Memories of Mom: Happy Birthday, Mom!

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

Well, I don't have any one story to tell today; I've told you all the best that I can remember right now. Instead, I'll just sum up the day, provide a few vignettes, and maybe tell you just a little bit more about Mom.

I had therapy today. I took with me pictures of my mom and we talked about Mom and how I was feeling. I'm feeling kind of neutral, but I think that's a touch deceptive. I think there is more there than I am currently feeling. There's sadness underneath, which is to be expected. And I'm feeling a bit irritable and easily annoyed. But it was a good therapy session.

I have little pictures in my mind of my mom. When I was little and she was trying to play whiffle-ball with my little brother, me, and Dad. Unfortunately for my mom, there wasn't a sport she played where she didn't end up bending a finger back further than it was supposed to go. Frisbee, volleyball, even whiffle-ball with a couple of little kids.

When wigs were popular in the 70s, Mom had one that was in a tight perm and was kind of silvery blonde. We all called her "Fifi" when she wore it because she looked like a poodle, only she didn't realize it. Then she saw the pictures from the Halloween when my little brother wanted to be dressed up "like a hooker" and he and I used Mom's wig, among other things of hers. She never wore that wig again. Or the mini-dress that my brother wore with it.

Then she wore her blonde hair in a cut that, with her golden wire-framed glasses, made her look like John Denver. 

The thing was, my mother was a very pretty woman. She just made a few unfortunate hair choices. Like in the 60s when it was the style to bleach out your hair and put a pale rinse on it to make it some color of blonde. My mother thought "mauve" was a form of golden blonde. She had to go to a beauty parlor to get that fixed. 

Left alone, her hair was a perfectly nice blonde and she had light blue eyes. She was almost 5'5" (she claimed that 3/4 of an inch like it was a foot). When she was young, she had a petite bosom, leading the older male cousins on my father's side to call her "George." My mom was a better sport than I was: it didn't bother her at all, but I would light into any of my cousins who called her that.

When I was in high school, we moved from So. Cal. to a climate where it snowed in the winter. My mom was freezing all the time. So our first Christmas there, my dad bought her a grown-up's zip-up pajama with footies. In pink. She looked like a plush bunny rabbit in it.

Mom loved going to yard sales and holiday bazaars. She picked up a love of tea from me, as well as my love of teapots, cups & saucers, and all other things tea-related and she decorated her house with them in abundance.

For 14 years, she had a miniature dachshund that ruled the household. The dog kept her company for a year and a half after Mom's second husband died, before dying of kidney failure. After that, Mom asked Gram to move in with her. Mom was gentle and patient with her, far more than I could manage. They lived well together and had fun, and often the three of us had a lot of fun together. The last couple of years of Gram's life, she could barely hear what I said, due to the tone at which I speak and the fact that I am more soft-voiced than I realize. So I would speak to Gram, who would then turn to my mom to have her repeat what I said. Then Gram would respond to me. It was weird, but it worked.

When Mom turned 66, she suddenly colored her hair red (and let the stylist use whatever color of red she felt like each time she went to get her hair done) and bought a sporty red RAV4.

Mom was one of my favorite people to hang out with. She was good company, had a wicked sense of humor that only came out with people she knew very well, and she was generous with her wine. 

She didn't talk about the sad things in her past, possibly so as to not make other people uncomfortable. After she died and I was talking with some good family friends, I found out they didn't know I'd had a brother who died and they knew very little about her first husband, only that she'd been married twice and that both husbands had died.

The night before Mom died, we watched Project Runway and had chocolate ice cream. It was very unusual behavior for someone who was going to die that soon. We had fun watching the designers and dissing the ones we didn't like. She fell asleep before it ended.

Tonight, in honor of Mom and her birthday, I am having chocolate ice cream for dinner. It's becoming a tradition.

Miss you, Mom. Happy birthday!