Happy Birthday, Mom!

Glamour Mom, 1947.

This is my favorite picture of my mother, a few weeks before her wedding, all carefree and glowing and totally in love with the man she would spend her life with. I'm pretty sure she's admiring her engagement ring.

When I look at this picture, I can see all of her children in this buoyant young woman:  her raven hair went to her oldest daughter, those mile-long legs to the next, her nose and eyes to her son. I would have loved her skinny genes, but those went almost exclusively to her third girl, who's never weighed more than 105 pounds in her life. And me? I mostly look like my Dad, but I think I lucked out and got her spirit, that nothin's-gonna-stop-me attitude that's kept her going strong for almost 90 years. I'm hoping it'll keep me going just as long.