Martha, R.I.P

My mother died twenty years ago today. The image is from the mid-1950s when I was a small child. It's how I remember her most: strong, a little tentative, doing her best with what life offered.

I often felt she wanted more of something, but whatever that was, it could not be in the world in which she found herself. She could be a good wife to my sometimes acerbic father whom she adored; she was faithfully supportive to a daughter whose life and exploits can't have been what she had in mind. She was a friend to every neighborhood child. In her role as a children's librarian, she helped unwilling young readers find something that drew them in.

She was a Martha who I sometimes suspected wanted to be a Mary, but heard and embraced a different calling.

My mother lived a long, "good enough" life. May we all be so fortunate.