I wish I'd asked more questions.

The pretty young woman standing in the middle in the photo below is my mother. She was sixteen then.

I love the expression on her face, so happy, so in love with life. I love her modest outfit and the relaxed but poised figure.

The photo was taken in Washington D.C. in 1941. I'm assuming the other two young women are friends of hers and the soldier is someone they posed with as they were seeing the sights. 

And I'm assuming that the young Dewena was  thrilled to be traveling there. A girl from a very small town in the South back then would be, don't you think? 

But I don't know for sure because I never asked her. 

My sisters and I lost our precious 95 year old mother recently. We're so glad that she is now in her heavenly home with her Lord and Savior, joining our father who went on before her. We wouldn't willingly keep her here, suffering on.

But we miss her so very much. 

I wish I had asked her so many more questions about all the old photographs I've been going through this past week. Asked and then written down more of the stories that she told me. 

I've written about my parents many times here and this week I went back and added a "Parents" label, separate from the larger "Family" label. 

She and my father were extraordinary people, part of that Greatest Generation that we're losing so many of every day. 

So many stories lost, not nearly enough of them written down, not nearly enough questions asked.

Write down as many as you can, dear friends and family.

Thank you so much to those of you who have already contacted me upon hearing the news of my mother's passing, some of you who have already left comments on my last post. And thank you to those of you who read this and leave them below. 

I wish you all could have known her.