SOLSC 15 Day 30: Mom Monday

More Slices can be found at Two Writing Teachers.

Mom’s birthday, June 4, 1996. Vancouver, WA

Mom’s birthday in 1996 was special.  It was also bittersweet.  Mom and Dad came up to visit us in Vancouver, WA.  They travelled up through Nevada and then to Idaho stopping at they life long friend’s home in Hagerman, ID.

Mom’s COPD was at full force and the altitude wasn’t her friend.  Breathing was difficult.  By this time she travelled with oxygen tanks. This would be their final trip together to visit me.

But she was with us for her birthday.  I hadn’t been around on her birthday for over twenty years.  After I graduated and got a teaching job in the northwest, school wasn’t out early enough to be with her.

So we celebrated in great style, a restaurant on the Columbia River. It was a beautiful evening.  Mom loved presents. She had collections of a variety of things, one being the little Chevron cars. She’s opening it here.

So the evening ends and the bill is presented. And guess who didn’t have her wallet to pay for the dinner? Me.  Mom bailed us out.  And as Karma does come around, on my 50th birthday, while youngest daughter pre-paid for the surprise party, additional expenses occurred and I bailed her out.

I wish I had better photos of her especially one of the two of us.  But I don’t. Mom was not one to want to be photographed. She wasn’t a person to call attention to herself.