I love to talk about my mom.
She was an amazing woman to me. It’s as if she had this special power that I still can’t seem to obtain.
The beginning:
Mom was born in Oklahoma, her parents weren’t a great example of what marriage should be. My grandmother was a very proper Southern COC woman, she was raised with money and class. My grandfather loved children and women. . . (marriage problems, he loved the women) His parents were both half Native American. My grandfather didn’t discipline the children. That must have been fun for my grandmother.
While my mother was attending college she fell in love with my father. The story goes that she took one look and knew. They were married and started having children. My brother and sister are eleven months apart. I am two years younger than my sister and three years younger than my brother. OOPS! Here I am.
My father was a school teacher then went to work with juvenile delinquents. He loved it, he always felt that kids deserve second chances. (Good news for me when I became a teen)
My mother became a stay at home mom. She helped raise two other children. Baby sitter. She was the cool mom the one who took care of all of our friends. Honestly, kids would roam in and out of our home for food or what ever.
My mother never felt that she was as suffocated as some of the women that were at the parties she attended with my father. She didn’t read the latest on psychology books. She didn’t work outside the home. She just couldn’t see how valued she was when she was at those parties. I lay money that several of the women at those parties wished they could be like her.
My mother had a gift for making you feel like you were the most important person in the room. I would bring friends from high school home and she would feed them listen to them and always try to make them feel special. I once brought a friend from college home. I wanted her to see a normal home and feed her real fish not those frozen boxed ones. My parents welcomed her in. She fell in love with them. Who wouldn’t? Good food, coffee, and they too smoked. Colleen was at home.
It sounds as if they were perfect, no, they made mistakes they didn’t always agree and I know they fought. I just never heard them, they didn’t do it in front of us. (So you know learning to fight in a marriage, hard)
Back to mom.
She didn’t really feel that she had a lot of friends yet, the lady from the department store called her all the time, the people at the grocery store knew her and so on.
My mother was a compassionate person.
(Oh she could smack us when needed, hey five plus kids running around I’d be smacking.)My mother was a compassionate person. I remember once we were in a department store and as women do we went to the ladies room together. There was a woman standing in front of the sinks crying. Mom and I did what we need to then went to wash our hands a check our faces and so on. The woman turned to my mother and apologized for crying, my mother smiled at her. She then began to tell her story. She had just come back to work from taking time off, her mother had just past away and she was trying to cope and work. My mom looked at this sobbing woman and cried with her she put her hand on her face and told her it alright to cry. She understood the loss of a mother she too had lost hers. They hugged she the told her if they don’t like that she is crying to bad. You are allowed to cry.
My mom was a short soft woman who never could see how wonderful she was. I think that had she really seen herself she’d be someone else.
I could go on about how my friends always wanted to meet her and once they did how they loved her.
My mom was my best friend we spoke almost every day about almost everything. She was such an influence in our lives. I hated leaving my son with her when I went back to work, her idea,
a woman should have a job. It was a blessing to have her with him.
She was a Christian woman yet for a COC she was open to other ideas. She didn’t throw me out when we discussed abortion she listened to the point I had to make and agreed. She was against it, I pointed out that had I been fourteen, raped, and pregnant she might say something different. When the folks with the alternate life style moved in next to her. I pointed out that they might be great neighbors and we talked about how one might choose that life.
My mom and I could talk about everything. Yes everything. We were both adults and married.
One Sunday my sister and I asked if she wanted to meet us a the mall for lunch and shopping. She turned us down because she hadn’t felt well, then called and said she would. We enjoyed shopping (spoiling of her grandson) and lunch. My sister had to leave. Mom and I continued to walk not really doing anything just talking. Out of the blue she told me if anything went wrong with her heart please take her to Tulsa she didn’t trust the other hospital. I thought nothing really of it at the time she had been on medications and was to undergo tests. We laughed about how we hated to leave each other and forced ourselves to walk to our cars. We kissed goodbye she as always put her hand on my face we said our I love you’s. I watched as she put the cigarette in her mouth started her car waved and drove away.
On Tuesday I called to updated her on my son’s health he had a vires earlier that week and was fine. She complained that the shots for the flu and pneumonia were hurting her arm and that she wasn’t feeling well. By that evening she was in the ER. A miss diagnoses sent her home. I was unable to sleep that night, I kept pacing around the house.
I called my father to check on her the next morning she answered first and sounded week. When my dad picked up he told me that she was still very week and he was concerned. He decided later to take her to her doctor.
When the phone rang that afternoon and my father began to speak I was able to remain calm. I then called my aunt to send her to him. I wasn’t sure that I had heard what he said, was it true? When my aunt answered I fell to my knees and started to scream, we were both screaming. I hung up threw the phone dressed my son and called my husband. I remember frantically driving to her when I suddenly felt a calmness I felt her hand on my face. I stopped the car and asked her not to leave. My cousin responded to the call, he’s a fireman. They held him back as he yelled at her to come back. He grabbed me and told me it was too late.
God is so loving in these situations. He gave us an EMT, I watched as he worked on her in the ambulance he stayed close as they worked on her in the hospital. My husband remained calm and protected us from the hospital social worker. Not easy for him he loved her so. He was the Yankee she was the little old woman. My brother’s new wife, they had decided not to wait and had a surprise wedding mom was there, took over with food, phone calls ,and visitors. She kept it organized for us. Her funeral planning went well. When one of us couldn’t go on the other stepped up.
The funeral home was over whelmed with flowers and visitors. The charity received so many donations.
My mother’s funeral was held in the small church that she attended. The choir was from my church, she love hearing them sing. With only a few days till Christmas they were a blessing. Her funeral was standing in the back packed tight only.
So many told us how they loved her and how she was such a good friend.
The surprising thing for my sister and I was that she had competed her Christmas shopping. That was a first.
She just wouldn’t have been who she was had known how great she was.
Football is football. I never really got the game until my husband explained it to me. Now I enjoy the Cowboys. Drew’s arm is amazing.
