My best memory of Mom happened over a two week or so span about 40 or so years ago. I was hospitalized for a long time and the way that I remember it, my mom came to visit me every single day that I was hospitalized. We would be seated next to each other at a table. No words were ever spoken and no touching took place either. She would stay with me for about half an hour or so each visit and we would just hang next to each other.
I treasure those memories. My mom and I have had a very rocky relationship for as long as I can remember but her visiting me while I was in the hospital was definitely as good as it ever got. I’m just happy to have that one happy memory of my mom.
Mom is still alive. She has dementia and lives in a nursing home nearby where my older sister lives but maybe a two and a half drive from where I live.
My Mother died when I was 11. I remember standing next her seated at a sewing machine. I’m not sure what she was sewing but I was fascinated by it. I also remember her teaching my older sister to make cookies as I sat coloring in the kitchen floor. Pleasant memories. I have horrible memories of her being sick and dying. I push those back and think about the good ones.
My Mom is still alive and kicking at 83, and doing volunteer work that is basically a full-time job.
She and I have had our issues, but there is no question that she gets me in a way that no one else does, as illustrated by my favorite story about her.
We had gone to a department store to shop for clothing. On the way in, I stopped at a table that was piled high with dozens of little gift boxes, each one containing a different piece of costume jewelry. Since I am always attracted to shiny baubles, I started looking through all of them. Eventually I spotted a little 1-inch enamel pin with blue and green crystals in the shape of a bird. I held it up to show my Mom, saying something like “Isn’t this pretty?”
My Mom responded, “Yes, I bought it for you.”
I was confused, pointing out that I’d only just shown it to her, and there was no way that she could have already bought it.
She said matter-of-factly, “I saw it last week and got it for you. It’s at home in my closet. I was planning to give it to you for your birthday or the holidays.”
I still wasn’t quite sure if she was teasing me, but when we got home, she went straight to her closet and pulled out my little bird pin. It’s been at least 20 years, but I still wear that pin sometimes and think of how my Mom chose it from all the little boxes knowing that it would be the one I wanted.
I have a few other great memories of my Mom’s brilliant intuition, but none that are so personal to me.
I have so many that it’s hard to choose. One selection follows.
Some years ago my mom and I had made a trip to a nearby town for shopping. We drove home, and as we pulled up to one intersection, where a Burger King was located, I asked her to stop, I really needed to go NOW. So I bopped on in and while in the bathroom the first of several kidney stone attacks began. She took me home and I turned down a ride to the ER. She left, and I realized I’d been stupide. Called her back and she spent hours in the ER with me. She was an RN so this doesn’t phase her. When I was diagnosed, and they made mention of a urologist to hook me up with my mom knew the guy, and said “No, you are not going to him!” I was weak and pliable, and said “Maybe we should do as they suggest” and she turned to me and said No! Not him!" Turns out she knew the guy from when he worked at KNI, a home for mentally retarded kids, and while he was competent he was too brusque, not thinking he needed to waste beside manner on them.
I’ll always remember how firm my mom was, in trying to take care of me.
My mom is 79 now and really starting to show her age. It’s hard to see. She was a young mom in a lot of ways. She was 20 when she and my dad were married and just shy of her 21st birthday when I was born. Most of my friends’ moms were 10 years older than my mom. She was the cool mom that dressed fashionably and always looked beautiful when she left the house. I was always proud of my mom when we were out together. That’s one of the things my sisters and I all learned from her. You’ll never see any of us looking frumpy and/or dumpy. She had a great record collection and would have the stereo turned up so loud that we could hear the music down the street when we got off the school bus. To this day when I hear Bus Stop, On a Carousel or Look Through Any Window by the Hollies I’m immediately taken back in time to when I was in elementary school. It’s a warm spring day, I’m coming up the hill from the school bus, our house windows are open and the music is blasting out. When I was older, she’d stay up late with me on Friday and Saturday nights. We’d watch The Midnight Special, Fridays and SNL together. We’d play cards, eat snacks, talk and laugh. She was/is a great mom.
My mom died in 2011. My best memory of her is from when I was around 9-11, back in the mid-Seventies. I collected Harvey comics (Richie Rich, Little Dot, Casper, etc.) and every Tuesday when they came out, she’d go down to the local drug store and buy me whatever came out that week (there were a *lot *of Harveys back then–Richie Rich alone had around 20 distinct titles).
We had a little ritual - I’d get home from school and ask her, “Any little surprises today?” She’d smile and reply something noncommittal (“Oh, I don’t know…”) and then I’d run down the hall to my bedroom and find my fresh batch spread out on my bed.
