My mother would have turned 75 this week. Here she is on the beach in Panama with my grandmother, who we called Omi, when the family was stationed there.
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I thought it was so exotic that her school on the Navy base had a pool, where she learned how to swim. I remember watching her elegant backstroke when we went to the beach.
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She loved Panama. She used to reminisce about seeing sloths in the trees, and chipping her tooth on a piece of sugarcane.
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This picture captures Omi and Mommy perfectly — the dreamy, romantic daughter with the sometimes stern but fun-loving glamour girl who left post-war Germany on the arm of an American sailor with my mother in tow.
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~shared by @spicycheezdoodle