I got a letter in the mail from my father (stepfather, technically) a few days ago. It included some updates and a few proud papa comments. He sent me a picture of my mom from the later 70's. Someone with a camera had surprised her in the hallway at work. She's wearing her white uniform, with her little white cap on top of a bun on her head and stethoscope slung around her neck. She's looking over her shoulder and smiling.

She's beautiful, my mom. And stronger than anyone I've ever met.

I remember her getting up so early in the morning to be there for the 7-3 shift at the hospital. I remember her brushing her impossibly long hair and twisting it up to rest under that cap. I remember playing with that stethoscope, placing the earpieces in my ears and talking into the pad at the end of the cord, amazed at the sound of my own voice so loud. I used to think it was the coolest thing in the world to go see her at the hospital. We'd eat lunch in the cafeteria, and the best part of that was the hole in the wall where you'd place your tray when you were done eating. A little conveyor best in there would take the tray away. And then she'd buy me a lollipop or a pack of Juicy-Fruit at the gift shop and let me look at the flowers in the glass case.

In this picture, she's 29 or 30-- about the age I am now. She'd be freshly separated from my dad. She'd be going to college and working full time. And she'd have a 3 year old girl to look after at home.

To be left by the person who promised to love you and take care of you forever. To work a job where you're dealing with all the different kinds of goo that can come out of the human body. Then to come home and make dinner and clean and pay bills and somehow find time to push a little person on the swingset or read her a story or comfort her when the hamster got lost. Then cap off the day by having to study Hamlet or molecular biology or Spanish.

And to still be able to smile when someone catches you off guard.

That's quite something, I think.