Once Upon a Time

Dear You,

Emily is 12 today. She is my daughter's daughter, and not much younger than when my mother first met my father, so many years ago. This morning I called to wish her a happy day. In my yard are a little concrete fish statue that my mother, Eulah, made when she was in college in the 1960s (Art for Non-Majors) and a whirlygig of popsicle sticks and colored yarn (her way to pass time while she and Dad were Airstreaming in the early 1970s). I looked at those objects as I watered the roses this morning. Like some of the rose blossoms, they are falling to ruin, and I keep them as some of the few things that remain from her life.

I celebrate Emily's birthday at a distance -- she lives on Long Island, and I'm a seven-hour drive away. At the same time I am aware of the distance from my mother, who died in 1977. She was barely in her Fifties when she died, and it is always a shock of awareness of mortality when I look at my favorite photo of her, taken when she was scarcely 18 and newly married.

Just a few years ago I read that a girl born in America now can confidently expect to live a hundred years -- that means Emily can have two of my mother's lifetimes. I hope she does, and I hope the wish for happiness I gave her this morning lasts.