My mother always used a silver spoon.  It was the only silver spoon we had, and it was Mother’s – no one else ever used it.   I used to think it was a quirk, because my mother had many of those.   Now, I’m not so sure.   Mother was a lady, in spite of being from a poor family, a family with 14 children is almost by definition a poor family.   Her father was a carpenter, her mom had babies.

And yet she married a man from a fairly wealthy family.  She managed to create a lifestyle that was very much middle class – never rich but never worried about paying the bills.   She lived through the Depression and the war, and came out on the other side, stronger for the experiences.

And so the spoon.  I think now that the spoon was a symbol to her.  She wasn’t born with a silver spoon, but she damned sure lived like she had been.

I fought for that spoon when she died.  We fought over many things, some trivial, some more important.  My sisters couldn’t understand why I wanted that spoon so badly.  I really didn’t understand myself.

I’m very much like my mother.  I am, in spite of myself and my tendency to curse like a sailor, a lady.  And I have the silver spoon to prove it.