Mom

Film :: Movie

Dragon :: Tales

Hunger :: strike

Plucked :: chicken

Dissolving :: water

Executive :: overpaid

Ridiculous:: preposteroius

Mist :: Avalon

Minority :: Report

Map :: read




What can I say. Even I don't understand how my mind works sometimes.



Like many who grew up in small community, I only had one mother, but I was mothered by many. From teachers who had known my parents for decades, to neighbors who looked out for every kid in the nieghborhood, even though there was at least a mile or more between neighbors, to almost any mom or non mother woman in town. I knew if I screwed up or did something it wasn't a matter of if my parents found out, it was a matter of when. Usually before I ever got home.



To this day I am convinced the internet has nothing on the small town grapevine when it comes to speed of spreading information. Of course this also includes the fact that in a town of 1500 there is no such thing as no one's business. Sure people would sometimes look the other way and pretend they didn't know what they did, but everyone knew, we just kept our mouths shut.



My mother wasn't perfect, she didn't have a job outside of her family. She did work in town for a while but that didn't last long, and could make for a whole nother entry on small town politics.



But my mom was the best mother she knew how to be. She loved both her kids and always made sure they were cared for, and knew they were loved. And while yes I do still have feelings regaarding my mom and my brother, I have come to terms with them from an adult point of view, able to understand things differently as a mom myself.



My mom didn't have an easy life. She has 9 older siblings and two younger sisters. She had to leave school in the 8th grade and has been supporting her self since she was about 16. None of my mom's siblings, save maybe a few of the oldest ever went to high school. It was too far away and would have been too expensive.



With 13 kids to care for,during the depression, my grand parents had to watch every penny, and try to squeeze a nickel out of it. From the time she was old enough to walk, work was part of her life.



There was no staying home with the kids. The older kids were responsible for the younger ones. I think my aunt Maggie may have spent as much time raising my mom as my grandmother, and she's only about 5 or so years older.



My mom supported her self as a nurse's aid, what is now most often referred to as a CNA. She worked for many years in hospitals in Rugby and eventually moved to Williston, where My Aunt Hedy and a friend were living. It was here where she met my dad.



It wasn't easy for my mom. She was already in her mid 30's when she and my dad married. My mom was 36 when she had me and 39 (almost 40) when she had my brother. She was living in her in-laws house, my dad was working long crazy hours trying to run the farm. My grandfather died when I was 3. My grandmother was no longer able to care for herself, and my brother was born early with many problems, some of which didn't become apparent until later.



My grandmother lived with us for a while, as I've mentioned before but it soon became obvious she needed more than we could provide. IT wasn't fair to my mom to try and help run the farm while caring for a newborn with multiple issues, a very precocious and hyper active preschooler (yours truly) and a mother in law in the middle stages of dementia, not to mention blindness (glaucoma).



My mom was never what one would call demonstrative. My parents would tuck us in, read to us, spend time with us, carry us on thier shoulders until we got to big, but they were never huggers, never one to say "I love you". Mom was one to show it, in making sure I always had a nice clean outfit to wear to school. In makin sure I never had somebody else's handmedowns as she always had to wear, in always getting up at the crack of dawn to make sure we had a hot homemade breakfast when other kids would have cold cereal or a pop tart on the way out the door.



While other kids had bland bread from the grocery store, I had fresh homemade bread baked with love that tasted better than anything one could find in the best bakeries. I had a spotless house that always smelled of pine sol, and dinners that were always cooked from scratch. I had fresh vegetables that were grown organically before anyone knew what organic gardening was. I had jars of homemade jellies, pickles and other preserves. Unlike the town kids, I was usually personally aquanted with my chicken dinner and knew which farm my steak came from .



My parents were always home when I went to bed and my mom always had time to read me a story before I got old enough to do it for myself.



While I get many things from my dad, my love of other people's junk, my need to always learn more, my short stubby legs and my work ethic. I also got some of my most important qualities from my mom. Not just my lovely wavy hair but my desire to always put my children (child) first, my instinct to go to my child when he needs me, my ability to throw together a good meal from almost anything (except bread. I will never be able to make a loaf or a bun anywhere close to my mom's. I've given up trying). From my mom I learned the value of a hard days work, the importance of an education, but that school isn't the only place to get it. That one should accept the family they have and give up wishing for the family they would have liked to have. To be proud of who you are and where you come from. I also learned how to make a mean cookie, to always be willing to try a new recipe and hey if it doesn't work, well know you know not to try that combination again.



My mom wasn't perfect. She had a temper, much like her daugher and like her daughter she sometimes doesn't know enough to let go of a grudge, but she does and moves on. sometimes she lost her temper with us, especially me. Often she would revert to what she knew or just couldn't deal with me, but she would get over it. I didn't understand her as a child, but as an adult I can relate all to well to what she did and why she did much of what she did. My mom like most mothers was a human being, one who had a life before me and one who had issues of her own to deal with.



My mom has lost everything she owned in a fire, not once but twice and yet she didn't quit, didn't stop, but kept on going.



She married and started a family at an age when many of her friends were raising teenagers, or becomming grandparents. And she did it with out whining or complaining, at least not where my brother or I could hear her.



Despite losing my father much to early, she managed to continue on, to make a life and live. She took over everything my dad left behind and took over all the bookkeeping of my dad's various investments, and sale of the farm and the rent of the land.



For the daugher of immigrants who only had an 8th grade education, she did better than many with ph.ds.



She has been there many times, when no one else was. She loves me even though I think half the time she doesn't have a clue where I came from. We don't see eye to eye on many things, and in some ways I think I am still rebeling, but in other ways, I am glad when somebody says I am like my mom.



I could do a lot lot worse.



I was not an easy kid to raise, and my mom put up with a lot. She doesn't understand me but she loves me anyway, accepts me and my brother for who we are, and doesn't try to force us to be the children she would have liked to have. It took her awhile to come to terms that she would never have the perfect children every mother dreams of, but she didn't let that stop her from being a mom.



That is a true mother in every sense of the word.



I don't say it enough, but despite everything. I love you mom!!