growing up in rural southeast texas in the 1950s

Upon the suggestion of an astrologer I met for the first time this last week as a birthday gift from my friend Meghan, I began to re-read my memoirs beginning with the first one published in 2007. Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing was described by author and poet Ed Madden as a story of what life was for a little butch tomboy growing up behind the Pine Curtain of East Texas in the mid-twentieth century. I still like this little girl I wrote about in 2007, and I adore my maternal grandmother Dude as well as my paternal grandmother Ma today as I did then. Fifteen years later I feel more loving toward my mother the fudge maker – perhaps the result of sharing the last four years of her life as she struggled with dementia from 2008 – 2012. The difficulties in the relationships between mothers and daughters are universal, although they may hopefully be set aside at least once a year on Mother’s Day.