This November 5^th morning I chose her tea cup.  I still clearly see her sipping on this cup – a part of her pretty ‘antique’ set that she grew old with.  

As I start this day I honor the day she entered the world in the very early 1920’s and a world so very different from the one I woke up to. Mom rarely mentioned the hard parts of growing up but enjoyed sharing the better parts with me; getting her first job and buying her father his first pair of new ‘overalls’, learning how to sew, budget and manage a home at the boarding school she attended, being a maid to the wealthier families in Milwaukee during the summers and having fun on their weekly “maids day off”,  waitressing at a fine restaurant overlooking the making of Mt. Rushmore and having her picture taken with the patrons to be captured in all her beauty as a Native young woman.

This year I am additionally grateful she entered her final destination before 2020 with all it’s drama, fear, death and hate.  I would believe she would have walked through it gracefully yet prefer she safely be right where she is forever young, safe, full of joy in the presence of Jesus and the God who created her.

 She recalls the day she glanced down into a crib and watched me sleeping and wondered how she could ever give me up.  That was a rare and tender moment of confession from a Marine -mom and I am grateful to have been loved, chosen and adopted and though I will never be the woman she was I can strive to reflect her and the God who created us both. 

The tea cup. For decades the tea cup set served her, guests, neighbors, family and even held the dye to color eggs. Today, I sip my morning coffee, in this tea cup, fondly remembering, forever grateful and wishing her a very “Happy Birthday”.