On the Third Anniversary of Mom's Passing

It seems like yesterday. It seems like a hundred years ago. How can both be true? Yet they are. My mother passed away on March 31, 2011 at the Notre Dame du Lac long-term care center in Worcester, MA. My sister, Jessica, was with her. Mom had Alzheimer's - we were aware of it a good 10 years before she died.

My photo albums are all still in storage in Santa Fe, NM, so I don't have any pictures of her later in life. But I do have these very old photos of her on my computer:


This one is my favorite! She is 11 or 12 here. I can tell, because she has the awful haircut required by the Liverpool Blue Coat School for Orphans and Fatherless Children, where my grandmother placed her in October of 1936. I know that the boarding school was like a prison to her, but in this photo she looks so happy. It must have been on a school holiday. I don't know where she was, what she was pointing to, or whose dog that is. Look at the face on the dog!

This is Mom's passport picture taken in 1940. She was 14 and about to come home to the U.S. 

And this one was taken in June 1940. She'd returned to the U.S., where her mother was about to marry a widower with two children for whom Grandma was governess. There's a story there, but we'll never know it! You can see how tentative Mom looks in this picture. That's probably how she felt  - for years she'd been stuck in a boarding school in England, and now that Grandma finally brought her home, she was to be part of a new family - a stepfather, step-brother and step-sister to whom she was the outsider. Fortunately, the step-father, Pop, was a nice man. 

I remain fascinated by this time in Mom's life. You may recall me writing about my efforts to find out about her life as an evacuee with the school in Beaumaris, Wales.

This is the poem I wrote for Mom's memorial service:

I’ll Remember You

(A poem for Mom)

by Melissa Ann Goodwin

I’ll remember you

on the rocks at Gray’s,

knitting needles clacking

and the seagulls flocking.

When sunny days seem to

last forever

and thunder rolls

like a distant drummer,

I’ll remember you,

in summer.

I’ll remember you

at the kitchen door,

as I waved goodbye

‘neath an autumn sky.

When leaves are piled 

and chestnuts fall

with bittersweet vines

and popcorn balls,

I’ll remember you,

in fall.

I’ll remember you

knitting mittens

by a fire warm

in a snowy storm.

When stars shine bright

like cosmic glitter

and snowflakes fly

and winds blow bitter,

I’ll remember you,

in winter.

I’ll remember you

on days in May,

when poppies bloom

and winter’s gloom is

left behind.

When all the world

feels fresh and new

And robins sing,

I’ll remember you,

in spring.

                        

Love and Miss you, Mom! xoxo