We’re heading into May, the month we celebrate our Mother’s. I’m going to share a memory of my mother and would you like to share one too? Please do! I will feature some in my late May newsletter and do a drawing for Kindle gift codes for some of my ebooks to a few random winners.

In the photo above, you see my grandfather, his mother (seated) holding my first cousin Marilyn and behind, her mother my aunt. I don’t have any photos of my mother digitized. I must do that soon. But this is her father and sister and gradmother. I never met my great-grandmother but the other three I knew. Family is so important and sometimes so difficult–you know what i mean!

Now a fond story of my complex mother. I must have been around 10 years old. That spring I found a baby robin sitting featherless in its broken shell on the ground. The destroyed nest lying nearby. I looked around and saw no other bird. I quickly cradled the little robin in my hand an ran home. Of course, my mother had a bird cage in the basement and soon Billy Boy (named by Mama) was in the cage. Mama fed him bread soaked in milk–probably not what a biologist would have suggested.

But Billy Boy survived and thrived on it as Mama fed him around the clock. When the time came, Mama took him out to the clothesline pole (remember those?) and sat him on it and before long he was coasting down to a landing and then he flew!

For the next three years Billy Boy returned to that clothesline every spring and would sing there until Mama came out to “talk” to him. Then the fourth spring he didn’t return. Sad but Billy Boy had three good years and no doubt a story to share with other robins along his way. I could tell you many more stories about my mother’s love for all animals and how she was their friend. She taught me much. I remember Mama. What about yours?–Lyn