Miss You, Mom

Edna Karen Ruud Broome
December 31, 1931 - May 27, 2010

She loved Christmas. And her rickety wood yard swing that she held onto despite the years baking in the Arizona sun that had rendered it unfit for much more than firewood. She loved my father. And despite the fact that they were twice-divorced, I don't think she ever got over him. She cheated death at the age of two when she miraculously recovered from pneumonia. And again at twenty when she collapsed on a Denver street from acute appendicitis while walking to work. I remember her visiting my second grade class, wearing that orange sleeveless dress with the white piping at the neck. Your Mom is so pretty! was what I heard for days afterwards. More than almost anything she loved the fact that the entire world celebrated her birthday. She would have been eighty today.