A Life of Words

It was Betty. Beautiful Betty.

“You’ve seen this photo of Mother, right?” my sister Terry asked as she went through a small stack of prints while I sat with her this week at her home in Arvada, Colorado.

It took no more than a second to know that I hadn’t.

It was a photo of my birth mother – our shared mother – and I was instantly thrilled and gratified to see an image of Betty that was unfamiliar to me. Eighteen years ago when I found my three older full siblings and the rest of my biological family, and in the first few years after, they gave me a number of pictures of both Betty and her first husband, my birth father Bob. But even now, I’m lucky that every so often, a treasure of Betty like this comes my way.

And it makes my heart endlessly happy. We never met, so any opportunity to see her is golden.

Betty’s elegance is obvious in this photo. But it also affirms some of the physical features we share, including the premature graying that’s a family trait and that Betty went to such lengths to cover starting in her 40s (she was 45 at this moment in time). It also shows her grace and style – and who could look at that face and not see the kindness, warmth and compassion it conveyed?

After Terry came across the photo, I held it in my hands, studied it – and of course, as is my nature, asked questions. And as demonstrates Terry’s amazing ability to pull up memories going back to when she was 3 years old, she could remember all the details about it.

It was December 1966 in Huntington, West Virginia, where my siblings and I were all born and they were raised (I was adopted and grew up in the Houston area). Betty, who had been a single mother since divorcing Bob in 1959 – before what we assume to have been a failed attempt at reconciliation resulted in my fateful conception over a year later – was working as a clerk at Lawrence Drug downtown.

Betty and Terry were living in an upstairs apartment on Third Avenue, and our brother Crys, who was 22, moved in with them after returning that September from a four-year Air Force stint in Colorado and enrolling at Marshall University. As he was getting home, our brother Robin was leaving for the Air Force, to be stationed at Eglin AFB in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

That December 19^th was Terry’s 12^th birthday, and one of her presents was a Polaroid camera. Terry says it was given to her by Crys’s girlfriend Pam, who came from Colorado to visit for the holidays. Terry thinks this photo of our mother may well have been the first she snapped with her new camera.

As I looked at details in the image, Terry filled them in. In front of Betty is a box of candies, a gift from a customer at the drugstore (it was tradition for Betty to receive candies for Christmas, Terry says). Next to the candies is a pack of Winston cigarettes, Betty’s brand. Tragically, it was lung cancer that took Betty’s life on December 20, 1992, when she was only 71 – even after she had stopped smoking several years earlier.

Behind Betty on the chairs are boxes of Christmas ornaments waiting to be hung on the tree. At far right on the table next to the lamp is a photo I first saw years ago – from Robin’s senior year in 1964-65 at Huntington East High.

As for the furniture, it was all given to Betty by the wife of one of her bosses at Lawrence Drug. My siblings have always been open with me about the family’s various struggles, including financial. They never owned a home, always renting. When Betty and Bob were married, his love of alcohol made it difficult for him to stay employed – and, ultimately, impossible for them to stay together.

Betty also had to work in various jobs, including at night at the Owens-Illinois Glass Co. in Huntington, and in the late 1950s as a clerk at two department stores. When she became a single mother with no car who had never learned to drive and made a drugstore clerk’s wages, she couldn’t refuse any help offered to her and the children.

I spent four days this week visiting Terry, Crys and their families in the Denver area, and it would be an understatement to say it was special. After not having known them the first 44 years of my life, all the time we share is memorable and important. And getting to see Betty during my trip and learn the wonderful story behind this sweet memory made it even more meaningful. ❤