Our Lady of Charity might have been my mother.

I was adopted and today is 48th anniversary of the day that my mother (who was killed in a car crash before I could meet her) gave birth to me... She spent many months hidden safely away from society's scorn, in a home for unwed mothers (nicknamed Watermelon Hill) making rosaries, awaiting my arrival and the day she would surrender me.

Her very Catholic parents decided for her, that at 19 she was not fit to be a parent. I am not sure how she felt, except that I am pretty sure in the 50's, she didn't have the voice to decide otherwise.

I am going to play the Joni Mitchell album Magdalena Laundries today and think of her. Then I am going to eat cake and celebrate how many more choices we have as women today.