Nel Gerdes

This is my mother Nel Gerdes in 1976. She is holding my nephew Brian McConnell who was about four days old at the time. My mom was an interesting person. She was a war bride from Brisbane, Australia. She married my dad, and packed up all she owned and moved to the other side of the world to a farm in Oklahoma to make a new life. She was smart and funny. I didn't appreciate that when I was younger, we had the prickly mother/daughter relationship one has with a mother than you are very much like. However, after I became an adult, I grew to appreciate what a great mom she was. Ray and I could go to her for advise and she would give us intelligent and considered options. I have tried to model my relationship with my daughter and her husband on what my mom did.

My mom would have been ninety years old today. Unfortunately, she died of a rare form of brain cancer twenty one years ago. It seems like forever, and no time at all. I miss her, there have been so many times I would have liked to ask her what to do. She has done something right, I take the time and think what she would have said and go from there.

Happy Birthday Mom!