My mom loves you guys. It dawns on me how different we each know her, the special parts of herself that she shared with each of us; how delicate our memories all intertwine. My mom’s life with us all is like a rubicks cube. Complicated, varied, yet all a part of the same puzzle.

She took on the world with gusto, everyday a challenge to be met head on.  She used to barrel race back when she was young. Rode the fastest horse she could find (Cha-Cha, Charger and Cricket) and loved every minute of it. She would water ski in the bayou’s of south Texas dodging alligators, snakes and cypress stumps with her daddy at the helm of the boat. She rode bulls too, back before they allowed girls to do so, just to show the guys she could. She drove fast cars, rode fast horses and eventually got the fastest boats. In spirit she was 10 feet tall and bullet proof.

In her middle life she was an artist. She painted some fantastic ocean scenes. I own all the originals. Her most breathtaking one is hanging in my bedroom, it’s colors an assortment of blues, teals, browns, and oranges. I think it was her best ever, and I’m proud to have it. Perhaps they were never oceans scenes at all, but instead the future skies over Lake Fork. Whatever the case, she was talented and should have kept it up.

She started fishing later in life, about the age I am now. She read every book, magazine, paper, article, talked to every guide, fished every cove, and learned everything she could. She appeared on the fishing scene at Fork during it’s heyday and ran a good shop.  She insisted on teaching other women the joy of the outdoors, and yet there’s still so few of us old gals running boats at 80 mph across the top of the water like she did. That life was hard on an old red-headed whitey but she loved every second out on the water, even on those frigid cold days when most intelligent souls were huddled around a heated recliner.

She retired from that life to find a different kind of race. A race towards her Master. The ride was a lot shorter than we thought but it was no different than the others. Full steam ahead, full of gusto. She loved her God and always has. The one constant in her life, the only one to never leave her. She met her Sonshine sisters at work, and she loves each of them with the same fierce passion she does us kids, and each of the friends she’s met along the way. She loves loyally. She loves deeply. She loves us all.