A Tribute to the Lady who Gave Me Life
I have one woman to thank that helped me become the woman I am today. My loving, supportive mother!
She was there to carry and nourish me for almost nine months.
She was the first to hold when I emerged into this world.
She held, diapered and nursed me.
She didn’t mind the middle of the night feedings to much or so she told me when I started having my own children.
She fed me baby food and kept introducing foods until I was able to eat regular. Thanks to her I am not a picky eater and will at least try most new things once,
This wonderful lady watch me take my first steps and say my first words.
She taught me the alphabet, how to write my full name and to count to fifty before I went to kindergarten.
She was always there to take me for a brand new outfit for every first day of school. To do my hair, make sure I had breakfast and a good lunch to take with me. When hot lunches were introduced in school, I still had the choice of one of mom’s homemade lunches or what school served.
When I brought home my first primer book “Dick and Jane” she patiently took me through it word by word until I could pick out the words in random order and know what they were and meant.
She always encourage me to try new things. If I failed at them the first she was there to egg me on into trying it again. Somethings I got the hang of over time, like playing the Oboe and roller skating, Other things I just did not want to continue trying for one reason or another.
She held me and cried with when our beloved husband/father died.
She went through a very bad period of mourning and I almost lost her too, but thankfully it was not her time yet she still had a lot to help me with and to be able to have some fun in her life.
I was a rebellious teenager getting engaged at sixteen against her wishes to a man six years my senior. Yet she let us stay engaged as long as we agreed I would finish high school before we got married. As things would have it we did not have to wait that long to get her permission to sign the marriage license (NO I was not pregnant). She had met a great guy whom she married a year later and just wanted me to be as happy as she was.
When my first marriage crumbled she was there with a box of kleenx and my favorite junk food. After a good cry she told me you now have two children to thing about and what is best for them. Because I was so young and unsettled while their father had a good job and a home I decide the best thing for the children was to let their father have custody and I have unlimited visiting with them.
Each time I married and each time it broke up she was there to hold me through the break up blues.
During my third marriage I had three beautiful children. When I left that marriage and after fighting for a year and a half in court I let my ex-husband have custody. Now the strange part is my mother lived in his home and took care of my children until he kicked her out for his new wife. Within a year of signing the final divorce papers I had full custody of my children again. My mother came to live with us so my at the time new husband and I could work to get a large place for us to live. We also wanted to move from the North-side of Chicago out to the suburbs.
This husband and I also divorced with mom there to pick up the pieces of my broken heart.
From that time on in the mid 1980s until my children were grown my mother helped me raise my children. In the early 1990s I had a serious drug and booze problem this strong gracious woman took over home and children so they did not wind up in the foster care system and put up with their terrible teen years almost completely by herself because I gave her very little help for quite a few years. I did get clean and sober finally in 1994 and our relationship started to change for the better. It understandably took her some years to get over the pain, hurt and giving up her life to carry my responsibilities but, as I write this listening to her dying I am happy to say not only are we mother and daughter we are BBF also.
She has been a beacon of light to show me the way more times then I can count. She has picked me up, dusted me off when I fallen and said you are better then this when I was in the throws of my addictions.
To say thank you or you have my never ending gratitude are to meager of phrases for all she given and done for me. Thank you mother for always being here for me no matter what I may have said or done. I love you with all my heart. The hole in it will take a long time to mend if it ever does. I rejoice you will be with daddy, my siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews and friends. Rest well with my daddy, brother, sisters, and the rest of your loved ones and friends, M’Lady you certainly deserve it.
My mom was with me through many more things and taught me much especially how to be a lady. I thank her for all the lessons in life she taught me one way or another. I was lucky enough to have enough time to tell her all theswe things and more and to say goodbye and most of all many times how much I loved her.
One last thing she taught me was how to die with dignity on one’s own terms. The official time was 4:15 PM CT on August 24, 2017. I felt her leave about a half-hour before, by the hole it caused in my heart.
Enchanted Circle of Witches® 