good­bye, Mamoo

-- February 6th, 2012 --
little mamoo laughing

The world is a dimin­ished place now, as my beloved grand­mother, Bet­tye Planque Wedek­ing Hor­rall, died last week, aged 98 years and 51 weeks.  She was our “Mamoo,” the matri­arch of our very close fam­ily, the moral com­pass of all our dis­parate gen­er­a­tions.  She was also just plain tremen­dous fun, always laugh­ing from the begin­ning of her long life to the end.

She was my mother’s mother, and as I get older, I see more resem­blance among the four gen­er­a­tions of our family’s lit­tle girls.  There is some­thing in the twin­kle of our eyes, I think.  Here is my mother, aged six.

Although my father’s Scan­di­na­vian genes turned both me and my daugh­ter blonde, we share that twin­kle, I think.  Here is lit­tle me, in the ubiq­ui­tous playpen of the 1960s.

Of course I believe Avery to be the best dis­til­la­tion of all our family’s won­der­ful qual­i­ties.  How proud Mamoo was of her, her first great-grandchild, daugh­ter of her first granddaughter.