Happy Mother's Day

Today is Mother's day, and I hope that everyone takes advantage of taking their Mothers out, or getting her a card, or just calling her and telling her that you love her....but do something.

Today is a bitter sweet day for me. I Iost my mom when I was 12 years old, and I have missed her every single day since then. The sad part is, when you are 12 and your Mom leaves your life, you start to forget her as you get older. Oh, you see pictures of her, and you remember that is your mom, but you don't remember what she sounds like, what she smells like, her facial expressions that just a Mom makes...you know, "the look"...I have forgotten that now, and it makes me so sad.

I can never tell my Mom how sorry I am for the crazy things that a normal 12 year old does, and the things that a not so normal 12 year old does.

My Mom was sick, but I didn't realize just how sick she was, not that would forgive what I was doing. I had started smoking pot when I was 10 years old. I was writing my little school notes to my friends because I thought it was so cool that I was stoned after school, or that I was staying the night with my best friend and we were staying up late, getting stoned and watching Edgar Allen Poe movies on Friday night. My best friends Mom drank Vodka, so of course I was sneaking her vodka as well. This went on for a year before my Mom and Dad found one of my "Cool" notes, and decided to search my room.

I stood next to them, screaming how unfair it was, how they were invaiding my privacy, crying, putting on a great show...and the favorite.."it's only pot"! They found a dozen or so letters telling the stories of us camping in the backyard, sleep overs, etc....all about us getting high. My parents knew nothing about drugs, and knew even less about what to do with a 11 yr. old that used them. My poor Mother, sitting on the floor, letters covering her lap, crying, asking why her baby would use drugs. Why is it THAT memory one I can remember??

I did my plea that I would never do it again. They believed me. All was good for awhile. No, I didn't stop, I was just careful about putting things in writing....it never dawned on me my father would follow me, and watch me get high through the window of my best friends house. Horrified, humiliated, I took off running. Wow, you think your parent is old. This man could run, and run fast he did. I was barefoot, and we lived in the country, and I hit a stump in the dirt and broke my toes. I kept running but he caught me. He had me put on a nightgown, and he whipped me, and whipped me, until he couldn't whip me any longer. It's not the pain I remember...it's my Mom's crying in the next room and her begging my father to stop. That is what I remember. Did I stop smoking pot, and by now, doing other drugs and drinking more? Sad to admit, Nope!

My mother died a few months later. I was sitting on the bathroom sink blowdrying my hair, and in the mirror, I watched my father, both sets of grandparents walk in. Mom was supposed to come home. See, she went to the hospital about a week or so before. They couldn't tell she'd had a heart attack because like me, and my sisters, she didn't test positive for the blood work for having a heart attack...nothing came up positive, so they were taking to the floor where they put people who needed their gallbladders out...then something showed on ther EKG, and they realized something must be wrong, so they waited. She was 35! Then she died.

I could tell by looking at their faces she was gone. No one ever told me, they all just wanted to hug me, and then they all started crying, and crying, and talking like I wasn't there, about sending me to the Sisters and letting me go to school with the church.

I went to my sisters and held on to them, not wanting to be sent away to school. I told the middle one of us, that I never got to tell Mom I was sorry for what I had done, and maybe she had a heart attack because of me and what I had been doing. She kept telling me it wasn't me. My sisters promised me that they wouldn't leave me....they both have since gone.

So, the moral of this story is. Back then, no mother ever died of a heart attack at age 35. Life is so very short, and you never know when someone you love so dearly is going to be gone. Don't let some little fight that doesn't mean a thing come between you, because you could wake up the next morning, and not be able to say you are sorry! NEVER be able to say you are sorry. This is something that you carry with all your life, and wow, talk about the hardest thing to forgive yourself for.

Happy Mother's Day!! To the new Mothers, Old Mothers, GrandMothers...ALL Mothers. Celebrate them, Love them, Most of all, forgive them, because you will miss them when they are gone! So, when you go out to eat today, look across that table and count all your blessings that you CAN still look into her eyes and tell her....I LOVE YOU!