Eighteen years ago tonight, my Mom passed away from multi-organ failure after a long struggle with diabetes. I didn't make it downtown in time to say goodbye. She was gone by the time I reached the house, having been directed to go to the ER and not finding her there. I was disappointed I wasn't there at the end, but I had seen her mid-morning the day before just before she was released from the hospital. I was sitting in the room when her longtime primary care doctor came into the room. It still amazes me that they shook hands and had a brief conversation in which he thanked her for being a wonderful patient and she thanked him for being a good doctor. They said goodbye to one another, he nodded to me and then left the room. Despite morphine induced paranoia and wild rantings and statements, she was lucid right then at that time. She knew I was there. She asked if everything was ready at home, the hospital bed had been delivered, her oxygen was there. I said I was going over to double check, that I'd be sure everything was in place. She then said, I just want to go home and have peace and quiet for 24-hours. No visitors. I kissed her goodbye, told her I'd see her after she was rested, and left. That was the last time I saw her alive.
What I remember most about my mother was her generosity, her perseverance. She loved her family, and she truly cared about all people. Life threw a lot of hardballs at her. Some she dodged, some glanced off her, but some struck her hard enough to knock her on her butt. The thing about her was, she never complained. She got herself back up onto her feet and she kept moving forward.
She lost her own mother when she was only 13 years old. Her father worked in a mill. She had a five year old brother to look after. She finished high school. She went to nursing school. She graduated from Cooley Dickinson School of Nursing and immediately went to work at CHD as a night nursing supervisor. A year later she was married to Dad. The next year my big sister was born. Four years later I was born. Just over a year later my brother came along.
What a lot of people don't know is that my mother suffered at least nine miscarriages. Nine babies-gone. I don't know if there was one before Lynnmarie was born. It's possible. Then there was the four year gap between Lynnmarie and me. I think there must have been a few between us. Siblings lost. My brother came along 14 months after me. By the time she lost the final two, I was old enough to be aware that something was going on. I think I was in kindergarten when she lost her last baby and had a hysterectomy, against the wishes of the Catholic priest who told her that her duty was to have babies. She threw him out of her room after telling him that her duty was to raise the three living children she had at home, they needed their mother. That was when she broke with the Catholic church and we said goodbye to Immaculate Conception.
She stayed home and raised us as she recovered from her multiple surgeries. She had a lot to deal with- Dad finding a decent job after layoffs. He landed at Hamilton Standard when I was little and stayed there for 30 years, retiring a few years after John and I had given them a granddaughter. There were health crises with my sister, my great-grandmother, my brother falling on a glass while running in the hallway and badly cutting his wrist, her gallbladder surgery, Dad's kidney stones...she waded through it with her head up and steered the little ship called Family through rough seas to calm shores.
She went back to work as an RN. She became one of Massachusetts first Nurse Practitioners. She saw her own patients and they loved her. She welcomed all our various friends into our home and made them an extended part of our family. In high school, Lynnmarie, Jeffrey and I often looked at one another wondering just who our friends were coming to visit- us or Mom. Our house was always full of family, friends, cats and kittens, and occasionally a dog. There were always cookies or brownies, sodas in the fridge, games of Parcheesi or Scrabble at the kitchen table, puzzles to build.
We did fun things like go hiking in the fall with a big Thermos of hot chocolate, dressing up as hippies in the early 70's, picking up my Uncle, Aunt and cousin who had also dressed up, then taking Dad's VW microbus up to Mom's father's house. He hated hippies, would squirt dishwashing detergent out the car window at hippie hitchhikers...but he laughed when we all showed up on Halloween to trick him good. He even tried on Mom's wig, Lynnmarie's love beads, and strummed a guitar for a photo we all cherish to this day. On the way home, driving through downtown Northampton, we hung out the windows in out hippie gear tossing full size Hershey bars to people on the sidewalks.
We summered at Hampton Beach in a stone cottage right across the street from North Beach. College roommates and their boyfriends, friends, family...the door was always opening and closing as people came and went...and the dining room table that could seat at east twenty if not more was always crowded, food plentiful (Mom was half Italian and didn't know how to cook small!) People slept everywhere and patiently took turns in the one bathroom in the cottage. Family cats Wiggy and Poohsie vacationed with us.
We never wanted for anything although we were not rich by any means. I got a '62 VW beetle for my 16th birthday. It didn't run, but I didn't care. I hand-painted it enamel Chinese red. Dad got it running. It was a standard I couldn't drive. I hopped it up the street a few times then Dad sold it to a co-worker and I used the money to buy a '73 Ford Pinto, baby blue. It got me to college and back, although it was prone to developing vapor lock abut a mile from home...back in the days before cellphones.
Mom made us all happy. She made us laugh. She liked to have fun. She tried to learn to juggle. She tried roller sating. She water skied when she was young. She wanted to be a helicopter pilot and had met a man where she worked who was going to teach her, but she developed diabetic retinopathy and then double vision so flying was out.
She cherished her one and only grandchild, Kelly. After saying we weren't going to have kids, we decided to give it a try...After getting over the shock of our waking her up on a Saturday morning to tell them they were going to be grandparents, she jumped right into being a Grandma with both feet..basically becoming a big influence in Kelly's life. She was confined to her chair for the last few years of Kelly's life, but devised numerous story-based games to play with her. They had an entire world called the Tweets (long before Twitter), Steven Sparrow, Tweet, Little Tweet...Mom told stories, drew pictures and world built for Kelly, stretching her imagination, opening up vistas in her mind. They played Pet Vet treating every plush animal in the house, Mom writing chart notes and prescriptions Kelly would take to the pharmacy for Grandpa to fill with M&M's and jelly beans.
Mom was in the hospital when Kelly's training wheels came off and she rode a two-wheeler for the first time. We took a picture, printed out an 8X10 that a nurse hung on the bulletin board at the foot of Mom's bed.
She enriched our lives. She let us live our own lives, make our own way in the world. If we made mistakes, we had to deal with them ourselves, but she was always there if we went to her for advice, guidance. She didn't tell us what to do. We had to find our own way out of predicaments, but she was always there for us in the background. None of us ever moved home. None of us ever borrowed substantial amounts of money. I'd borrow maybe two hundred dollars from time to time, but always paid her back. She kept an account book, but more importantly, I kept my own account book of what was owed and made sure I paid her back with interest.
Mom lived life large and as fully as her health allowed. She was full of love and joy. She was generous to everyone. I learned a lot from her and have carried those lessons with me throughout my life. They have been passed down to Kelly. I'm thankful to have had her for my Mom for 42 years. She left a huge hole in my life when she departed, but I've been filling that hole with new friends, new experiences, no ventures. The one thing I am from being my mother's daughter is not one to sit on the sidelines and wait for life to happen. I jump in with both feet and make life happen all around me. That's what fills me with happiness and satisfaction. That's what's led me to writing books and drawing squirrels. This is what's inside of me, my way of expressing it and sharing it.
Thanks, Mom, for letting me be me, for never clipping my wings, for letting me make mistakes and find my own way forward, but for always having my back. Thanks for giving me everything I needed to be happy. When I look in the mirror, I see me, but it reminds me of you.
Love you always, Mom. Eighteen years gone, but you'll never be forgotten because you are still so very much alive in my heart and in my memories.
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