Thinking About

People who don't answer a txt message
Return phone calls
Call when they say they will
Follow through with anything
Talk about themselves incessantly
people who 'friend' you on Fb, yet not talk

People who smile
Laugh
Lend a hand
Come from their heart
Honest
Open minded

Eleven

I continued my visits to Mom until I moved to North Carolina.  I was having gallbladder problems and needed surgery.  The surgery had been scheduled.

She died that winter, three weeks before my surgery. After my brother called to tell me she passed, I drove to Florida.  Walking into her nearly empty, white, sterile nursing home room was eerie.  She had been in the hospital having issues with her pacemaker.

She said she would never live in a nursing home.  When she was transported back to her room, she passed early the next morning.  She hadn’t even been in the nursing home for twenty-four hours. She was true to her word.  She wouldn’t live in a nursing home.

They say a mother-daughter connection can withstand anything.  That we are connected at a soul level.  I do believe that.  It was no surprise she came to me in a dream.  She would never leave without a goodbye.  That she wasn’t happy was only one aspect of her. 

Even with all her difficulties, she was a fascinating woman.  She loved adventure, loved learning about earth science.  She loved her books, anything English well done in literature.  She loved Shakespeare, often quoting him or George Bernard Shaw.

“Shaw would say this,” Mom replied.

And then I heard a familiar quote.

She is forever in my head.  Forever in my heart.

I think Mom let her children be whatever they chose.  She didn’t encourage me to do much, yet provided opportunities.  What I did with them was my path. 

She often told me I was a good person.

“True goodness” she would say.

“And so competent.”

I always told her how much I admired all the things she was able to do.  She knew she was loved by me.  Even if she didn’t like me standing up to her, I think she smiles down on me about it.  She probably wondered what took me so long.  I wonder, too.

Her ashes are in my upper woods.  I placed them next to a small statue of Nils the Butler, between two oaks.  She loved the mountains and would have found humor in that.

My children came down for the spreading of the ashes on the windiest day ever.  I couldn’t get her ashes to leave the plastic bag they arrived in.  After some violent shakes, out they went, back toward all of us.  I could see everyone turn away chuckling.  Mom would have laughed too.

There is a meditation bench in the woods now where her ashes were spread. I clear the area every spring. 

There is much I remember about Mom.  When I took flying lessons, she told me that was the one thing she would have loved to do.  I encouraged her to go with me once but she didn’t think she could get into the plane.  I told her we could get her in and out, safely.  I understood her refusal.  But I would take her with me in my heart anyway.

On my next flight, I said a prayer for her as I taxied down the runway.

“This one is for you, Mom."

Ten

Ten

Holidays became more stressful.  Mom would overdo as she always did when the entire family, including her husband’s three sons and their families would come.  There were small spoons for sugar, tiny forks for who knows what.  The table was beautifully set as a proper English woman might do.  Everything was organized.  There were drinks before dinner at four o’clock precisely. 

Her husband’s adult children began to comment on Mom’s need to control.  That everything was done on her terms for gatherings.  They felt it put a lot of unnecessary stress on them.  Conveniently, most of them never pitched in to help remedy the situation.  Mom did hire a childhood family friend to help in the kitchen.

Our meals became political.  My oldest uncle didn’t much care for the conversation.  I found it interesting and loved hearing people’s thoughts.  In time, her husband’s children stopped coming.  They started their own family traditions closer to their homes.

One particular Christmas holiday was memorable.  Mom started back with with her piercing comments, aimed at me and her husband.

“Oh, shut up,” she said.

I was offering to help her when I saw her struggling in the kitchen. 

Immediately, I was the teenager when Mom was telling me I was ill bred and not college material.

“You are stupid!” she screamed.

I never quite understood the context of that remark the first time I couldn’t park the car perfectly.

“Stupid!

