I met her at the end of a marathon

race

at the end of a marathon

motherhood.

I was a great-grandchild of one of

her twelve kids.

She had had three husbands:

one shot, one burnt and one just plain

stupid,

the way she told it.

Four products of each joining,

only one-third of which

had a lick of sense,

she'd say.

And one of them wasn't my mom.

I didn't meet Nanny Buffaloe

until after the divorce

when my father took me.

She'd told him the marriage

was a mistake.

She'd suggested another girl

in her brood

who later

became my stepmom.

She raised those twelve kids

her own way on her own

mostly.

She picked her men for their

ability to stay out of her way,

she said.

My mom thought she was a busybody.

I saw Nanny Buffalo come in twentieth

out of three hundred

in a charity marathon

when she was 74.

Who cares what anyone else thought of her?