L’amour est aveugle (Love is blind), by George Barbier

My mother grew up during the Great Depression.  Her family was not affected by the disaster.  In fact, they could help the less fortunate and did help.

I have fond memories of my mother.  She was raising four children and was therefore kept very busy.  Four children had survived and fourteen had died.  We were a Quebec family.

Every day she sat at her Art Deco dressing table and put cream on her face.  She also dressed very well.  Always.

I remember that she and Mariette, her Belgian friend, often got together to make lovely dresses for the three surviving girls.  We loved Mariette.  She and her husband were our best friends.

In fact, we were always together.  Mariette had been the wardrobe mistress for the Brussels Opera company.  Henri was a jeweller and a clockmaker.         

Mother and I spoke together a great deal.  She told me about the 30’s, the 40’s, as well as the 50’s.  She was a singer, a mezzo-soprano, the perfect Carmen, and had had her own radio program.  She would play records and make little comments.

She liked classical music, my father’s passion, but she was especially fond of a lighter kind of music.  Lighter, but beautiful.

So let me close the day by playing one of the songs she loved, a love song.  She so loved my father.

Mother, you have been dead for 9 years and I still miss you.  I even need you. Obviously, I’ll never make it to adulthood.

© Micheline Walker

14 July 2012

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