This month marks the 15th anniversary of my mother's passing. Also this month, if she were still alive she would turn 68. Yes, my mother passed away two weeks shy of her 53rd birhtday.
I was 34 when she died and too wrapped up in my own life (raising 3 boys for starters) to have taken the time to get to know her as a person. Not to say it would have been easy, I am born and raised in Southern California and have lived in Orange County for the last 29 years - she moved back to southern Georgia when I was 17. We never had a close relationship (usually strained would be a better word) and this is part of the reason for this entry - kind of a therapy session for myself.
My mom was the youngest of 4 children and grew up very poor in rural southern Georgia. She dropped out of school after the 9th grade at 14 years old and then met and married my father at 17. My father was in the Navy and stationed in Georgia where she was working in a diner (I can hear a tune from the 80's in here somewhere) that he and his friends happened to visit. My father took her back to California as soon as his tour of duty was up and I came along 11 months after they were married, my mother was 18 at the time. My brother came along 14 months later, so she was almost 20 with two kids and a long way from home.
I think my mom was homesick from the time she left Georgia. She also deeply missed her mother as for most of her life it had been mostly just the two of them, her father having suffered a massive stroke and being an invalid from the time she was very young. Then her mother passed away when I was 6, not long after my sister was born. This among other things helped lend a hand to a strain on my parents marriage.
My parents divorced when I was 16 and sadly my mom was shocked and unprepared when it happened. The details are not pleasant at best so they are going to be completely skipped over. My father had taken care of everything in our lives, finances, etc. My mother had never really worked and basically had no education. Now she was 34 (how ironic I was the same age when she died) with three children and no idea of how to support herself. This lent itself to about a year and half of her struggling trying to keep it together and me being the bitchy teenager at the time would tell you not doing a good job of it. It was all too much for her and my brother and sister went to live with our dad. A short time later under heated words and with much anger between us my mom packed up and moved back to her hometown, I also then went to live with my dad.
I saw my mother only once between then and her getting sick. I was 21 and had only been dating Denny for a short time. For the next 13 years we would only talk periodically and I spent a lot of time and wasted energy being angry. Purposely tried to make myself into the exact opposite of her (at least who I thought she was). Vowed I would never be in a position where I could not take care of myself financially - tried to be the perfect mom - taught myself to cook - learned to sew and made Halloween costume's from scratch, etc. etc. etc. Thankfully somewhere along the way I learned to accept her for who she was before it was too late. Sure she was never going to be the perfect mom I had wanted her to be, but she was my mother and amazingly enough, human just like the rest of us.
Sometimes it takes seeing someone through other people's eyes to really see them. Her friends dearly loved her, they thought she was funny and kind. Maybe they felt the need to protect and take care of her. Even I could see the somewhat fragile, scared person that circumstance and time had made her into.
So after all these years here is what I know. For as hard as I tried I am probably more like her than I still care to admit. I got my love for horror movies and Halloween from her (probably not a good idea to let your small children watch horror movies on TV!) She loved all kinds of music. She cried like he was a family member when Elvis died. She loved old movies and musicals (funny, the same things I love). I have fond memories of wearing her old party dresses and reading old issues of Movie Time magazine. She was not a hip dresser when I was in high school, but now when I look back at pictures I can appreciate she wore vintage (although to her this was out of necessity and simply called old clothes) and looked great in it -wish I could pull that off! She was fierce when it came to sticking up for her kids when we were young. The list could go on but lastly that she loved me and was proud of who I was and what I had accomplished. I wish I had more time, and to tell her again that I loved her also.
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