Taking a break for Mother's Day

So today is Mother's Day.  This is the 7th year that I haven't celebrated Mother's Day with my mother.  It's hard to believe that it's been almost 8 1/2 years since she's been gone.  It's difficult not to be aware that Mother's Day is coming up, because EVERYBODY talks about it in the weeks leading up to it.  If you aren't a mother yourself, you have a mother who is alive, or you're married to a mother, or they're talking about it on TV or on the radio, and you just can't help yourself.  So it's hard to just pretend like it isn't on the radar screen, even when you want to because your mother isn't there to celebrate it with.

Maybe it's more difficult for me because I am not a mother.  Oh, I suppose I am a "mother" to my dog, but it's really not the same.  Mollie doesn't know it's Mother's Day, so I have to order the flowers for her to send to me.  Which mean nothing to her.  It makes me sad not to be able to stop by and wish my mother a Happy Mother's Day.

Mother's Day and Mother's birthday always came close to each other.  Mother's birthday is May 19, so we would often celebrate Mother's Day/Mother's Birthday and all get together one of those days, usually Mother's Day, to celebrate with her.  She didn't care about getting presents or anything, so we usually gave her cards.  And, being that we're competitive, we would always try to get the best card.  "Best" meaning the funniest or wackiest card.  One of those Shoebox cards that were so irreverent.

I've said before that my mother and I didn't have the close mother/daughter relationship that many of my friends have.  I don't think I ever considered my mother my friend, let alone my best friend.  She was not the first person I thought to talk to about man troubles or tell when I was "in love".  I didn't very often talk about the things that really mattered to me with my mother.  It wasn't that I didn't think she would care, but more because I didn't think she would understand or I thought that she would judge.

My mother was very black or white, right or wrong.  She seldom saw the shades of gray.  You were either with her or a'gin her, so to speak.  We argued a lot.  About friviolous things, like my hair or the length of a skirt or whether or not I would get my ears pierced.  And about more serious things, like who we voted for or racial prejudices.  It was hard for me to imagine living a life like my mother did or that she wanted me to live.  I didn't want to live at home until I got married.  I didn't want to be a teacher or a nurse.  I didn't want to wear my hair off my face or not wear makeup.  I didn't want to be my mother.

But these days when I consider this alternative - that my mother is gone forever - there are a lot of times when I wish she was still here to aggravate me and literally drive me up a wall.  She used to call me every day around the time I would normally get home from work.  If I was late, I had a message from her.  "I thought you'd be home by now."  I regret the fact that there were days when I didn't call her back.  We didn't usually have anything to say.  In fact, she would even say "I don't know anything, I just wanted to say hey."  I told her once that she didn't need to call and she said "I know, but I want to."  At the time, I thought she did it because I wasn't married.  She didn't do it when I was married, just when I was single and living alone.  But I've come to realize that it was more than that.  She called me because she wanted me to know she loved me and that I wasn't alone.

I would go visit her on Sundays and there were many times when I would be anxious to leave and get on with life.  When I would get up to go, she would always say "I wish you wouldn't go."  And I realize now that she was lonely.  She was a widow and she didn't have someone to talk to all day long.  She was in a wheelchair and she couldn't just get up and do what she wanted.  And after I left, she was there in her apartment, all by herself with no one to talk to and nowhere else to go.  I might still not have stayed a lot longer, and I know she knew I had my own things to do and couldn't stay forever, but I think now I understand the poignancy in her tone when she said it.

I loved my mother, even when she made me crazy, even when she embarrassed me, even when we argued.  I told her every time I saw her that I loved her.  I spent time with her almost every week.  I know that she knew I loved her, but I wish that I had taken more time to show her that.  My mother was stubborn and I can be too, something we shared.  I wish we both had been able to give a little more.

When my mother was sick, I was always scared.  I don't always feel like I did enough, because seeing her helpless and in need was not the way I knew her.  When my mother got her last diagnosis - renal failure and vasculitis - I watched her disappear.  She withdrew from everyone and everybody.  She was unhappy at being on dialysis and the stress of it sucked the life out of her.  There were times when I went to visit her when she hardly said a word.  I remember going over to see her one day and she was sitting watching a football game on TV.  When I looked to see what she was watching, it was two teams she didn't even care about.  I asked her if she wanted me to change it and she said, very listlessly, "no, it's ok".  I cried all the way home that day.  The last time I saw her she was still in her bed waiting for the caregiver to come and get her up and into her wheelchair.  When the caregiver came, I sat in the living room and wept while I hear her plead, "please, Beverly, don't, Beverly, oh, Beverly, please don't".

I went out of town that week and when I got home I found out that my brothers had started talking about moving her to a nursing home.  And while I knew it was time, I knew she didn't want that.  And I knew she was ready to go, to be with my father and my grandparents.  So I prayed, that God would take her if it was time and I said to her silently that it was ok if she was ready, that we would understand.  And early that Sunday morning, she left us.  I remember thinking that when she made it to Heaven that Daddy was waiting and she looked just like she did when she met him in Germany - young and pretty and wide open.  The way I think she always saw herself in her mind.

That's the way I want to remember her too.  Young and pretty and ready for life, wherever that would take her.  Happy Mother's Day, Mother.  I miss you.  I love you.