(Cross-posted on Kos)
I. Giraffes never hang their heads
“My favorite animal is a giraffe–it walks around with its head held high, proudly rising above the rest, never hanging its head in sadness or shame, always showing the world its smile.”
That’s what my mother told a camper at the summer camp in the Adirondacks she ran with my Dad in the 1960s and 1970s. And that’s the way my Mom lived her life every single day until the day she died at 94, on January 27 of last year. This diary is in honor of her first Yahrzeit.*
She was a 1915 baby, a Depression teen; a 1940 bride; a dance teacher; a camp counselor and owner; a mother to a war baby and a boomer; a jewelry maker; a proudly Jewish Ethical Culturist; and dozens of other varied and fascinating pursuits. She brought light and inspiration to everyone she met, most of all to my Dad, to whom she was married for 67 years until he died at 91 in 2007.
Below:
Part II: Je t’aime, je t’adore, que veux-tu encore.
Part III: Would you want to be a King . . .?