Longing for my mother
My mother, Evelyn Jean Irvin Bagwell, was born in Arkansas in 1924 and died in MS in 1978. She lived a relatively short fifty-four painful years. She was the last of five children, and she was born at home, delivered by a country doctor who was, apparently, not very skilled with forceps. This left her with damage that affected her left ear and eye. And a fatal cerebral aneurysm that was silently growing throughout her life. My grandfather never forgave himself. Her three brothers were all sent to university, but she and her sister were expected to marry well. Her brothers and sisters did marry well, but my mother had a “lazy eye” from her forceps delivery, which probably impacted her suitors. It isn’t so much “what my mother told me” but the strength she showed me living through unspeakable adversity. It is one of life’s tragedies that so many of us don’t fully appreciate our mothers until too late. Since I was the eldest of five, Mama often called on me, “Sister Sue,” for help with so