Once again, I went quiet.  Of course, I wasn’t a child, or a teen anymore.  Nor was I living with her.  But hearing those comments leaves a lasting impression

There was nothing I could do to make her happy.  It simply was not my job.

After dinner, we quickly gathered our things and headed back to New Jersey.  We overstayed our welcome.

That night, I thought a lot about what happened.  What happened lifelong with Mom.  Her comments, insults, bullying. 

I went to my desk and started writing.  In the case she and I would talk soon, I wanted to come from a loving place when I told her what her anger does to me. 

The following morning, she called.

“You were quiet at Christmas. Is anything wrong?”

I took a deep breath.  Thought about how much I loved my mother.

“Mom, I love you.  I care deeply about you but you need help.  You are pushing everyone away.  No one wants to come for Christmas anymore.  You need help with your anger.  I know you are in pain. “

Dead silence.  A minute passed.

“Well, I will have to think about that. Goodbye.”

She didn’t call again. 

She would turn seventy in a month.  I suggested to my brother that we fly to Florida as she and her husband wintered there.  I suggested we take her to dinner.

As I packed my suitcase for the trip, I bought all the goodies my brother and I ate as children.  Corn Curls, red licorice.  Even bought Coca Cola at the hotel.  We decided to stay in the same room.

All night we talked about growing up.  Our parents.  Our life.  This was the first time my brother ever opened up about how he felt. 

He hated our upbringing, but said our parents were first rate people.  And parents.  Yet, he only came home once a year to visit.  Rarely called any of us. 

He said we grew up in a pressure cooker.  I agreed.

Dinner with Mom was quiet.  She was polite but not forthcoming.  She wouldn’t look at me.  I don’t know if she felt ashamed, angry or both. 

More than anything, I wanted to be heard.  I hoped she could hear me.  It was a risk which I took to share my feelings. 

That following year, my stepfather asked to meet me half way.  He wanted to gift me his made in occupied Japan china.  The pattern was “Violets” and I loved it. 

We met in a charming inn in Chaddsford, Pennsylvania.

“Can’t you find some happiness?” he offered.

I didn’t know what to do with those words.  Was I unhappy, too?  I was too young, maybe too scared to ask for clarification.  Did he think I should have ignored her nastiness when he couldn’t?  I think he loved me dearly and wanted me to move behind this.  Irregardless of that, he was right.

 Five years later he was dying from his recurring small cell leukemia.  Mom never told me his leukemia returned.  He was in hospice.  She still wasn’t talking to me.  I found that out through my mother-in-law which she called to tell her.  That was interesting, because the two of them never talked outside our gatherings at my mother’s house at Christmas.  My mother-in-law didn’t much care for my mother.  It was a curious call.

Immediately, I drove to the hospital in Baltimore with my then college age children.  I could hear a cane tap the floor.

“She is on her way down,” my stepfather said.

“She is having a rough time.  Yes, the General is here” he said in not so kind words.

He felt my mother was a coward emotionally.  Embarrassed by her inability to work things out. Mom complained about everyone.  No one was perfect enough for her. 

In some ways, I think he had had enough.

Three weeks later, my brother called. 

“He died,” he said.

“He will be cremated and his ashes spread over the golf course where he played.”

My stepfather did not like my brother.  It did cause conflict between my mother and him.  Especially when my brother would visit and dominate their telephone. Or conduct business in their living room with his loud business voice.

I never wanted to be in the middle.  Mom had issues with my brother lifelong.  She was always putting him down. 

Granted, he rarely called or offered to help Mom.  He always cashed her checks. 

As mom continued to go downhill, he did offer to help her get a scooter for mobility.

Nine

Nine

When I married in 1971, Mom made my Victorian style wedding dress complete with leg o mutton sleeves.  At first, she made it out of muslin to ensure a good fitting. The cotton fabric was soft and she enjoyed sewing it.  I could always count on her for follow through in anything I needed that was of an instrumental task.  As a preteen, she wired my new upstairs room, even tuned her own car.  Mom was one determined woman.  The word ‘no’ simply was not in her vocabulary.  She always found a way to work something through.  She also had a good sense of humor when the timing was right.

