Doris

Envious eyes followed her,

taking in her hair, with the sheen of

a raven's wing.

Admiring eyes followed her,

taking in the hour glass figure.

Young girls looked at her,

drinking in the glamour,

thinking all the while

that's how I will be when I grow up.

It is so hard for me now to look back and see the mother that Doris was.  To me she was just Mum.  An icon, a special lady, a woman out of her time; a troubled soul.  A saint... No.  Saintly... Yes.  She was the last child of a family with three sons, a much wanted daughter.  By the time she was conceived the genes were running on empty.  The runt of the litter, physically beautiful, physiologically flawed.  As a young girl, she nearly died from Scarlet Fever.  She had a hollow in her back where they drained her lungs of the pleurisy that threatened to drown her.  Never well; beauty shone through the ravages of a body not blessed with strength.