Barbara Lewis Duke, pretty, petite, blue-eyed and blond, my mother, one
fearless, controlling woman. Long after Mom’s death, Dad said, “Barbara was
afraid of absolutely no one and nothing!” They married late: 34 & 38. He
adored her unconditionally. She filled my life with horses, music, love,
cornfields, hay rides, books, and ambition. Whatever she felt she had missed,
my sister and I were going to possess: books, piano lessons, a college
education. Her father, who died long before I was born, loved, fancy,
fast horses. So did she. During my preschool, croupy years she quieted my
hysterical night coughing with stories of run away horses pulling her in a
wagon. With less than one hundred pounds and lots of determination, she
stopped them, a tiny Barbie Doll flying across the Missouri River Bottom,
strong, willful, and free.
writingontherim 