In the beginning

I was born on the hottest day of the year, according to the newspaper clipping my mother so carefully saved along with all other vital records of infancy, toddlerhood and headstart years. My father was not present. Perhaps my mother's meticulous record keeping, saving of birthday cards, pictures, crafts was to prove that at 16 years old, she could be a good mother. Perhaps losing her father to heart disease when she was 1 1/2 and losing her mother to the family business shortly thereafter left her with a need she had to meet on her own. In any case, she found my father, 7th out of nine children from a mormon family and with needs of his own as the one to compliment hers. She skipped her junior year and graduated high school the year after after I was born.