I am sure that I have talked about this here before, but here it is:
One hot summer night my Mom and I caught a bus to go downtown. We ate at a Chinese restaurant (for any Omaha people, it was King Fong’s on 16th street) We went to the Orpheum Theater and saw a movie. We caught a bus back to our neighborhood and stopped at an ice cream place (Goodrich’s) and got a cone to eat as we walked home from the bus stop. I got pistachio because it sounded so exotic. I remember this night like it was last week. The Movie we saw was “The Music Man” and it was 57 years ago. For this who have seen the movie, Ronnie Howard and I are the same age…
Mom passed away on 10.01.2000. I miss her every day.
After my Mom died when I was 11, me and my 6 sibs all clung to Daddy like a lifeline. He became Mom and Dad to us. So much so he used to quip he got more Mothers day cards than Fathers day cards.
So my favorite Daddy/Mom memory is going fishing with him, ALONE. A rare event with so many sibs. But no one else wanted to get up so early. I loved it everytime we went. I found out I had a lone voice that made some sense as opposed to group-speak with all the other kids. And he spent time listening to my silly issues and gave great advice. As he did the rest of his life. I didn’t always follow his advice, and soon realized he was right most of the time. Miss that man. Everyday I think, “oh, I’ll tell Daddy that”, after nearly 6 years. I have grieved til I made myself just shutdown. It was a long hard climb out of the depths. I’m not completely out yet, but I’m better.
Momma died in 1998. Daddy died ten years later, in 2008. We’re coming up to the time of year when we lost both of them, and I always get nostalgic.
Fall season means the approaching holidays, and Thanksgiving means Momma. The first Thanksgiving after she died, we had all gathered at my sister’s house, and my sister tasked me with the gravy. Momma was a Gravy Goddess, and both my sister and I skipped over that gene. I panicked at first, then slowed my breathing, shut out the rest of the world, and made the best damned gravy in the world. Momma was standing over my shoulder the whole time. “Don’t be in such a hurry. Don’t rush things. It takes time. Stand there and stir.”
One holiday memory stands out above all. Thanksgiving again, and I remember Momma getting up early-early-early, because there was always so much to do. She made the best dressing–some of you call it stuffing, but Momma called it dressing. She chopped acres of celery and onion, and my memory is of her hands smelling like celery and onion for the rest of the day.
My kids and their families will join us this year for Thanksgiving at our house in AZ. It will be chaos, for my kitchen really can’t accommodate two people, and the dining area is small. I will chop acres of celery and onions, and I might even make gravy.
Whew! VOW, your memories sparked a lot if good memories of my grandparents. Their family life centered on and revolved around the kitchen.
Ok, so my mom, she’s still alive and just as Mom as she’s ever been for the most part. There are three memories though, widely spaced in years but all intimately connected emotionally.
When I told my family I had joined the army, my mom slapped me across the face and chewed me out, she’d already lost one son to the army just ten years prior, how could I put her in the position of constant fear that she was going to have to bury another one. A few years later when I was debating re-inlisting or getting out, she told me to stay in, the local economy wasn’t good then. Move up to 2011, the Mrs, has been deployed to Iraq for a year and is due home the next day. Mom calls me, tells me I damn well BETTER have a bouquet of roses for her when she walks off the plane. The next day, the whole family is there to greet my wife, but Mom isn’t there. I asked Dad where she was and his cryptic reply was, she’s coming. Just as the soldiers started coming down the steps off the planes Mom walks up with 50 yellow roses to go with the dozen red roses I’d brought. It was both her welcoming her daughter (in-law) home from the middle east, and a way to be able to welcome my brother, who didn’t make it home from the middle east. 25 roses were for her, and 25 roses were given to her in place of my brother, 1 for each year since his death. It was some form of closure for her when my wife walked off the plane healthy and whole.
My mother coming home from the grocery store and surprising me with Mary Stewart’s book The Last Enchantment. It had just been released (in paperback, anyhow) and she knew I’d been hoping it would be released soon.
My mom had completed her chemotherapy and was feeling great. She asked my sister to plan a dinner with all of her children, their spouses, and her grandchildren together. When my sister contacted us about meeting at a pizza place that was mostly takeout, but had a few tables, I intervened.
I spoke with a friend who owned a nice restaurant and told her the details. She set up a special table with decorations, toys for the kids, party hats, etc and served us a wonderful meal. My mom was overwhelmed by what turned out to be her last night out. In two weeks there was progression of her cancer and she died a very short time later.