There are 85.4 million mothers in America.
On Mother’s Day this year my mother isn’t one of them, and for the first time since Babe died in 2014, I’m glad.
Read Morefrom left, Grandmother Josie, author Jo, mother, Babe
Young couple swing dancing in the 1940s
Never Sit if You Can Dance
Neither of my parents pursued any activity that today would qualify as “exercise.” Theirs was many generations before Jane Fonda’s “feel the burn!” workout videos, before isometrics and aerobics, before latex and Under Armour, before they even knew that regular exercise was good for them. My parents didn’t even know how to swim, except in a pinch Dad could dog-paddle.
But, boy, could they dance.
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Songzanlin Monastery, Zhongdian, Yunnan province
“Go! While You Can.”
At 95, Babe still had a valid U.S. passport.
But by then the most my mother, who was known as Babe, could manage was a domestic flight from Houston to Los Angeles to visit me, and even that was a stretch. So I dreaded dropping the news that Ed, my husband, and I were leaving for China. It didn’t seem fair that I could still up and go, and she couldn’t.
Read MoreLessons From Babe
One day Babe and I were discussing why some people we knew were so unhappy and cranky. I asked her, “Why do you think I turned out so happy?”
“Because you take after me,” she said.
That’s when the idea of Lessons from Babe was born.
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