"M" is for the many things she taught me . . .

This Sunday is Mother's day so now I have a reason to brag about my mother (not that I need one).  With all my heart, I wish that she were still here with me.  I think about her all the time.  She passed away in 1984 at the age of 52.  But she is always in my thoughts.  She came from such humble beginnings.  I was torn between posting this picture of her to show off her beauty or the picture of her looking like the poster child for the "For a Dollar a Day you Can Feed this Child" campaign.  She grew up poor and in that particular picture she is in a dingy little shift, barefoot in the dirt, looking kind of forlorn.  I love this picture of her because if you knew my mother, you would never guess she came from such poverty.  My mother self-taught herself in everything, and was a gifted artist, seamstress, knitter, gardener, culinary expert and she was extremely well read.  She did what used to be known as "tole painting" long before Donna Dewberry gave it the name "One Stroke Painting".  She knit and crocheted little outfits for my Barbie dolls.  They were very sophisticated little garments too.  She sewed lined coats and tailored suits for the family.  She even made ties for my father.  She loved the outdoors and somehow educated my sister and me to know all sorts of things about trees and birds and plants, passing on her love of all things nature.  I remember one particularly lonely summer around the time I was going into 5th grade.  We had just moved and my sister had gone off to college, leaving me alone for the first time.   My mom kept me contented by suggesting books to read that I would get from the local library:  Nancy Drew, Dr. Fu Manchu and even Tarzan novels.  How many mothers even know what a good read Edgar Rice Burroughs is?  Her enthusiasm to learn was contagious.  I think about how she would love the computer now and all the things you can learn and all the people you can meet.  She would have been in her glory.  No doubt she would've been selling on Etsy, keeping up with friends and family on Facebook, writing her own blog and ordering copious quantities of fabrics, yarns, and all things crafty from the internet.

Unfortunately, as life does, events occurred that drove us apart and then drove us at each other.  I hooked up with my soon to be husband/soon to be ex-husband in my senior year of school and that created major turmoil in our relationship.  At the same time, my father decided he needed to move to Akron, Ohio for a different job.  My mother felt that she had to quit her job, the first one she had since before she was married, and follow.  This caused her to spiral into a life of misery and bitterness.  Then came the cancer like a thief in the night. 

Our last few years together were tumultuous at best.  A small steel-town on the shores of Lake Erie, Lorain, Ohio, would be the place where possibilities for the future of both my mom and myself waxed and then waned in a very short time.  My father's penchant for changing jobs that usually moved us between Ohio and Virginia repeatedly meant a very isolated life for my mom . . . and a rather miserable one for me.  My mother was relegated to a very home centered life.  When I think about how she didn't have any friends other than my father's business associates, it seems very sad to me.  But she did it without ever complaining (at least that I'm aware of).  In Lorain, however, Mom stepped outside of the box/house and got herself a job.  She was hired at the local newspaper and did advertising layouts.  What a transformation.  Suddenly, instead of reading the paper and fixating on all the bad things going on in the world, she skipped right past all that and was only interested in ads and how they looked.  Not just her ads, she studied the other papers for their ads.  She had friends for the first time since I was little.   I remember when she went to a Cat Steven's concert with a friend and later confessed that joints were being passed around.  We would go to the only good place in Lorain . . . The Lorain Creamery, and get ice cream sundaes and talk about everything.  I remember I actually confessed to her that I was interested in a boy who was crazy about another girl.  I can still hear her say, "You shouldn't settle for Second Fiddle".  Craziest thing we ever did was sign up to take Roller Dancing lessons together.  Do you know how hard it is to do ice-skating moves on four wheels?  That didn't last so long, she gave herself one heck of a bruising when she fell at her last lesson.  It was so great to have my mother as a friend for that short time.  I like to think that if she were still alive today we would be friends again, sharing confessions and eating ice cream together.