This year, thus far, has been full of angst for me and for many people I know. Several people that I work closely with have lost their parents just since the beginning of the year, so really, my angst is just superficial at best in comparison. When I talked with one of my co-workers about how many people we know that were experiencing this, he said it's because we are getting older and it just happens. I think he just called me old. I mean, I am getting up there, but still. I guess I am beyond the age of wearing glittery eye-shadow and sporting the cat-eye look. And, even if I wasn't old, anyone can experience a loss at any time. Life is not fair in that respect. When our time is up, it's up. It's like all those meme's on Pinterest and Facebook that say how tomorrow isn't promised (which, as you know, pisses me off). It made me think about my parents. I've already lost my Dad, but I can't even comprehend losing my Mom. And so it goes, I have some things to say...just in case.
My Mom is amazing. She is my best friend in life, really. She is a great part of who I am today. When I think about my childhood and all the time in between that brings me to today, the influence she has had in my life is incomparable to anyone or anything else. She has always been there. Always. She has never been cruel, judgmental or selfish. She has supported everything I have ever wanted. She is the dreamer. She is the one that says everything is going to work out. It's going to be okay. She knows it, she believes it. She stayed in a difficult marriage with my Dad all those years and yet, she always believed it was for the best and that things would be okay in the end. I don't know how she did it. I don't know what driving force inside her kept her positive. To this day, I still can't comprehend it, but a part of me relies on that piece of her to keep me sane. A part of me wants to believe it will be okay. And some days, I do believe it.
As most of you know, I have always been a big girl, from the start. My Mom never shamed me, never made me feel limited in my abilities. She quietly took me to the doctor to have tests run, or supported my weight-loss efforts as I got older, but she never allowed me to feel bad about it. We never really figured it out, but she was there to listen or witness the crying from the cruelty of others. We just kept moving forward. Even as an adult, she was there to help when I had my weight-loss surgery. She was scared for me, but she supported it because she knew it was what I wanted. She knew it would be okay.
She encouraged my love of the horses and allowed me the freedom to experience a lot of different things with them. They were my savior from the depression, they were my everything. As I got old enough to go to horse shows, she took me and my friends. She created a 4-H group for us all and found a way to get us to the fair every year. As an adult, I look at all the financial burdens I have and I think I can't make it and I worry so much. When I was a child, my Mom made sure if I wanted to go to a horse show, we went. How did she afford that? We were essentially poor. I mean, we had a horse farm, Dad worked and Mom had the horse breeding business and sold them as well. But we didn't have money. I had what I needed, food on the table, clothes on my back, but we did not have "extra" money, we barely scraped by. How did she do it? How? I never questioned it much growing up. I mean, I knew, on some level, that money was tight, but now, trying to pay the rent, pay the PUD, pay the phone, pay for food, pay for insurance and all the things that come with being an adult, how in the hell did she do it? It will always be a mystery to me, but God bless her for making my childhood full of wonderful memories when there was plenty of darkness.
And, I would go to those horse shows with horses that we raised and that I trained myself. I wore clothes that I bought with money I made from training other people's horses. They weren't fancy. They didn't make clothes in fat girl sizes that were fancy. We would go to those shows and all the kids with the fancy horses and the fancy saddles and outfits would snub me. I would be so sad and my Mom would say, "Their parents bought them that win. You've done all the work yourself, it will mean more when you do well because you did that. You love your horse, they love what the horse will do for them." And we went on. We went to show after show because we wanted to and because we belonged, in our own way.
I was also in band while growing up. That woman took me to every band concert. There she was in the audience, usually by herself because Dad didn't go. She made friends wherever she went. As a kid I would cringe wondering what embarrassing tale I would hear on the ride home. She would sit out there and chit chat with anyone. She's friendly like that. She would sing her heart out at the Christmas concert. She came to the plays I was in during high school. Didn't matter how long her day was, there she was to take me where I needed to go.
As I got to be a teen-ager, we'd go to the grocery store and Mom would go in and I would wait in the truck. She would find the cutest box boy and have him help her out to the truck with the groceries. She was so proud of herself. She'd come trotting out in her little princess shoes (just flats, but she wore them everywhere). Meanwhile, I'm sitting there in my barn boots and stinky horse clothes dying a thousand deaths. She would get that smile that she gets, that one where her lips are super tight and she is suppressing the biggest laugh ever. She enjoyed doing that to me. Ever-hopeful that some day I would find a boyfriend, I think. She had all kinds of boyfriends in school and went to parties. Not me, I went out to the barn. Boys didn't like fat girls, but she always told me it wasn't true and kept on trying.
