Happy Birthday, Mom

 

My mother in her Girl Scout uniform

My mother would have been 81 years old today, if she had not passed away in 2000. She was 56 years old when she died.

I was 37. My mother was a young mother, giving birth to me when she was 18. That's awfully young to be raising a child, although back then it was more normal than it might be today.

Looking at the picture of my mother in her Girl Scout uniform, I wonder what that young woman hoped and dreamed. Did she want children? Did she want to explore the world? What was her passion?

Unfortunately, I never really got to know my mother as a person, as one might a friend, say. We were never able to meet one another as adults, on equal footing, and learn about each other as people. I think that may be an issue for many families.

My mother always saw me as a young child who was an adult. She used to say that I wasn't raised, I was "jerked up." She was right about that. I have always felt like an old person, trying to do the right thing, trying to be nice, trying to find my way through what I considered my morality and my justice. I think my ideals and personality were not things she was prepared to deal with. Had she lived longer, perhaps things might have been different, but I don't know. 

My mother worked as a file clerk for a company in Salem, Virginia, that was located a block behind the house her parents lived in. It was a convenient drop-off point for us kids when we were sick or during the summer. 

She hated the drive from Botetourt into Salem; it could be 45 minutes or longer, especially before they redid the Botetourt exit. Traffic would back up there for miles after 5 p.m.

She retired from the same job when she hit 40 years, or maybe it was 35, but at any rate, she was in her late 40s. She talked of traveling with my father, though she had a fear of flying. I know they took a few trips by car before things fell apart for them.

My mother was a very good seamstress and sewed most of my clothes when I was young. I did not appreciate this talent at the time and wanted store-bought clothes like the other kids had. Young children generally do not recognize or realize what is going on with parents. They are, after all, children. I'm sure this was a money-saving move, and also something my mother enjoyed doing. She was good at painting craft things, such as plaster Christmas houses, and her work always looked quite professional. I wonder what she could have done if she'd had training in art or something. I also wonder if she wanted to do more with that creative side of herself. She never said.

She also was a very good cook. To her dismay, I did not take to the culinary arts and I'm not sure she realized that particular gift went to my brother. Maybe she knew. I hope she did.

My mother and I had a tumultuous relationship. Neither of my parents knew how to nurture a sensitive and creative child and did not have the tools to try. I remember my mother telling me I would never be a writer, that I had to take secretarial courses. I was a secretary at various times, but I also managed to be a writer despite the lack of support.

I don't think my mother found the happiness she wanted. She tried to be happy, but I never knew her to be very pleased with her circumstances in life. I felt that nothing I did was ever the right thing. I spent most of my childhood trying to figure out how to please someone who admired a dandelion one day and threw it back at me the next.  I did not succeed.

For all of that, she was my mother, and as such I of course loved her as best I could love anyone. Her last year of life was not very good; pancreatic cancer is a rough way to go. 

Anyway, happy birthday, Mom. You died while you were still beautiful even though you were ill. In my mind you will always be forever young.