 Phyllis Doros -Poems and Stories
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I recently enjoyed a wonderful meal at my mother�s house. I never turn
down a dinner offer, especially when steak is involved. After eating, I asked
her if she had a toothpick and she started looking all over her kitchen for the
small box of wooden splinters. I helped for a minute or two, and then
remembered her hobby collection of toothpick containers in her dining room
china hutch. Chuckling, I went into the dining room and got one, asking her if
she had forgotten the hundreds she had resting in the various works of art.
She chuckled and asked if maybe I could find one in the bunch, then smiled
and said, as many times lately, �I can�t remember anything.� She has forgotten many things about her past, although I remember, and I will constantly remind her of the things that I remember about her friends, her accomplishments, and her life. Phyllis Ann Doros grew up during the �Great Depression,� and directly after World War II, at sixteen years of age, quit school, got married, and started raising a family in Seattle. As in many cases, the marriage didn�t last. After ten years, Phyllis was a single mother, with no job and no education. She was blessed with a host of neighborhood friends and a supportive mother, but the reality of the big, cruel world was a devastating nightmare to a young lady with a daughter, two sons, no money, and no skills to make money. Could anyone save Phyllis and give her the secure life she needed for her children and herself? She realized that it all came down to her. She had to pull herself up by her bootstraps and move forward, no matter what obstacles or dissatisfactions she would be confronted with on her trail. At the age of thirty, Phyllis got a full-time job during the day and started her tenth grade of high school at night. It exhausts me just skimming the thought of how she was able to take on the situation facing her. Her children always came first. She had a schedule for the family unity. Just to mention a few events: Fried chicken and the T.V. series �Tarzan� on Saturday Afternoon, A history story read to the family on Sunday afternoon, an annual weekend trip to the Ocean every Memorial Day. It was a lot of fun for us kids. It was a lot of work and discipline for mom. After graduating from high school, Phyllis moved up to college at night and a better job during the day. During her afternoon break, she made dinner for her teenagers and then the family all sat around the kitchen table and did homework together. After returning home from school, late at night, she studied, often until two or three in the morning. Up at 5:00am, take the kids to swim practice, do homework for an hour, take the kids back home at 6:00am, get ready for work, get the kids off to school, go to work. Us children got quite a workout with all of this activity and more, but the one who really got the workout was mom. Then the day came when Phyllis finally graduated from college and landed her big carrier job with the �State Social and Health Services.� Her perseverance eventually led her to a supervisor position in the Washington State Capital Building, where she retired after twenty-five years of service. Her children, who have become an attorney, a legal secretary, and a late blooming software engineer, are all so proud of her, as well as all of the rest of her family and close friends who have been there for the ride. This one�s for you mom. You might not remember it all but you could forget more than I remember and still be a book of knowledge. |
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