Happy 95th Birthday, Winnie
Not Sure Why I Miss You, But I Do
September 5, 1929, the day she entered the world. Ninety-five years ago to the day. My mother. The woman who grudgingly adopted me when she was in her 40s and I was a 3-week-old motherless babe.
She’d dead now. She died on Christmas Day, 2020. I swear she waited, just to make sure Donald Trump was out of office for real before she decided to check out.
Her birthday brings up so many mixed feelings for me. First, it feels like school. Her birthday often coincided with Labour Day, and the day following it, the first day of school.
That half-day was always filled with fun. Seeing my friends, finding out who my teachers were and later, going to the exhibition. When I think of her, I can smell cotton candy and pencils.
She kept me fed and clothed as a kid. She taught me to read when I was 3. I was poking her newspaper and bugging her. I wanted to know what she was looking at. So she showed me. And then we read the paper together.
When I was in elementary and junior high, she had hot lunch waiting for me every day. A can of soup (Campbells, if you please, we weren’t peasants) or creamed corn (my favourite), crackers and juice or milk. And yes, even at 5, I could eat an entire can. It’s not like there’s that much in…
