My very own personal Mathematical Constant - 1

A Mathematical Constant, according to Wikipedia is "a special number, usually a real number, that is "significantly interesting in some way". Constants arise in many different areas".

I suppose that if there is something that reminds me on a daily basis just how lucky I am, it would be what I am referring to as my mathematical constant... My mother.

If there is something that has be a constant in my life it is my mother, an d if there is o be a true definition of her role in my life it is certainly that she is special, real and significantly interesting... and if you consider how I was raised she certainly arose in many different areas.  I can recall from a very young age just how beautiful I thought she was, what with her wavy dark hair, her tall frame and her brown eyes and then how I continued in that awe of her beauty as she moved from youthful beauty to one that included learned wisdom.

But how does one write appropriately about the gift of their own mother?

She has been a constant in my life. I have never really ever thought that she was not at my side... and that double negative comes from Spanish, it is good... deal with it, it is a part of one of her gifts and I lay that at her feet in a disgraceful misuse of English... in this case, I will let it stand as an homage to her facilitating my learning of languages.

I have such vivid memories of her through-out my life.. how I was convinced she was a model as I saw her go out one evening wearing a black velvet dress that was embroidered with gold... she was so stunning.

I remember once her taking me to go buy my uniform for the German school I attended. I was taller than your average child so perhaps there was something special about this. I remember going to this store that must have been a fabric store, which leads me to believe she was buying the correct fabric that my school required.. a houndstooth skirt or pant, a white button down shirt and a green sweater. So, I remember her going through this fabric and finding a bunch of hounds tooth and her buying u a bunch. Now, I don't know if this following event is related but I do recall coming from school one day and being handed new uniform items. Now the skirts usually looked like this:

  But I was handed something like this:

And this:

I recall being taken aback by how much these items did not look like the ones the other students wore and being terribly worried and so she sat me down with the student manual where it described the dress code and seeing that indeed, there was no specification. as to how long or short a skirt was to be, or even that girls could or could not wear pants.

And so, in that act my mother taught me all about rebellious conformity. I would have been in fourth grade, so about I would have been about ten years old.  I wish that I had been able to keep that spirit of fashion sense though.  She was such a wonderful dresser and taught me about fabrics and what excellent sewing looked like... I can spot a non-couture pleat a mile a way based on her teachings.