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seventies, my husband asked, “Mama, why are you always so tired?”
    She said, “Son, when you climb up to this age you are going to be tired, too.” Her journey through life was certainly an uphill climb, and even her valleys were bumpy, not smooth, flower-filled, softly paved paths.
    It has been three years since Miss Gladys passed. Still, on Sunday afternoons my husband takes a seat in his favorite chair by the sun-filled bay window and talks on the phone for hours to his sisters. The stories and the laughter start swirling in the room as they reminisce about Mama. I lie on the couch nearby playing possum and listen quietly as I get to know and love him and Miss Gladys a little more with each telling.
    Bari-Ellen Ross

The Ring
    Itwas January, and the birthday cards were already starting to arrive.When my mother got the first one, I turned to my sister and said, “It must be from Aunt Kat. You knew she was going to be the first to get her teasing in.”
    My mother’s birthday wasn’t until October. As she read the birthday card a full grin broke out on her face. Aunt Kat was well known for sending humorous and sometimes obscene birthday cards. This was the year of my mother’s fiftieth birthday, which meant the year of the ring!
    My grandparents had eleven children. There was Mary, Kat, Alice, Regina, Elaine (my mother), the twins Joyce and Janice, William Jr., Randy, Pamela, and last but not least, Terri. Yes, I would say my grandparents’ quiver was full! Amazingly, over the years they all managed to stay close. They survived trials, fights, different opinions, religions and hundreds of miles between them. Their bond couldn’t be broken. When Mary, the oldest, turned fifty, it was a major marker in all of their lives. For her it was like achieving another level in life, a kind of crossing over into ever after. For her younger sibs, it was a milestone of achievement and a cause for celebration. They all got together and bought her a diamond pendant.
    Next it was Aunt Kat’s turn, and despite the fact that she still claims to be twenty-five (and at first glance you might be inclined to believe her) she accepted her fiftieth birthday with grace and grandeur. The night of her party she was guided in on the arm of her husband, Uncle Joe-Willie. To this day I still say she floated into the room. The evening was perfect, just as long as no one mentioned her age. She was the first to get a ring. A few years later they decided to make the ring a part of the celebration. Aunt Mary traded her necklace in, and it was official. On their fiftieth birthday, each would receive a ring. This year was my mother’s turn.
    My mother is the mother of four, two boys and two girls. She’s always been a single parent, so she worked very hard. I remember there was a time when she worked three jobs. She was a head nurse on the children’s ward in one hospital, on call for the emergency room at another, and she did home visits three to four times a week. My mother worked hard all of her life, all just to make sure we had the same chances everyone else had—even when she herself did not always have the best. So after her forty-ninth birthday, my eldest brother had a meeting with us and said that no matter what her next would be a birthday she wouldn’t forget. Unlike the sisters before her, she didn’t have a husband to throw her a fiftieth birthday bash—we were all she had. So we began planning, sneaking, saving and pooling our resources; her ring year would be her best.
    All that year cards came reminding her how old she would be. She would just laugh and light up. Just the thought of getting her ring and joining this “elite” club would tickle her so.
    As her birthday neared, there was a light in her eyes and spring in her step, and she always looked like someone had told a joke that no one got but her. Everything was set, even the decoy. Her birthday fell on a