never complained

My mother died last week, at 97. She lived through tough times and I don't know if she ever had a happy period.  Her family did not let her study medicine, so she studied philosophy. Started as a teacher and later became a psychologist. She had an extraordinary capacity to listen, but was probably too compassionate for a psychologist. She wrote several books. About twenty of her research papers on youth development were published in specialty journals.  In her seventies, she worked as a cashier. In her late eighties she started to collect cooking recipes  for cookies and  tortes. Each one had a date and the name of the provider. The last entry was her own marvelous nut cake.