The First Hundred Years by Mary Langer Thompson (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER Series)

The First Hundred Years
by Mary Langer Thompson

Her name is June; she was born in June,
born on the first day of summer.
The first hundred years are the hardest,
laughs my mother at her 100th party.

Born on the first day of summer,
At forty, this Rosie the Riveter returned to college,
laughs my mother at her 100th party.
My brother ignored her on campus.

At forty, this Rosie the Riveter returned to college.
When she married my immigrant father, her mother objected.
My brother ignored her on campus.
She took her final exam the night her mother died.

When she married my immigrant father, her mother objected.
The first hundred years are the hardest.
She took her final exam the night her mother died.
Her name is June; she was born in June, the first day of summer.

PAINTING: The Beautiful Gardener—June by Eugène Grasset (1896).

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: My mother, June Langer, is 100 or 100 and a half in this photo.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: The two of us about five years ago. She is happy and healthy, and I am blessed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
A retired school principal and English teacher, Mary Langer Thompson received her doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of California, Los Angeles. She enjoys conducting writing workshops for schools, prisons, and in her community, where she won the 2019 Jack London Award from the California Writers Club, High Desert Branch. Her poems, short stories, and essays appear in various journals and anthologies. A contributor to two poetry writing texts, The Working Poet (Autumn Press, 2009) and Women and Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (McFarland, 2012), she was the 2012 Senior Poet Laureate of California.