Nineteen

 

Lila at nineteen

That's a photo of my mom at the age of nineteen, probably taken by my father who was not yet eighteen years old. When that photo was taken Mom and Dad had known each other for two years. I look at that picture and wonder, what did Mom see in her future? I know that Al Putz was part of that vision. It's written on the back of one of the first photos she had of him. It says something like, "I want him." She got him. They were married exactly two years after this photo was taken.

Did Mom know that she would be taken out of her city neighborhood and dropped into a tiny rural town, twenty miles southwest of Back of the Yards? It doesn't seem so far today, but back then there were no interstates. Also, the city ended around eighty seventh street. From there on it was corn fields and farms. I remember being nineteen, with a long and unknown future in front of me. At that age you have no idea. I'm sure my mom did not think she would be mother to eleven. Was she expecting to live another eighty years when that photo was taken? She probably didn't even think about such a thing. Yet Mom did live almost to one hundred years. Fifty seven of them with my dad, who passed in March of 2000.

I sure hope Mom was happy with how it all turned out. I think she was happy. Seriously, how could she not be happy? She had me for a son.