My Mother

I spent the day with my mother today. We were working on cleaning up at my grandfather's house. This has been an ongoing project since my grandmother passed away in January. It's been slow going and at times extremely trying. In working through things and separating them into three piles, keep, donate, or throw away my thoughts turned to the women who have raised, and are still raising me. Tonight I am going to talk about my mother.

She was 22 when she had me. I am her second child, and her only daughter. I love my mother, and we have spent almost all of our time together as close friends. I only remember two times in my life in which we weren't what I would consider close friends. Once was when I was about 13 and I felt like no matter what I did she simply did not understand me. I spent about a year being very close to my father and avoiding my mother all together. I also spent quite a bit of time with my grandmother at that time in my life. The second time was when I left home and moved to Salt Lake City with my fiance'. Both my mother and I had difficulty navigating the transition into adulthood.

I have vivid memories of her coming to take me out of high school classes so we could go into Twin and pick out  couple movies, grab some junk food and spend the day watching movies together. By that time all of my brothers were either in school or had left home so when she got lonely or bored we hung out together. I remember one time I had a monumental crush on a boy and he chose to date one of my friends and I had my heart broken. As I sat in the kitchen I grew up in sobbing she put on Harry Nisson's "Without You" and told me about her heartbreaks when she was growing up. After I become engaged at 19 years old she shared with me her stories of being married too young to a man she didn't know well enough to stay married to for more than a few years. Her stories were a great lesson to me. I married my fiance' but only after 3 years, and I was sure that I wanted to spend my life with him. We shared heartbreak together when her grandmother, my great-grandmother died when I was 16. She was a fierce mother bear when a sexual predator was pursuing me at 16, and again when a boy who had a crush on me followed me home on several occasions. We shared fear when my brother was in a terrible car accident and broke his arm really bad and had medical struggles for over a year getting it fixed when I was 17. We shared heartbreak again when that same brother, her third son, died. And we shared heartbreak once more when her mother passed away after spending five years slowly losing her memories to dementia or Alzheimer's (we weren't sure which it was as it went undiagnosed). There are so many other memories I could share about my mother. She taught me so much in this life and continues to teach me. She taught me how to stand up for myself, she taught me how to forgive those who had hurt me, or had wronged me. She taught me how to take care of myself, and how to rely on myself to get things done. She taught me how to have confidence in myself, and to not be afraid to be my own person. Not wanting to hurt her has shaped how I conduct myself, what I wear, and how I spend my free time. She gave me a good work ethic, she showed me how to love a child in the face of adversity. She's been a voice of reason in times of irrationality. She has driven me crazy with some of her ideas and even her fears for the future. I've gone through personal torment when I felt like she didn't want me around. I've worried about her health, her mind and her heart over the past few months. I can say with all honesty and sincerity that my mother is my best friend. I'm sure I don't tell her enough how much she means to me, but I now declare to the world that she means the world to me, and I'm proud to say that in many ways...I'm just like my mom.