There are times I forget my mom is more than a mother.  She is a sister, an aunt, a grandmother and even a great grandmother. She was part of a family before she became my mother. I forget that she shared her life with others before she had her own children. She has memories that her children don’t know about. This a photo is of her and her little brother, Ralph. He was the teaser in the family. He teased my mom and her sister, Deanne, as all good little brothers do everywhere. I love when they get together because we get to hear stories of their childhood that she never shared with her own children.

For the past three summers my mother has come to Chicago to spend her birthday with Vicki and I. We have our routines, places we must go and, of course, restaurants to visit. We have laughed and shared secrets sitting at my kitchen island. These times have allowed me to learn about my mom more than ever. I have learned that she is a woman who still, at 79, has dreams. I want to have dreams at my age but I am caught up in trying to figure out my life in that moment. I am a planner and she is a dreamer. What a thing to discover in a parent.

Several months ago, her high school sweetheart contacted her. It had been sixty years since their last contact. This summer she shared their phone conversations. She was curious what he was like after all their years apart. They made plans to meet again. He came to her town and stayed at her home. Before he arrived, she was nervous and questioned if she was doing the right thing. He arrived and some how they both figured their way through it. He told her she was beautiful and she smiled inside at the thought that, at her age, someone saw her as beautiful even if his memory of her was when she was a teenager. She showed him her life and when he left, she realized something. She realized that she was lonely. She found what she had been missing since my father passed away. She has been alone and just going through the motions of her daily life. She kept herself busy working and volunteering. Things that filled her life with moments not memories. She worked hard for most of her life taking care of others. From owning a resort to to taking care of a husband that was ill. She was up early each day as a resort owner. She was on the front lines of the business. It wasn’t her dream, it was someone else’s.

So as the story goes, she and her high school sweetheart have reconnected and have found that they are both lonely yet still have dreams to fulfill. Her house is on the market and they have are making plans together. A trip to Paris in the spring, a cruise to somewhere. I have heard my mother’s voice have a lilt of joy and laughter that hasn’t been there for a long time. She loves that someone finds her beautiful and tells her so. Someone who cares enough to open a door for her, to hold her hand, to simply love her for who she is. Someone to spend, what years they have left on this earth, together.

As her daughter, I love that she is going to live her dreams. It gives me hope.