So here it is, my very first blog. I dedicate this to my mom, Betsy.
Today would have been my mom’s 85th birthday. She passed away just over ten years ago. It’s hard to believe it’s been so long.
I think of her often, and sometimes it catches me by surprise. This week, browsing in a department store, I noticed an older woman also shopping. She reminded me of my mom, and instantly memories of taking Mom out shopping slipped into my head and for a moment, I was overcome with the loss and grief that I felt almost constantly after she first passed.
My mom was a simple person. Not in intelligence or emotion, but in the way she lived her life. She did what’s nearly unheard of now, being a stay-at-home mom, raising seven kids in a one income household. She sewed my sisters’ wedding and bridesmaid dresses, and made me a bedspread and pillow sham out of material that had a goofy dog pattern (yes, I’ve been a dog freak since I was a kid). She knit hats and scarves and mittens for all of us. She packed school lunches and cooked dinner every night. Once I went off to kindergarten (I was the youngest), she started waitressing part time to earn extra money and took the bus to work every day. I remember she had a zippered shoe bag so she could wear her boots in the winter and carry her tennies along with her. I remember sitting at the kitchen table, sorting all the coins she received as tips and rolling them into the little paper sleeves so she could cash them in at the bank. She didn’t learn how to drive until she was in her late forties.
While we certainly didn’t have the perfect family life (who does?!), I have so many good memories of her, and those are what sometimes swamp me unexpectedly. She had the best laugh and the sweetest personality and a silly sense of humor. She loved her family, the Packers, animals, music and ice cream. We took her out to our local haunt to watch the Packers play, and she cheered right along with us, wearing her green and gold Dr. Seuss-style hat. She spoiled her grand-dog Charlee from day one, sneaking her down to their flat (we lived in the upper) during the day. “She was lonely,” she’d tell me. “She wanted to be with Grandma!” She’d feed Charlee bits of her ice cream in the evenings when she’d dog-sit, an addiction they both shared.
I can’t say she was the best cook (a trait I share). In her defense, I can’t imagine having to come up with a menu and then cooking every single night of the week. But she could bake like a pastry chef. Every Christmas we had a dozen different kinds of cookies. She made pies and cakes and cherry nut bread, and apple fritters that were out of this world. Love was in every bit of those homemade treats.
It was hard, those last few years. She had suffered through several mini-strokes for a couple of years, until a major stroke in 2000 took away much of her ability to communicate. It was hard to see her want to say something but not be able to come up with the words, and her frustration at that. She initially walked with a cane, then eventually went into a wheelchair. She lived in an assisted living home, until she got to the point where she needed to be in a nursing home. Those were difficult years for her, and all of us who loved her.
But she was in there, inside that body and brain that no longer worked the way she wanted. Things she loved stayed with her. Once, while decorating her room for the holidays, there were Christmas carols playing. She loved Christmas music, and she remembered those lyrics, ingrained in her from singing them for so many years. She sang along with Nat King Cole about the first Noel. It still chokes me up, thinking about that. She loved when I brought Charlee to visit, snuggling her close and planting kisses all over her head. I bought her a silly bumble bee bobble figure for her window shelf, and it made her laugh. It now sits next to my kitchen window.
I miss her. I miss talking with her, and laughing at some hokey joke. I want to ask her questions for which I never realized I needed answers. I regret how selfish and self-absorbed I was for so many years and the fact that I’ll never be able to really know her as much as I now want to. I want her advice, and her opinions.
I hope that she’s looking down from heaven, proud of who I’ve become. I hope that I’m the daughter she envisioned me to be when she brought me home from the hospital all those years ago. If anyone ever says to me that I remind them of Betsy, I take that as the highest compliment. I aspire to be like her. Simple, loving, generous.
Happy birthday, Mom.