A story is in order

Mom

The dark skies
And the snow piled up,
Leaving me dark and grey.
The struggles with for my mom,
Came in rolling waves.
Some where, amidst confusion, there was truth.
No, she has not died,
yet,
But she will.
She continues on now as she has all of her life
And so a story is in order.

She was born of 2 Greek immigrants in Norfolk, Virginia,
So many years ago, I can not fathom, 1922.
Her mother dies when she was 11.
This left her and her brother and sister in the care of an aunt.
There is a story of her,
that she did not know where her mother was,
no one told her that her mother was dead,
Until the funeral.
They brought her in,
to see her mom,
laid out for a burial.
She cried out “Mommy!”, but they hushed her.
What did that do to her, I can not imagine,
But at 16, she got a pilots license, she was still in high school.
A Greek woman doing this? 
Unheard of!
At 17, she went with other girlfriends to New York City, to see the Worlds fair,
Basically unchaperoned. 
That was 1939, for those who are counting.
She went and got a nursing degree and moved to Washington DC.
She visited Cyprus in 1949, for 3 months.
She lived with 3 other girls in DC and while we would not call them wild by our standards,
They knew how to take care of themselves.
She met my dad, who was working at a jewelry shop.
They got married and moved to Houston Texas in 1953.
I was born in 1954 and it did not change too much,
But somewhere she decided she needed to get a drivers license.
A woman who could fly, but not drive makes me shake my head.
Somewhere, during my college years, a passion for painting was reawakened.
Reawakened because she produced beautiful sculptures in high school.
She painted, mostly in oils,
But was not afraid of any media, sculpture or paint.
She was well known in South Texas, she was commissioned and sold many
And she was very good at something I am not, portraits.
When I left for the wilds of Connecticut
And my dad retired,
They moved to Colorado.
When my dad passed,
She continued to live, alone, taking care of herself in Colorado for a time.
I could not convince her to move back to me,
but did manage to get her to move to Virginia.
There she was with the rest of her family.
Oh, I did not tell you that when her father came over, he opened at small grocery store
And was very well off.
He brought over many, many relatives from Cyprus
And so if you are in Virginia Beach or Norfolk
and you run into a person of Greek decent, they are probably related to me.
Headstrong, able to make her own way, willful, these are all traits that allowed my mom to survive and to live,
Why should I expect it to be any different now?
Stage 4 COPD, I was told. The source was probably smoking as a young adult.
She quit long ago, but there was damage.
I will be down there very shortly
And will not be posting for a bit.