Mother and dad

 

I'm sure I posted this once before. I love the picture, though.

I wish my mother and dad had had more pictures taken of themselves. Dad didn't because he was always behind the camera, and mother didn't because she was waiting until she lost a lot of weight to have her picture taken. She actually cut pictures of herself out of family snapshots. I wish she had stopped wishing to be different and accepted herself as she was. Wasn't it enough to graduate from law school before she was old enough to practice law? To be an attorney whose clients loved her? To know every policeman in Columbus, OH? To be married to a handsome guy?

Nope, she was never good enough. Mother told me that her parents never praised her and her brothers. Never kissed or hugged them. Bubbe, particularly, was sparing with kind words. Sarcasm she had plenty of, though. Her tongue was a knife that cut two ways. Her children and grandchildren had to be perfect. Since they weren't perfect, she was never satisfied. The boys didn't seem to mind, but mother felt she could never measure up.

The weight thing came down through the generations and has driven all us granddaughters crazy. I am the fattest of the bunch. The rest are the type of skinny woman who eats seven grapes and four almonds for lunch. Only one of her grandsons had trouble with his weight, and that was my brother the genius. However, he could drown his sorrows in mathematics.