Yesterday was my mama's birthday. She was born on February 11, 1904, in El Paso, Texas. She was born in that exotic locale because her older brother had terrible bronchitis and the whole family had been removed from Central Texas out to where the air was pure and fresh, 'el aire mas transparente,' until he recuperated. (He did.)
My mother was born with the gift (or curse) of great beauty. I have never known another person more beautiful than she, nor known the impact of universal admiration more fully upon an unsuspecting girl. Most of us, when we are young, have enough of beauty to have to learn to temper our own reactions in the face of admiration,
covetousness, jealousy, hatred. But those who have so much--it's often forgotten that they are human and have in themselves the yearnings and desires of ordinary mortals. Their expectations, unmet, must have a bigger impact on the holders of them, no?
Yesterday among us sisters, the reflections dwelt mostly on her wonderful gifts of taste, culinary art, organization, spirit, humor, and courage. Nobody mentioned the form, the skin, the hair, the eyes, the smile---because we simply saw her as "Mama." But she was beautiful in all those parts and remained so until her extreme old age. Unbelieveable.
Her beauty did not bring her happiness. Her happiness, as it was, came from the qualities I mentioned above. She was admirable. She had coped with life using all the qualities at her behest, and she did a marvelous job down there in the heat and dust of South Texas, creating civilization with her fellow women, and passing it down to all of us as best she could. But, my, she was beautiful. YAZZYBEL
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