I stayed at home for a long time after graduating college and some of the best times we spent were in the evening after Dad went to bed just hanging out. My Mom, my sister and myself would watch our favorite TV shows and there was one that made me laugh the most. The show was called Sex Talk with Sue. We would laugh so hard because it is this older woman taking all these calls from the audience about sex and explaining how sex toys worked. It wasn't like porn or anything, just no holds barred straight talk. Anything about sex. Mom was pretty sheltered in her upbringing and then had been married all these years, so much of this was foreign for her. Not everyone can sit up and watch a sex show with their Mom, but we were all comfortable like that. Whatever it was, we could talk about it.
When the day came that I did finally move out, it was the hardest thing I had ever done. We both cried. I still can't think about that day without crying. I remember it vividly. I needed to do it, we both knew, but it was the beginning to the end of the constant companionship. It was leaving my Mom alone with my Dad who was fighting demons that none of us could help him with. It was separating myself. It hurt.
People always thought my Dad was the strong one and my Mom the weak one. While my Dad was a larger than life force to be reckoned with and I learned a lot from him, my Mom was the strong one. To be married to that man for just over 40 years and to be there for him through his illness and eventual death and to come out on the other side still believing that everything is going to be okay, that's strength. To be able to give of herself to her children, not just me, but also my brother and sister, to the point where she would go without, that's love. To this day, she still would do anything for her children, and does. I can't speak for my siblings, but it amazes me. And I know she gets it from her Mom. My grandmother is that way, too. So giving, so feisty, but in a way you don't see right away. The strength lies within.
My Mom has that "thing" that I can't explain to you, but it is that "thing" that makes perfect strangers in a line at the grocery store open up and tell her their life stories. That thing that makes people tell her their darkest secrets. She doesn't ask for it to happen, people just open up to her. She is a kind soul and I think people sense that. Do you know I have never been able to get my Mom to say the word, "Fuck?" I've tried. I've told her that it is so freeing and therapeutic, but she won't do it. She'll say other cuss words, but not that one. She doesn't believe God wants her to say that, nor any of the nuns that scared the bejezzus out of her as a child. I just pray God finds his way to forgive me, because I've said it a few times now. I mean, who's counting, right?
I'd like to think, if I would have had children that I would have been a good Mom, but I don't think I could have been as good as my Mom. We'll never know, but I like to believe that I got my strength from both my parents and that will be enough to get me through this life. Even when I think I've had enough, that inner fighter always pulls me through. It pulls me through as it must have pulled my Mom through a million times over.
If tomorrow never came and I never got a chance to say all those things, it would be the biggest regret of my life. No other regret could compare to my Mom not knowing how important she was, how important she is and that she is the most important person in my life. The words, "I love you, Mom" just don't seem adequate, but they are all I have to give.
I love you, Mom.
My Mom is amazing. She is my best friend in life, really. She is a great part of who I am today. When I think about my childhood and all the time in between that brings me to today, the influence she has had in my life is incomparable to anyone or anything else. She has always been there. Always. She has never been cruel, judgmental or selfish. She has supported everything I have ever wanted. She is the dreamer. She is the one that says everything is going to work out. It's going to be okay. She knows it, she believes it. She stayed in a difficult marriage with my Dad all those years and yet, she always believed it was for the best and that things would be okay in the end. I don't know how she did it. I don't know what driving force inside her kept her positive. To this day, I still can't comprehend it, but a part of me relies on that piece of her to keep me sane. A part of me wants to believe it will be okay. And some days, I do believe it.
As most of you know, I have always been a big girl, from the start. My Mom never shamed me, never made me feel limited in my abilities. She quietly took me to the doctor to have tests run, or supported my weight-loss efforts as I got older, but she never allowed me to feel bad about it. We never really figured it out, but she was there to listen or witness the crying from the cruelty of others. We just kept moving forward. Even as an adult, she was there to help when I had my weight-loss surgery. She was scared for me, but she supported it because she knew it was what I wanted. She knew it would be okay.
She encouraged my love of the horses and allowed me the freedom to experience a lot of different things with them. They were my savior from the depression, they were my everything. As I got old enough to go to horse shows, she took me and my friends. She created a 4-H group for us all and found a way to get us to the fair every year. As an adult, I look at all the financial burdens I have and I think I can't make it and I worry so much. When I was a child, my Mom made sure if I wanted to go to a horse show, we went. How did she afford that? We were essentially poor. I mean, we had a horse farm, Dad worked and Mom had the horse breeding business and sold them as well. But we didn't have money. I had what I needed, food on the table, clothes on my back, but we did not have "extra" money, we barely scraped by. How did she do it? How? I never questioned it much growing up. I mean, I knew, on some level, that money was tight, but now, trying to pay the rent, pay the PUD, pay the phone, pay for food, pay for insurance and all the things that come with being an adult, how in the hell did she do it? It will always be a mystery to me, but God bless her for making my childhood full of wonderful memories when there was plenty of darkness.
