Today is my deceased mother's birthday. For thirty-one years I have not have to buy her a card, worry about what present to get her, or attend another stressful family birthday event. Yet, not a year has passed since her demise that I do not remember her on her birthday.
My mother was a very pretty French, Irish, English Scorpio with the trademark dark hair and dark eyes. She also had the Scorpio sexual allure-she had six children. There is no doubt my mother chose a hard life for herself. At eighteen she eloped with my twenty-seven year old father who then was shipped overseas in World War II. For four years she did not see him. Because he had married her against his parents wishes, he ran away once he returned from World War II to Council Bluffs, Iowa, for a period of time where no one seems to know what he did there. My mother never spoke of this; I learned about this incident from another relative years later. It must of been crushing to wait all those years and then have your veteran husband disappear. The only consolation she had was living with her parents, her sister, Betty, and my cousin.
About a year later, my father returned along with the beginning of my family. My mother became pregnant with my sister, Kathy, and post WWII life resumed. Within a span of five years, my mother had four children. I was the baby of the family. Fortunately for her, her parents, sister, and my cousin, moved upstairs from us in our duplex to help out. It was truly a European-style family. Then, after ten years, my mother got pregnant with my sister followed by my brother three years later. Though she loved my younger brother and sister, those years took the most toll on her. Just as she had a glimpse of a life without child rearing, she knew she would go into her older life saddled with teenagers. My mother told me years later, never to have children late in life (she was 39 and 42 years old when my youngest siblings were born.)
Growing up in a large mixed WASP/Polish amalgamation presented itself with constant strife. It was not just only the difference in cultures but the difference in religions. My father was a staunch Catholic and my mother and her family were less than tepid Presbyterians. Because of my father, we lived in a Polish neighborhood near his parents (who hated my mother), were raised Catholic, and we were identified with the Polish culture. Looking back on it, I can't imagine how much it must have affected her to never have anything for herself. Her life was solely about her children and living in a culture which was about my father. No one ever looked past her being a mother of six children living as a stranger in a strange land.
My mother was an intelligent and articulate woman with a high school education. She read constantly. My love of reading came from her. Had she been born in another era, I suspect she would have had gone on to college and had some sort of career. Instead, she spent her life living less than her potential. But that was the norm for women of that time. Like many women of that era, she was limited in her options to contribute more purposefully. This reinforced her underlying anxiety disorder for which Librium acted as a somewhat effective straight jacket. But it also drove her anger and depression deeper as it lulled her into a sad acceptance that her fate was sealed.
There are many things I am grateful my mother nurtured in me. She passed to me her phenomenal ability to articulate and do so under stressful conditions like legal testimony. Every week she took me to the library fostering a life long love of reading. But she also had great empathy and was always willing to help others. Because she was an especially good mother with small children, I have a fondness for babies (which is something because I am childless). She had a great sense of humor and loved to laugh. Everyone liked my mother-she was a good daughter, a supportive sister, a perfunctory wife, an excellent friend, and a good woman.
For decades now I have lived without a mother. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to have her for a few more years. I would have liked her to see how successful my life has been. I would have liked her to have seen her grandchildren. I would have liked to have spent more time with her. Even after all these years I miss her.
I once had a psychic tell me a dark haired woman named Shirley was always around me. No kidding, this actually happened without me giving out any information on my mother. There is something comforting to me knowing she is still around me.
Happy Birthday, Ma!
No comments:
Post a Comment