My mother’s birthday is today. She is 95 years old and of course there was a family celebration. A open house/birthday party over at the clubhouse at my aunt and uncle’s new condo. There was the mandatory cake and ice cream with lemon lime sherbet drink. We also had potato chips, veggie trays and a pretty nice group for the day before New Years. Auni continues her marathon sleepover-she extended the night one more night so she could be part of the celebration. Auni is an only child so her contact with other kids , when not in school is pretty limited. Any time there is the promise of cousins (kids) we try to include Auni. Her uncle Paul also made the trip down from Boise. Anytime Paul makes the scene the event turns out to be somewhat magical. Following the birthday party we rook Paul out for dinner, just Aunie, Dianne and me. Dinner seemed only fair since he traveled the furthest. Besides it was good having some private time with him.

My mother’s sister has a huge family and I would venture that most of them live in the Salt Lake area. My mother has always been a key figure in their lives. Many of these cousins were in attendance. There family had grown and become as colorful as mine. They did not arrive all at one time either but drifted in throughout the two hour time of this event. The constant coming and goings of people made the event seem even larger then it probably was.

95 years seems a major milestone to me. My mother was last of that Mormon pioneer stock who came to America . Actually Mom is second generation Her grand parents came over from England and came west with the sainted pioneers: An amazing story of agony, strife and death. As a child mom seemed to move back and forth between Utah and Canada a number of times. She drove jeeps during World War Two married my dad and raised us kids. I am sure I was probably one of the biggest challenges for mom as far as the kids went. Having a kid with a broken neck right in the middle of the ten kids , I am sure was more then daunting. Shoot, even if I had not been in the accident I would have worn my poor mother out. But mom even survived me. Heck she may even out live me. It’s hard to tell sometimes.

It’s kind of sad though at 95 every birthday is cherished and I hold my breath a little knowing as every life flows; even in the best of lives caught in times longest streams the stream runs only do far before it seeps back into the sand. Even the cous9ns I grew up with are much fewer them we used to be. My cousin Jimmy was there looking so much like his father it was frightening or my brother Carl or my cousin Jess all looking older—not ancient yet. Our family still has a few ancients in our stand of trees. But we the mature of forest are getting to the Ancient stand quickly.