And, I would go to those horse shows with horses that we raised and that I trained myself. I wore clothes that I bought with money I made from training other people's horses. They weren't fancy. They didn't make clothes in fat girl sizes that were fancy. We would go to those shows and all the kids with the fancy horses and the fancy saddles and outfits would snub me. I would be so sad and my Mom would say, "Their parents bought them that win. You've done all the work yourself, it will mean more when you do well because you did that. You love your horse, they love what the horse will do for them." And we went on. We went to show after show because we wanted to and because we belonged, in our own way.
I was also in band while growing up. That woman took me to every band concert. There she was in the audience, usually by herself because Dad didn't go. She made friends wherever she went. As a kid I would cringe wondering what embarrassing tale I would hear on the ride home. She would sit out there and chit chat with anyone. She's friendly like that. She would sing her heart out at the Christmas concert. She came to the plays I was in during high school. Didn't matter how long her day was, there she was to take me where I needed to go.
As I got to be a teen-ager, we'd go to the grocery store and Mom would go in and I would wait in the truck. She would find the cutest box boy and have him help her out to the truck with the groceries. She was so proud of herself. She'd come trotting out in her little princess shoes (just flats, but she wore them everywhere). Meanwhile, I'm sitting there in my barn boots and stinky horse clothes dying a thousand deaths. She would get that smile that she gets, that one where her lips are super tight and she is suppressing the biggest laugh ever. She enjoyed doing that to me. Ever-hopeful that some day I would find a boyfriend, I think. She had all kinds of boyfriends in school and went to parties. Not me, I went out to the barn. Boys didn't like fat girls, but she always told me it wasn't true and kept on trying.
I stayed at home for a long time after graduating college and some of the best times we spent were in the evening after Dad went to bed just hanging out. My Mom, my sister and myself would watch our favorite TV shows and there was one that made me laugh the most. The show was called Sex Talk with Sue. We would laugh so hard because it is this older woman taking all these calls from the audience about sex and explaining how sex toys worked. It wasn't like porn or anything, just no holds barred straight talk. Anything about sex. Mom was pretty sheltered in her upbringing and then had been married all these years, so much of this was foreign for her. Not everyone can sit up and watch a sex show with their Mom, but we were all comfortable like that. Whatever it was, we could talk about it.
When the day came that I did finally move out, it was the hardest thing I had ever done. We both cried. I still can't think about that day without crying. I remember it vividly. I needed to do it, we both knew, but it was the beginning to the end of the constant companionship. It was leaving my Mom alone with my Dad who was fighting demons that none of us could help him with. It was separating myself. It hurt.
People always thought my Dad was the strong one and my Mom the weak one. While my Dad was a larger than life force to be reckoned with and I learned a lot from him, my Mom was the strong one. To be married to that man for just over 40 years and to be there for him through his illness and eventual death and to come out on the other side still believing that everything is going to be okay, that's strength. To be able to give of herself to her children, not just me, but also my brother and sister, to the point where she would go without, that's love. To this day, she still would do anything for her children, and does. I can't speak for my siblings, but it amazes me. And I know she gets it from her Mom. My grandmother is that way, too. So giving, so feisty, but in a way you don't see right away. The strength lies within.
My Mom has that "thing" that I can't explain to you, but it is that "thing" that makes perfect strangers in a line at the grocery store open up and tell her their life stories. That thing that makes people tell her their darkest secrets. She doesn't ask for it to happen, people just open up to her. She is a kind soul and I think people sense that. Do you know I have never been able to get my Mom to say the word, "Fuck?" I've tried. I've told her that it is so freeing and therapeutic, but she won't do it. She'll say other cuss words, but not that one. She doesn't believe God wants her to say that, nor any of the nuns that scared the bejezzus out of her as a child. I just pray God finds his way to forgive me, because I've said it a few times now. I mean, who's counting, right?
I'd like to think, if I would have had children that I would have been a good Mom, but I don't think I could have been as good as my Mom. We'll never know, but I like to believe that I got my strength from both my parents and that will be enough to get me through this life. Even when I think I've had enough, that inner fighter always pulls me through. It pulls me through as it must have pulled my Mom through a million times over.
If tomorrow never came and I never got a chance to say all those things, it would be the biggest regret of my life. No other regret could compare to my Mom not knowing how important she was, how important she is and that she is the most important person in my life. The words, "I love you, Mom" just don't seem adequate, but they are all I have to give.
I love you, Mom.
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