Hadrian Swab Lawmaker

Geneva Olena Mitchell

Today, Easter, would have been my mother's 94th birthday, if she was still on this planet.  This was her high school graduation picture-  two years later she eloped with my dad at the age of 20.  I simply can't imagine making a decision like getting married at 20, but they had dated since they were 15 or 16 and thought they were grownups.  After the wedding my mother went back to her boarding house at Colorado State, and my dad went back to his fraternity.  Beyond that piece of information, they would never talk about it.  I wasn't born until about six years later so I know that wasn't part of the story.

As you may have noticed, I don't have many private stories (!) due to my parents never wanting to talk about their childhoods or families.  I let it all out, sometimes not a good idea!  I owe a great deal to my mom for always encouraging me to work, move away, find myself, travel or whatever I wanted to do after college.  Never once was the sentence uttered 'when you get married...' like so many of my friends got throughout their teenage years.  There were no expectations to get engaged or settle anywhere, and exactly one week after I graduated I was on a Greyhound (more probably Trailways) bus to Boston with my one suitcase stuffed underneath and my train case in my lap.  Fortunately I had several friends living there and one of them was back home for the summer with a knee operation so I got her bed for the rest of the lease.

Several years into my stay in Boston, my brother was killed in Vietnam.  I flew home immediately and assumed I should move back to be near them through their loss.  She would not hear of it no matter how I pleaded the case.  She sent me back to Boston after that horrific week in spite of her conflicted need to have family around.  Thanks, Mom.  That was the biggest gift you could have given me-  a chance to explore myself for a few years.  I hope I've been able to pass it on.