection so the head librarian gave her permission to read/borrow books from the adult side of collection. Mama read everything. I "clocked " her once and concluded that over the course of a week she read a minimum of 25 books...all genres, all ages, all subjects and deeply...
- Crossword puzzles: Mama did a crossword puzzle every day and two on Sundays: the New York Times' and the Washington Post's. She'd usually finish Sunday's Post's by Tuesday; the NYT's - depending on it's trickiness - maybe Thursday. I recall her saying if a NYT was especially tricky: "This is wicked..." and she would dive back in.
- Children - especially her grandchildren and great grands: Mama was children's librarian/branch manager. All those years she spent in the library as a child contributed to her vast knowledge of books...and especially children's literature. She never matriculated to a master's in library science degree but that didn't matter - she knew children's lit! And she respected children. I watched her with my sister's children (her grands)and then, with their children and I knew intuitively that the relationship and respect , the way she interacted with them, from the time they were infants, was exactly the way she was with me and my sister.
The photo is my idea for at least a three-page spread: the middle page will have photos and the left/right pages, our memories. I will share once the pages are complete.Watch this space... Joining Carole and others for Three on Thursday...
Cheers~