My mother is a great woman. I don't mean that in a generic way either. I mean it in the sense that she has accomplished many things in her life. She has played a leading role in my life even though she hasn't always been around to council me. It's not that she hasn't been around because she didn't want to, but because she couldn't. My Parents divorced a long time ago, and my father was in the military, now retired, so we moved a lot. This made visiting hard. Somehow though, she was able to make a lasting impression. A lasting impression; that is much more than anyone else has ever accomplished.
             Ramona is a large woman; she hasn't always been that way, nor is it a bad thing at all. My mother has achieved so much. Among one of her great accomplishments, she was Mrs. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which seems to be a very materialistic accomplishment, but she wasn't competing for the beauty, but the chance to project her ideals to the world. That image of a beauty queen has long since been replaced by a muscular figure in a paramedic's jumpsuit, but her heart is still true. I have seen pictures of her during the time in her life when she was a frail young beauty, and she was a radiant woman still, just as she is now, always smiling, her eyes always carrying an aura of kindness.
             Later, she married. Shortly afterward, my sister came, and then I. My father was a lieutenant in the Air Force, and we moved from base to base, which meant that the four of us never had any friends for very long. I don't remember many of the details from those days, long since past, but I have heard many stories from both my parents and relatives. From the memories I have myself, only fragments of remain. The staircase in Nebraska when I was three, the big oak tree and the wharf in Florida, when I was four, the grape vine across the street in South Carolina when I was five, or the streets in Ariz...