Missing Mom

April 21 is always a tough day for me. My mom died on that date, in 1977. You'd think I'd be over it by now. I am. And I'm not. I don't think we ever are.

I was one of the weird, lucky kids who had a great childhood. Two parents who loved each other and who loved me all the more. Financial security -- not wealthy, but comfortable. I was never spoiled but I was aware that we had all we needed and much of what we wanted. 

 

I didn't realize it for many years, but my mom and her sisters were ahead of their time, in many ways. They were the first generation in their family to go to college -- mom studied elementary education and taught first grade for a number of years. One school in which she taught was Lansing's Allen Street school. It is by great coincidence that I worked in that same school decades later, teaching children creative dramatics.

 

Perhaps my having a happy childhood is the result of her own, again a loving family, but much larger than that of our family of three. She and her sisters (and for seven short years, their brother) grew up in Lansing in a house I pass by regularly. 

 

They spent their summers at the same lake I do, in the same cottage my cousins now have. Mom and her best friend, Fran, were inseparable. They'd sing at the top of their lungs as they sat on the dock, knit the same patterns for school ensembles, and then model them on the beach. They were friends forever. 

 

When World war II came along, my mom quit teaching and worked for the airlines. I wish I'd probed her former supervisor better when he was still alive. I know she was doing war-related work but I'm not sure what it was. In any event, when the war ended, she left that field and managed a dress shop in town. 

 

My parents met in the late 1940s, after my dad returned from World War II. They were on a blind date with her sister and her current beau, who happened to be a friend of Dad's. That friend once said that after they met, he asked dad what he thought and he said, "Well, she's really short." He also asked Mom who said, "He's really tall." His friend said that was all he heard till he got the wedding invitation.

 

I came along a year and a half later, and I couldn't have been more welcome. Mom was a full-time mom and we spent a lot of time together. In the days before nursery and pre-school, she taught me my letters and phonics and I was partially reading by the time I went started school. She spent countless hours volunteering for several organizations and of course, as many "ladies" of that day did, had her bridge club and church circle. From the time I was small until the day she died, she (and my dad) were beyond supportive. They not only attended every play I was in (or involved with) at least once, but they offered up the house for cast parties and put up with my loud and constant singing of show tunes, probably more flat than tuneful. My friends still remember my parents, which make me happier than one could imagine. 

 

And of course, she was super-crafter, who did everything from oil tinting photos to knitting to making intricate 3-D shadow boxes. Nope, this apple didn't fall far from the tree.

Mom and Dad were married on March 18, 1950. On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1977, Mom, whose cancer had moved onto her brain, had another seizure, this one serious enough to have her taken from our home by ambulance. I often have wondered what she thought, laying on the gurney, looking at the rooms she could see from the hallway by the front door and wondering when she would be home or if she'd ever see them again. And she didn't. 

The next day, on their anniversary, my dad, aunt and I headed off to the hospital to celebrate the day, cake in hand. A pile up on the highway access road slowed us down (we were one of the pile in a late-season ice storm) but we made it, shaken but uninjured, in time. We enjoyed the rum cake I'd brought and shared stories from their wedding and times past. Finally, we left, taking a different route home, hating to leave her there. Happy Anniversary.

Mom was in the hospital about five or six weeks. Today her care would have been at home, through Hospice. We visited daily. I was 25, working. She managed to have more fun than anyone with brain cancer should have during a hospital stay. Despite some agonizing procedures, she happily welcomed guests, some for overnight on the couch in her room. I needlepointed as we'd have long chats, and I still have the pillow I made at that time, prayers packed into each stitch.

I have said often that my mom taught me how to live while dying. I suspect it wasn't easy. 

She died too young (57) and too soon -- although I suspect she was ready to leave this world for whatever was to come next. She had great faith and my sense is that her deepest conversations about this were with our minister. I still have the notes and cards sent after, notes that shed light on the things she did for others. I value those. 

 

Are we ever old enough to lose our moms? Or, our dads, for that matter. I don't think so. But my dad was around many years longer. I still get terribly sad and angry that she missed so much of my life. I wasn't fully-formed yet, not in a job that would later become a career. Not with anyone special in my life. She didn't get to see me in theatre at a time I was doing good work or later when I was working in TV. Most of all, it hurts that she  never knew Rick or the kids. 

I'm not sure my dad or I ever recovered. I know I haven't. Her illness still haunts me. And I know that had she lived in the times in which we do now, her cancer may have been detected sooner or treated with drugs that are more effective. My cousin and I often say we want to hold off on serious illness as long as we can so the medical establishment and research will be a step ahead of us.

 

I believe we are all shaped in some way by the environment in which we grew up and the roles our parents played in our lives, for good or ill. For some who weren't as lucky as I, that may have brought challenges that either broke them, set them back or made them stronger. I just know that I have a lot of my mom in me (and lots of dad, too). 

 

And that's a wonderful thing to be able to say.

(If you like, tell me about your mom or dad, especially if they are no longer with you.) 

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