Today was my Mom's Birthday...

 

Hi, It is me again, sharing a personal day with you all. Today would have been my mothers birthday,  she would have been 68. She passed away in 2010. My mother was a voracious reader. Always had several books on the go and much of my teenage/adult memories of her were her late night reading, at the table, coffee hours cold, tiny reading light, in a mostly dark and settled house. My mother did not sleep much after her own parents passed. She pulled many all nighters to finish her books and I can only imagine what she would think of today's e-readers and cozies. My mother read everything, she went through a true crime phase, she loved LaVyrle Spencer, Stephen King, Maeve Binchy and so many more. 

Books and rescued book shelves from floor to celling in every room she could. When she passed there were almost one hundred boxes of books we donated. My mother wanted us to start a library with her books, truth be told we could but the libraries just did not want them and we donated where we could. My mom was funny she once told me "when I die take my ashes and sprinkle them on the book shelves at Indigo"... I am very glad I did not because a few years after she passed they closed the book store. I miss that store and I miss my mother very much. She died way to young and way to close to the age I am now.

My mother loved mysteries, she herself was one. Adopted at age 5, hidden by nuns so that she could be adopted out on her 5th year after being in the system since she was one. She was plagued her whole life by the mystery of who she was and where she came from. She died shortly before the DNA testing was a possibility here in Canada. I did mine a few years after she passed hoping for answers, but while I did not find any I was able to confirm that my mother was Irish and British, something she would have been so happy to know. She never met an Irish book, story or author she did not immediately fall in love with. I had given up hope in figuring out the mystery on my own until my much younger sister did her dna with another company and hired a private firm to investigate. 

Last September I, along with my sisters had the information on my mother's life's mystery in our inboxes and on our phones. By November I was introduced to a maternal1/2 sister of my mothers, just a few years older than I. She has been such a blessing in helping us sort my mothers past and her own. The mysteries and unanswered questions are fewer for sure and the story continues to unravel as we learn more about each other and the past. The love of books though it does run deep and in the family. 

Thank you for joining me here today and for allowing me to share my mothers and my story with you. 

I promise a much more lighthearted post tomorrow.