When my son was born, it appeared shortly after his birth, that he might have a breathing problem.  Mom stepped in immediately. She found the floor head nurse and the pediatric resident who came into my room to explain what was happening to my newborn.  He had just swallowing a lot of mucus on her way into the world.  They aspirated copious quantities of mucus and did a variety of blood tests on his tiny foot.  Three days later, my baby and I left for home.  Both of us in good health.

Mom remarried in 1977 to a Marine engineer with a degree in chemical engineering.  He was the best thing to happen to our family.  He and I bonded almost immediately.  It was nice to have a father figure and he was so easy to talk to.

He became an instant grandfather when my own children were born.   He also had a great sense of direction unlike my mother and I. 

It was humorous that Mom could traverse the same space over and over, each time passing familiar ground she swore we were on our way to our destination.  I remember one particular time when she took Dave and Lisa with us to Calvert Cliffs in Maryland.  As a child, I went there with my parents to look for shark teeth.  Walking along the ocean searching for shark teeth was such fun.  We were always rewarded with a find.  I wanted my own children to have that experience with my mother.  However, neither of us could find the path to the beach.  While my sense of direction isn’t too good either, I concluded we were just plain lost.  We decided to go for lunch, laugh at our travails and return home.  Sadly, we never reached Calvert Cliffs.

While mom had a limited sense of direction, she made the best crab cakes.  She insisted the crab meat had to be deftly hand picked, lest shells would be found in the meat.  Never once did I encounter one single shell.  Mom prided herself on a clean picking.

When I relocated to upstate New York, Mom made several visits, each time helping with projects. 

On her first visit the day we moved in, she took us out to dinner.

Mom ordered chocolate mousse.  The server brought it to our table.

“This isn’t mousse!  This is pudding,” screamed my mother as she pulled away from the table.

Our heads dropped in shock.

But the visit that changed everyone’s life  happened that fall. She and her husband were on their way Thanksgiving of 1985 when a flat bed driver decided to play cat and mouse with my mother who was driving.  Mom got into this power struggle, refusing to pull off the side of the road.  Just as she was crested a hill in Pennsylvania, the flat bed hit her van, sending it into a house.  A large tree had to be removed in order to get her out.  Mom’s husband sustained a broken ankle and sent by ambulance to a hospital.  Mom’s injuries were worse, sustaining seven broken bones.  She was helicoptered to a trauma center where she underwent a long surgical operation to repair her tibia and put it in traction.  There were other injuries which were also repaired.  She would require a hip replacement since her acetabulum was torn.  That would require the rest of her body to heal which would take months.

I visited her daily making the eight hour round trip to her hospital while I was working on my bachelor’s degree at Cornell.  After both mom and her husband were stabilized, I had them moved back to their home in Maryland where Mom remained in a hospital for months.

Mom was never the same.  Her mobility was limited because of the hip damage and her arthritis spread to more areas.  She continued to visit me.  I remember well, when she successfully made the trip to visit me in Ithaca.  I worried about her the entire day and was relieved to see her new car pull into the driveway.  Her van had been totally in the accident six months before. 

A year and a half later, I moved to central New Jersey.  Mom and her husband came to visit every three months.  Her husband ,  a five handicapped golfer always found a golf course to play. I think he was just about to be away, to have some time to himself as Mom required more assistance now. 

But mom never recovered.  Fully.  The anger that had been present throughout her life was worse than ever.  So was her pain level. 

On several occasions, I tried to talk with her.  To get her some counseling.  Again and again, she refused. 

Mom’s face softened.

“You are a much better mother than I was,” she told me.

“Yes, I am, but we all have our things to work through.  I don’t care about the past as long as the present is palatable,” I told her in a loving way.

