The women in our lives:  Lord have mercy, what an impact they can make, for good or ill.  I remember three in particular. 

Mrs. Reid was intelligent, profound, a newspaper reporter and poet.  She was Mom's friend, her senior by many years, and one of the few people Mom truly respected.  Now, she extended that friendship to me as a young girl, because she knew I loved to write.  I wrote letters to her off-and-on over the years, and her replies became touchstones of my life with their wisdom and humor. 

In the course of time, they both passed away, she first, then Mom.  After Mom's death, I was sorting through some letters in the old house, and came upon one written by Mrs. Reid.  In it, she tried to convince Mom that I hadn't wasted my education by marrying my first husband straight out of college.  I remember her saying that education could only result in "making one a better person."  While I wanted to hug her in spirit for her wise words, I felt like sinking into the cold linoleum floor and staying there.  My mom thought I was a failure.  She had put those thoughts on paper to her friend.  She was gone, and it was too late to know if she still felt that way.

Roberta Long was a woman I didn't get to spend much time with growing up, but her influence stuck with me.  She was a farmer's wife, and I stayed with her a few times while my family worked on her farm.  She was the first woman to make me see that it was ok to speak lovingly and kindly to your husband, that you could even be understanding with him, forgiving his faults and weaknesses.  This was so unlike anything I had ever heard at home.  Mom's anger and hostility toward Dad had prejudiced me against men and ever being a wife, even as a pre-teen girl.  While it took me years to unlearn these destructive attitudes, they began to erode just a little bit there in Roberta's kitchen.

Mom:  you might say this post was really about her.  I was such a "momma's girl".  I guess it was natural that I would pick up some of her attitudes, but I'm thankful for  other women who showed me there were other ways of being than hers.  I did and do love her, I just realize now that she was badly broken in some fundamental ways.  Some I guess I will never understand, others I think I do.  I was an adult woman before I fully separated my personality from hers.  As I did, I was delighted to realize I was more like my Dad than I ever dreamed.