Martha H

This is a sad and nostalgic day for me. My mother would have been 100 years old if she had lived just 9 months longer.

Yet, she was so very ready to go. Her quality of life had deteriorated, she had no joy in life, no memory, confined to a wheelchair. It was time, it was good. And yet I am thinking of her today - in between reports from my son in law about my daugher's condition (he took off today and tomorrow so I am not needed to stay there as planned, not until Friday.)

Mom was born on this date in 1908 -- just think, it was a totally different world back then. No cars, no phones, no airplanes, no pre packaged foods. They were dirt poor farm workers in Germany, lived practically on potatoes alone. Mom was the first child of an unwed mother, a scandal in those days. Later my grandmother married and had 3 more kids, but my Mom was always looked down on as 'illegitimate.'

Yet, she emigrated to America, learned English, got jobs, supported herself and helped her mother and siblings to get here, married and had 3 children, all of us graduated from college. At 67 she retired (worked for the NYC police dept as a school crossing guard) and went to college herself and got a bachelor's degree. She learned to drive at 69 after my father died.

Indomitable spirit, good hearted, loving, caring, sharp, active, swam until she was 97, took care of her great granddaughter when her granddaughter was sick. A wonderful woman, my role model.

I will remember her this way, not the way she was in those last few years.

Love,

Martha