May is for …
i know that I am doing alright when conversations of Mother’s Day go on for a week or more and I realize one day that not once did i couple that thought with my own mother .. estranged for some 10 years now. (That’s more than five million minutes, cause you know I said it took me a while to remember, I didn’t say that I went HAM on the math once it crossed my mind.)
Each of my daughters have talked about stopping to see their grandmother on separate trips they are planning to that neck of the woods. I trust they will be welcomed with open arms and all of her love. Her absence has never been about not loving them, as much as her own illness and how her coping mechanisms didn’t coexist with our existence.
And as a decade of dust settles on the story of missing mom, I am present to how grateful I am for the last seven plus years that I have been sharing my life with the redneck who loves me. The only southern man I knew growing up was on a vinyl record. Mom was never much fond of my husbands, though I don’t think she was any fonder of any of the four men who took her hand. But I’m quite sure, she would not have approved of the Kentucky jack of all trades. The word uncouth comes to mind, because Mom was quick with her disdain of common. She hated my patchwork slip covers and never could understand why I didn’t wear designer clothes. Which is funny, because her Fitigues looked like they came from a second hand store.
No she wouldn’t care for any part of my life now. Not my multigen home filled with love and laughter. Not the fact that i don’t leave the house because I can’t cope with this illness at large. Not the over sexualized avatars and the virtual worlds that I call home. To be sure, there is so much of who I am that I would find it hard to freely be had she been with me back then. Now of course, I’m solid and sold on my choices and proud of the life I maintain.
And in truth there are many more facets of our diamond in the rough edges of a chronically ill life that she would simply adore .. like our cooking. Mom loves good vegetarian food, and gosh she loved butter. She would enjoy all of our meals, to be certain. She would also support our politics and have wonderful historical antidotes on feminism through her mid-century modern mind to add to the conversation. Mom would revel in her grandchildren, seeing herself no doubt in each of their proudest accomplishments. She would tell them they are doing amazing, everyday. Her great grandsons of course would make her well up in tears. She was always most wonderful with little babies and so very patient with my kids when they were toddlers. She would understand our physical pains, because she shares them and she’d encourage us all to do all we could do, but to balance that with moments of rest. She had spoon theory down before it was a thing.
Mom knows that I know that she loves me. That was how I was raised. I know that she knows that I love her too, because that is what we were all about regardless of distance time or space. On this mother’s day then, I get to embrace all of her gifts and share the best of them with my family. I am Mom, I am broken and it’s beautiful.
