It is hard for me to think of my mother as someone born a hundred years ago. In my mind, she will always be a beautiful young woman.
She was born Marlyn Harris in San Francisco on October 16, 1926. She married my father when she was still seventeen and was just over eighteen when I was born.
I wrote extensively about my mother in my book, Il volo di un’anatra selvaggia, but there is always more to say. I think of her constantly. She was a complicated woman who suffered a great deal, yet she was always there for me. Her love and commitment gave me the foundation on which I built my life. Whatever success I have had owes much to her.
It has been thirty-four years since she took her own life. I am now fifteen years older than she was when she died. That is difficult to comprehend, too.
It saddens me that she never got to see my children become adults or meet my grandchildren, as my father did. I wish she could have known them, and they could have known her. I wish she could have know my wife Deborah. They would have enjoyed each other.
Today, a hundred years after her birth, I am thinking of the young woman she was, the pain she carried, and the love she gave me. That love is still part of my life.
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