Mum

Every year, this day is one that causes lots of statuses to show up on my family’s Facebook pages with photos and sentiments of a woman who influenced all of us (and there are a LOT of us), and is loved and missed by us all: our grandmother. Today, she would have been 99 years-old!  She was affectionately called “Mum” by most of all of us, regardless of which generation we were born into. She is the only one of my four grandparents who was born in the United States, specifically Madison, Maine.

Mum had auburn hair and dark brown eyes, the latter of which many of us inherited. She was always looking for red hair and, especially, blue eyes in all her descendants, because her father had auburn hair and dark blue eyes. Sure enough, blue eyes showed up in her great-grandchildren, one being our daughter, and whenever she saw those baby blues, Mum would smilingly remind me about her father’s blue eyes. It brought her a special joy to see the blue-eyed little ones that were born, I believe; a glimpse and fond memories of her father. The red hair also showed up, more frequently than the blue eyes, in both my generation and our children’s generation. In fact, our son has red hair and my brother has two red-headed girls.

Most all of my happiest childhood memories involve Mum, my grandfather, and The Farm. You could tell how much he loved her. She was truly the wise matriarch, with a gentle countenance who had a way of making each of her grandchildren feel special. Her legacy lives on and, if you were to see all of us together, you’d surely see her in our eyes.