Even looking back, I am surprised as a then forty year old I had the insight to share that.  More than anything, I wanted to help her.  And so, once again, I became her mother.

Over the years, she became more bitter, more angry.  She talked about her past, about her lack of freedom as a child.  About her marriage to a man she deemed as autistic.  She thought my father and his son were similarly having aspects of autism. 

The same inability to process emotions also seemed to plague Mom.  They say if we name it, we claim it.

Six

 Coming back to Maryland was hard.  I was excited to begin my junior year in high school, happy to see my friends and to catch up with them. 

I was also looking forward to having a sewing machine.  I made most of my clothes and wanted to get a head start on my fall wardrobe. 

“Honey, do you want to go shopping with me?”

“First I have to go to Blanks to get some fabric, then the department store. 

I smiled and replied, “Yea. Just give me a minute.”  Slipping back into the warmth of the familiar, I always enjoyed going shopping with my mother. 

            She drove to Blanks, a well known fabric store to buy yard goods.  Both of us  bought fabric.  Mom had seen a bolt of a wool harringbone gray tweed fabric she liked and the clerk was not particularly attentive to her. 

“That stupid woman,” Mom shouted.

“What a ditz.” 

Nearly everyone in the store heard her. I wanted to disappear. 

            “Mom, she is underpaid, probably has no husband and is supporting a young family,” I offered.

Mom shrugged her shoulders.  She paid for their fabric and we drove to Stewart’s, an upscale department store in Baltimore and bought some new outfits. On the way home from there, we continued their weekly tradition and stopped for libations at the local Rexall, which had a 1950s soda fountain.  It was near the Acme grocery store in Woodlawn. Mom always coffee.  I always ordered Coca Cola, a small one and ate my standard  pretzel stick with a little mustard on the top.  Mom read her books while I revelled in my new wardrobe folded neatly in the bag beside me.

            My mother was a contradiction. A determined spirit, with Margaret Mead orientation to life. She could do anything  - tune a car, wire a room, sew a dress.  She was a middle school science and math teacher/supervisor with a masters degree in  physics.  She only lacked three courses to matriculate for her doctorate.  She was also one of Baltimore’s first sex educators.

            Mom was a phenomenon in the 1960s, the first wave of feminists who were suddenly single.

I think she longed to be warm and close.  But her tongue caused a lot of separation.  I never knew which part of my mother would respond.  Margaret Mead, the mechanic, or a bitter divorced woman in her early forties.

            Mom, Nana and I sewed often. It was Nana, who taught Mom the art of needlecraft and how to sew.  My mother in turn taught me.  Needlework was not my favorite thing to do.  But Nana’s work was beautiful.  Mom didn’t like needlework but did beautiful hems.  Mine was always hurried. It is better now.

            Sewing started early for me.  Even at the age of ten Mom had me sewing crop tops.  I loved working in the basement, Mom in one room, and me in another, both completing projects and then sharing our stories about them once they were completed. 

“The zipper came out perfect. Here look, I did it!” I would exclaim. Mom, who always signed her name, “Mother” would smile.

“Well good.”

Suddenly Mom’s face turned toward me.  She was emotionless.

“Honey, you remember when your father’s U Haul backed into the driveway to take away all of his things, my history and my life?  I went into the bedroom and cried.

After he drove away, I got into the car and drove around and around crying, wondering how to go on, how to raise two teenage children alone.”

            I wanted to lighten the moment and ease my mother’s suffering.

            “Mom, do you remember all the stuff we endured on this street? Did you ever find out who the neighbor was at the block parties who drank everyone’s liquor?” she chuckled.

“No, but we sure fixed whoever it was,” Mom laughed back. 

“We took the label off one of the bottles, wrote the chemical formula for alcohol on it and from then on, this one was never touched,” Mom said.

“Evidently, the culprit didn’t know a thing about chemistry.”

We laughed until we cried.