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While on the subject of mothers

May 8, 2009 By pia

Mothers are usually wonderful people. At least to their families. My mother was perfect, not, but I loved her anyway and think of her many days.

My mother was five foot tall, barely, at her wedding and then again in the last few years weighed 80 pounds.

She was adult. She was mature. In my family you always knew who the mommy was. Though from an early age (mine) she treated me with the respect due a much older person. It’s the way I treat kids I know are hankering to be adult–and they love me even during difficult years, even when older I think in part because of that.

The last five or six years of my mother’s life were difficult. She was frail but her mind was sharp. Sometimes I wished that her mind was a little less….just so she would be less demanding though I knew she would probably be more demanding.

It’s funny to say that in “those days you didn’t talk about aging mothers,” when those days were from 96 to 01. I finished grad school in 96–geriatric social work and really people liked to talk more about dementia, or advanced directives, or basically anything than how to keep a mother independent and at home when she was for intensive purposes blind and frail.

She began only eating in front of my sister and I as table manners were paramount to her. It hurt so much to see an incredibly social person still want to be social but….

The thing was as long as my mother was in this world I knew somebody loved me unconditionally. I knew somebody thought me perfect. I was still the child, though a very adult one, and she was still the mother.

For Mother’s Day we used to give her White Shoulders cologne until she begged us to stop. Then one year she asked for it again. It wasn’t as easy to find. Then there was the Mother’s Day she told us to forget it. My father got real into that and she spoke to none of us for oh maybe eight hours.

My father’s last Mother’s Day he insisted we go to the Catskills to a resort none of us had seen in 20 years. It was fun. My father was healthy or so we and he thought. He just had a feeling and when we have feelings we act on them.

I hate Mother’s Day. People should honor their mothers all year round. We don’t need a Hallmark Holiday basically designed to make all women without children feel horrible.

This was the first time I liked the recession as there were fewer ads in the paper–I DVR everything I watch on TV so…..

But still there are many mother’s I personally like so Happy Mother’s Day.

Just remember I have a birthday in July and don’t get to celebrate Mother’s Day or anniversaries or….God this sounds like a fatal illness.

And I hate all the blogs that celebrate the wonders of mothers with free gifts etc. You can make an impact on a kid without being their mother. I’m not saying that mother’s aren’t the most important people as I think they’re priceless if they don’t impart all their issues onto their kids. Just that Mother’s Day is one day I prefer sleeping through. Neither having a kid nor a mother

Filed Under: Fiction, my parents Tagged With: adult children and mothers, adult daughters don't celebrate mother's day, childless women and mother's day, mother's day, my parents

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Comments

  1. Doug says

    May 8, 2009 at 3:21 pm

    Mothers are most often sanctimonious, self-centered, irrational panicrats but happy mothers day to all of them anyway. Once a year, it doesn’t hurt to behave like you think we always should.

  2. sage says

    May 8, 2009 at 10:35 pm

    Let’s make it “happy nurturer day!”

    “The thing was as long as my mother was in this world I knew somebody loved me unconditionally.”

    That’s such a gift and says wonderful things about your mother… I never had to question my mother’s love either, until a few years ago, which makes it harder when I realize that most times she no longer has any idea who I am.

  3. gautami tripathy says

    May 9, 2009 at 12:48 am

    Pia, somehow your post made me cry. I live with my mother. She is as demanding as anyone can be. Still she loves me unconditionally. No matter what. Despite fights. Warts and all. I too love her dearly.

    I am not a mother. But one doesn’t have to bear children to be one. I have always loved kids. As a teacher, more so. I too know many of my students truly love me. But on Mother’s day, I feel so left out and bereft. And unloved. Why?

  4. Pia savage says

    May 10, 2009 at 9:44 am

    Doug you is a cynic 🙂 but I still adore you

    Sage I’m so sorry but I think the couple of years before were leading up to dementia

    Gautami I didn’t mean for anybody to cry. But yes, not being a mother is only discussed in terms of infertility which isn’t the point at all

  5. Meg says

    May 10, 2009 at 12:15 pm

    It is true, when we lose our mothers we lose our biggest fans. Today, regardless of the arbitrary designation it has been given, know that I am one of the biggest of your many fans.

  6. Bone says

    May 12, 2009 at 10:18 am

    My favorite lines: “He just had a feeling and when we have feelings we act on them.”

    Also the line Sage quoted. Well, that whole paragraph really.

    I always was under the impression my mother loved me unconditionally. Until I shaved my head 🙂

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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