For my sister
[I am posting this picture of my mother because my sister, Maryann, does not get to see it anymore as she gave it to me when our mother died.]
Neva Joubert Conlon Gage, March 13th 1918 - December 31st 1998.
Maryann, let's think about all the good memories of Mom today, her birthday, when she would have been 89. She wasn't a perfect mother but she sure tried. Maybe you were too young to remember when Daddy first got sick and we were so poor that Mom used to give us food at night and tell us that she was going to eat later but she didn't because there was no food left for her.
You were old enough to see that she gave up and became deathly ill also when Dad finally died after his long illness. But she forced herself to go to work to feed us. She was a passionate woman and she had a terrible temper and she could be very hard on us but that's because she wanted us to be as tough as she was. She wanted us to survive and thrive and she succeeded in doing that.
And she was tough. She told me a year before her death that she was going to die when she was 80. I asked her why. She answered that she had had a good life and didn't want to be a burden on us when she became too frail to take care of herself. She didn't mention that she had congestive heart failure - well, she never drew attention to any of her health problems ever - but I knew that she had CHF because I recognized the symptoms. She told me not to tell you and I know it came as a surprise when she suddenly died in your arms on New Year's Eve, the same day that our father had died 32 years before.
Most of the years that she was married to our father were hard for her and I'm just glad that she had 30 good years with our stepfather, Tom Gage, before she died. I don't think that she ever imagined when she was growing up on the farm in the Orange Free State where she had been born that one day she would be rich and travel the world and see and do things that most people could only imagine.
And here's the pic of you with her on her 80th birthday.
Neva Joubert Conlon Gage, March 13th 1918 - December 31st 1998.
Maryann, let's think about all the good memories of Mom today, her birthday, when she would have been 89. She wasn't a perfect mother but she sure tried. Maybe you were too young to remember when Daddy first got sick and we were so poor that Mom used to give us food at night and tell us that she was going to eat later but she didn't because there was no food left for her.
You were old enough to see that she gave up and became deathly ill also when Dad finally died after his long illness. But she forced herself to go to work to feed us. She was a passionate woman and she had a terrible temper and she could be very hard on us but that's because she wanted us to be as tough as she was. She wanted us to survive and thrive and she succeeded in doing that.
And she was tough. She told me a year before her death that she was going to die when she was 80. I asked her why. She answered that she had had a good life and didn't want to be a burden on us when she became too frail to take care of herself. She didn't mention that she had congestive heart failure - well, she never drew attention to any of her health problems ever - but I knew that she had CHF because I recognized the symptoms. She told me not to tell you and I know it came as a surprise when she suddenly died in your arms on New Year's Eve, the same day that our father had died 32 years before.
Most of the years that she was married to our father were hard for her and I'm just glad that she had 30 good years with our stepfather, Tom Gage, before she died. I don't think that she ever imagined when she was growing up on the farm in the Orange Free State where she had been born that one day she would be rich and travel the world and see and do things that most people could only imagine.
And here's the pic of you with her on her 80th birthday.
posted by Joubert at 8:09 AM
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