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My mom and I stood on opposite sides of the room. She and I disagreed so many years while I tried to deal with my turbulent teens and my confusing early 20’s. The one thing I will say is that she stood with me through all the major hurdles in my life.
Eccentric and unique, at first I was embarrassed by our outbursts. I always saw her as the consummate preacher’s wife – always worried about him, never worrying about herself. Not to say she let herself go! Mom would have never done that. I never knew her to begin her day without her hair done and her make-up perfect.
When they finally retired, my sweet mom found herself alone a lot. Dad was running a business to fund their retirement and she was in the house with no kids and not much to do outside the two sweet dogs she had – which truly were her furkids. She treated them like her children. She began to find herself, taking classes in all types of crafts. Her teachers even said she was better than they were at everything she did. Once when in the hospital getting her foot operated on, she had a person come by to teach her macramé. Before you knew it, she was macrame-ing rings around the teacher. Even the lady told us she had never seen anything like it. Mom was truly talented and she never knew it. I remember telling her how talented she was the Christmas before she passed away. She got tears in her eyes she was so blessed by what I said.
Eventually, I settled down and we forged a friendship after I married my husband. She and I began to really like each other. She and I had a traditional of going out to brunch every time I'd come down and she'd talk to me like a friend, telling me her woes and her happy moments. Every time I’d come to see her, I was amazed at how many people knew her, the server at Denny’s where she and dad did their early bird specials, the pharmacists, all her neighbors. She was the good neighbor, always cooking and putting up fruit and veges for her neighbors and they all loved her.
Her grandchildren were her heart. She adored them. Somehow she would always managed to buy them a new outfit (on sale of course because she was all about bargains) that "looked like them." I'd hold up something that I thought would look cute on my oldest and she'd say, "No that doesn't look like him." You couldn't really disagree with her taste -- she knew how to pick kids clothes.
She called me the morning of the day she left us. We talked and my last words to her were, “I love you mom.†She said goodby and at 5:00 p.m. that day, she stepped into eternity peacefully, well prepared I might add, because my mom was a praying woman. Her congestive heart failure caught up to her. It was sudden and she didn't suffer. I hope that I finish as easily as she did.
When I came down to help my dad for the month afterward, I was amazed at the outpouring of love from people I never thought would care. Even her next door neighbor the county Sheriff offered a helicopter for us to scatter her ashes into the ocean – when that was legal. Everyone missed her from the pharmacist to the paper boy. I realized that she was someone very special to have touched so many people.
Here it is 22 years later and we are approaching mother’s day. I miss her still. There’s a hole there in my heart that is never filled. Mom, I hope and pray that the best parts of you are still alive in me. Love you mom. Happy mother’s day.
