Ghosts of my Mother

There are countless ways in which I strive to be as unlike my Mother as humanly possible-yet still her voice seems to come out of my mouth at the most inopportune times! I think though sometimes I need to remind myself of the ways I want to emulate her. I need to remember her with kindness. For all her flaws she was simply a woman. A woman who struggled with her choices, was not happy with her path, a woman who struggled with the demon of alcoholism, but a woman who loved me. The last coherent thing she said to me was that she loved me. It was the Christmas before she died. I was hosting my in laws and my sister's family and my parents stopped by unexpectedly. She had not been doing well at that time and going places in the car was difficult for her. She and my father had come to breakfast the day before on Christmas Eve and she'd had the very unfortunate experience of having an accident, at the breakfast table. I was horrified yet she didn't seem the least bit bothered by it. I suppose that was one of the gifts of her dementia, she lost the ability to control bodily functions at the same time she lost the ability to care. But I was left to clean up the mess in the bathroom and Rene had to go get a new dining chair from Dania-luckily they were open on Christmas Eve! I was not expecting to see them on Christmas Day and, I struggle to admit it, was not happy that they'd shown up after the Christmas Eve breakfast fiasco. This time I placed her on a folding chair so she would not ruin another dining chair. My sister and I sat with her talking with our father, she just watched. Eyes going from one speaker to the next with a faint smile. She seemed like she was enjoying the interaction. All of a sudden, completely out of the blue, she said "I love you Kris". I cherish that memory. My Mother was one of those women that said I love you all...the....time....as a teenager it got to be quite bothersome! As an adult I became annoyed with it/her. She'd call me at work and ask me what I was doing...uh, working Mom. But then she got sick, right when I needed her most, right when I became a Mother myself. She gave me a gift though that Christmas Day, she broke through her disease for one brief shiny moment and told me she loved me for the last time. She died the following June. The last time I saw her I'm not sure she knew who I was, but I just sat with her and watched animal planet and tried to make small talk. It was hard to see a woman that was larger than life in so many ways become so small, so frail, so locked in her mind. She was never Ms. Communication but she lost the ability to even try because of the dementia. It was a terrible way to die.

One of the ways I am like her is through books. She read to me all the time as a child. I credit her for my love of books. We would read Little Golden Books, one of my favorites was The Poky Little Puppy. I read that book, and so many others, to my own son. She also had a love of word puzzles, mostly word searches. I don't remember doing those with her but I am quite sure watching her played into my love of crosswords puzzles. Now, Paulo loves word searches! He will sit with me and look through the word lists, picking out words he can already read and sounding out new words. Then I find the word, soon he'll be finding them all by himself. He likes to watch me do crossword puzzles. When I find a clue that I think he can answer I read it to him so he can feel like he's helping me!

Another time I feel close to her is when I'm baking. I called her a compulsive baker, especially at Christmas time. She'd bake cookies, cookies and more cookies and pounds and pounds of fudge. Every December Paulo and I bake fudge, peanut butter, chocolate and white chocolate mint. Every time I stand there stirring the pot I think of her. I wish she had included me in the baking the way I include my son but I was the youngest of 4, not a part time only child. I have more freedom and time to include my son in the kitchen and I love it. Baking bread was another of her finer traits. We would come home from school to the amazing smell of freshly baked bread. It would be waiting in the kitchen. Waiting to be generously cut by our Mother and then slathered with butter, well margarine really, I still have a sweet spot for margarine even though I can't bring myself to buy it anymore-knowing what's IN food can really kill the love! When I bake bread now and smell the yeast as the bread rises I always think of my Mother.

So, while some of my less than stellar traits do in fact come from her a few of the good ones do too. She was a troubled woman but she was my Momma and I miss her.