Today is Mother's Day and it is the 2nd one that I have experienced since my Mom passed over. I was very lucky I had my mother for 60 years to enjoy and to be driven crazy by.
Mom was an only child, whose mother died when she was two years old, so Mom never knew her Mom. I on the other hand knew mine very well, sometimes too well.
Mom ended up being raised mostly by her maternal grandparents, because her father was not into fathering, he was more interested in living the single life. It was always a source of sorrow to Mom that her dad did not take much interest in her. But she told me her grandparents were the most amazing people in the world and she never felt unwanted by them. The funny thing is that there were no "legal papers" giving them custody of her, they just took her in.
When WWII started, my Mother joined the Marines because she said it was her patriotic duty. She contracted rheumatic fever and after a few months was discharged and sent home to die. The USMC doctors told her that with the damage to her heart she would never have any children and would die young. Mom was only 23 at the time. Later in the year she had Dennis, her first child.
When Mom married my Daddy, she told him that the doctors had said that she did not have long to live and Daddy said, they were wrong about Dennis, they can be wrong about other things. After all Daddy was a Marine also and knew how the USMC worked. I came along, then Harold, then William, then Rose and finally Robert.....boy was the USMC wrong.
The other thing the USMC was wrong about was how long Mom would live. Mom lived to be 87 1/2 years old......and to top it off she was a polio survivor of 1950. Guess that New England blood and her stubborn nature won out.
I so miss her wonder full faced smile and heartfelt laughter. I miss her hugs and kisses, but what I do not miss is the horrible last two years of her life. She fought like a warrior, she wanted to outlive her husband because she was afraid her children would be cheated of any inheritance. I told her, Mom you have already outlived him, and you made the money so you and your husband would not be a burden to anyone, so the money was to be spent on the two of you, no one else.
My most cherished moments are the last Mother's day I had with her. We had made arrangements with a restaurant so we could take her out to dinner. She was so excited, she had not been to one in two years. The place was just about empty and the staff was so great to us. She had such a great time. I did not want to take her back to the hell-hole of a situation she was in. She did not want to go back either, but realized she had to. Mom died in July, 2010. I am so lucky to have had her as my Mom and despite the hellish last two years, choose instead to remember that last Mother's Day.......
