My Mom ❤️
Yesterday, July 21, would’ve been my mom’s 79th birthday. She LOVED her birthday and most years, family trips were planned around this date so we were all together to celebrate her birthday during summer, her favorite season of the year. Last night as I was going to bed, it hit me that while I was busy all day yesterday, it was actually the first time that I felt that I was physically missing her. The day was full of ups and downs, but that realization hit me hard and filled me with all sorts of feelings. How could it be that she’s been gone 2 years and just now I’m starting to really miss her. I ask that rhetorically because I know the answer. I just haven’t had space in my heart or head to be willing to miss her yet. It’s just a little too painful.
As time moves on, I don’t write as often, and I rarely look back on the things I have written, again, just too painful. As I was struggling with sleep through the night, I knew that it was time to take a glance back into the past. While it’s painful to relive the last few years, I’m constantly thankful to have put my thoughts down so that I can remember what has happened and where I’ve been emotionally.
I know that I wrote this during the month of May 2021, the month that my mom died. I can see that I must’ve started it while she was still alive and finished it after she passed. I don’t remember writing it, but I’m glad to have it. Feels like a little glimpse into that time ❤️ As always, thanks for reading ❤️
The sliding glass doors in our family room looked out onto a dark hillside in our house on Solliden Lane in the 70’s. Once a week or so, my mom would color her hair at home and on those nights, she’d stay in her robe for the evening and we’d sit by that sliding glass door. Her robe was patterned in colors much the same as our house…. Yellow, orange, avocado green. Our kitchen was yellow with a banquet at one end. The benches were a yellow vinyl. We had shag rug throughout the house. The color seemed to be a greenish-yellow. Later in life, I learned that all of our furniture had come from a model home that my grandfather had built. It was very stylish for the early 70’s.
She was so good about playing with me. We often had tea parties with all of my stuffed animals on those nights when she colored her hair. Whatever I wanted to play, she’d play along. She was always a good sport. As a grandmother, she’s been the same with all of her grandchildren. If they wanted to be dragged through the house on a blanket, she’d pull them. If they wanted to play with play dough, she’d pull out the bin and sit with them. If they wanted to draw pictures, she’d draw. She was playful and easy going and thankfully, still is.
She rarely got mad, but when she did, she’d give you the silent treatment or retreat to her bedroom and cry by herself. Something that she learned from her mom, and sadly I’m trying to unlearn from her. I remember only two instances of her crying in front of us when I was a kid. Once, my brother, myself and some other neighborhood kids were playing hide and seek in the house. While running and diving under my parents’ bed, one of us hit the nightstand and her Tiffany Lamp fell to the floor and the shade shattered into a million pieces. I can’t remember if this was the same dive that sent my brother to the emergency room for stitches, but I do remember her crying over that lamp. The second happened when I was in high school and on Mother’s Day none of us had planned anything special. I don’t know if she was more angry at my brothers and myself or at my dad, but I do remember her standing in the backyard, crying. She seemed to be holding a bouquet of flowers, from whom, I have no idea, but that left an impression. There weren’t many outward displays of unhappiness in our house. These usually happened in private, where no one else would be disturbed.
Yesterday my mom forgot how to answer the phone. For the last 52 years, I could depend on my mom being at the other end of the phone line, hypothetically speaking. She’s been there, consistently for my entire life. But yesterday, something had shifted.
Four or five years ago, I started noticing her repeating herself, or forgetting the steps in day to day activities. One Thanksgiving (my dad had become the chef in the family by then) her job was baking rolls. She’s great with a job, but when the timer went off, I saw her reach into the oven without an oven mitt. I reacted and then in turn she reacted, realizing what she was doing and making a joke of it.
I now can look back and remember seeing a burned tea kettle in the back of my dad’s car. I know that I mentioned it at the time, but the answer was dismissive - your mom forgot to turn off the flame. I should’ve seen the signs then, but at the beginning, you just wonder if it’s normal forgetfulness or something else.
In 2016, our entire family took a big trip up to Montana, where I live now, to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Glacier Park had been on my mom’s bucket list for years and she was determined to get in the park and experience Going to the Sun Road and all of the beauty that it entails. It was a wonderful trip. We all stayed in one big house, out of town, under one roof. My parents, my brothers and their wives and kids and me and my kids. We cooked together, we celebrated my mom’s and nephew’s birthdays, we explored, we went into the park multiple times, we white water rafted, we did it all. She doesn’t remember any of it.
My mom was diagnosed with colon cancer 2 years ago, at the same time my dad was being treated for Plasma cell leukemia. Both had been diagnosed with extremely rare varieties of both of these types of cancer.
My mom fought hard for the last 2.5 years. The cancer ravaged her body and the dementia was slowly taking her mind. She still knew who all of us were and never lost her sense of humor. In fact, she was still making very dry jokes until just a few days ago, before she lost consciousness. She passed away at 6:11pm on May 25, 2021 with my dad, my brothers and myself surrounding her with loads of love. I know that Tommy was waiting for her on the other side and for that I’m devastated and also relieved.
