"Who knows where the time goes..."

a beautiful song from the '60s, sung by Judy Colins.

This has been a weekend of wondering ... where does time go? My mother, the grande dame of our family, turned 80 yesterday and as one of my sisters said, "she will always be young to me" a sentiment with which I agree. Our mother was always the elegant lady in our neighborhood. Tall with long legs, beautiful blue eyes and blond hair our mother loved to garden and each evening after dinner we would take a garden tour to admire her handiwork. During the summer months our mother would lie out by the pool, tanning, reading and drinking iced coffee. She always had a beautiful tan which she would offset with her wardrobe of blues and whites. Mother is also an RN, a tradition in our family for many generations. She returned to her profession after all of her children were in school and worked for many years. I remember her dressing in her white uniform, pinning her cap on in the bathroom mirror before she left for work. I was always very proud of my mother's profession.

Now mother is retired and living with our father in the Arizona desert. She still gardens though in pots now instead of large plots of land. She has maintained both her elegance and beauty as she's grown older. The sun is now too strong to sit in so instead she and our father take day trips throughout Arizona seeking out late winter flowers, flocks of birds and native American ruins. So different from her early days on a dairy farm in Dutchess County, NY. And she tells me "I don't feel eighty. I remember turning 50 and thinking 80 was old." And I tell her that at almost 58, 80 doesn't seem old to me ... at all.

In our minds we will always be young and beautiful. It's a nice place to be.