G-L-O-R-I-A

Always a fashionable gal, this is my mom Gloria at 37 in 1964. The red lipstick, the red checkered shirt, the perfectly-coiffed hair, in our first home high atop Beverly Hills, clutching the ever-present cigarette. I didn't see it lodged there between her pretty manicured fingers till I photo'd this photo. She started smoking in her teens, just like all her friends, just like all the glamorous movie stars. After endless attempts, self-hypnosis, therapy, you name it, she finally quit for good at 52. It was the hardest thing she ever did, and we were so proud of her. Yet 20 years later, it caught up with her, anyway. Every year on this day, my dear sweet brother John tabulates the age she would've been had she lived. Today he's imagining her at 92. I prefer to keep her frozen in time, in a happy, healthy place, sipping a Bloody Mary and laughing hysterically at one of my dad's jokes.