(No Suspect List this time. I’ve been at my mother’s bedside all week. She won’t be with us much longer. She’s elderly, bedridden, has dementia, and has been on hospice for nearly a year. It’s time for her suffering to end.)
(A little background—Mom was a stay at home mother with six kids. She has many grandkids and great grandkids. Her hobbies were knitting and reading.)
November meant Christmas Bazaar time at the senior center. At least a month beforehand Mom would alert me to the date and ask if I was free to help with transportation and watch her table when she needed a break. I made it a priority to be available, knowing how important it was to her.
And it was fun.
I loved seeing her creations. In later years there were fewer sweaters–her specialty–but plenty of hats, scarves, pot holders, doilies, dish scrubbies, holiday decorations, and of course the stuffed animals. The toys were her most popular item by far and it wasn’t just the kids who loved them. Adults loved them. Mom loved them.
A different side of Mom came out when she was behind her table. Normally shy, she’d be confident with customers, giving them her full attention, chatting and answering questions. She was a good salesperson and didn’t price items too high. People often commented that her prices were too low. I don’t think this was due to undervaluing her work. She never had a lot of money for extras and assumed others didn’t either. It wasn’t about profit, it was more about providing a little joy.
Most of the money she made would be spent in December. Every year we’d go Christmas shopping at least once, sometimes twice. Mom loved shopping. For herself she liked cute clothes, earrings, and purses. It seemed like every six months she’d come up with some reason for needing a new purse. Once she confessed that need had nothing to do with it. She wanted a new purse so why shouldn’t she buy it?
It’s your money mom, if it makes you happy buy the damned purse.
Armed with peppermint mochas we’d head to Fred Meyer, K-mart, Target. She always had a list. It was important to her to have something for everyone. Some years she only had enough money for her kids–but she wished she could buy for every one of her grandkids and great grandkids. The thought was always there. The boys she’d say, were the hardest to buy for. One year she chose inexpensive wallets for my brothers, who were adults. I remember doubting their need for this–but I stayed quiet knowing that need had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t about material things, it was about the giving.
Giving to others is who she was.
Mom was a good listener. The best. She liked to go to bed early. The one thing that would keep her up late was one of her kids needing to talk to her. I remember her complaining once, that we kids–teenagers at the time– always got talkative late at night. Well, of course we did. There were at least eight of us living in the house at the time and with that many people around late night was the only time we wouldn’t be interrupted or overheard.
Mom did all the cooking–feeding a family of eight and often a few extras. I used to stand next to the stove asking what’s for dinner and when will it be ready?
We’d get the same answer every time. “Dinner is always at 5:30.”
It wasn’t always on time, of course, but to this day it remains the family joke when anyone asks when dinner is. “Always at 5:30.”
I have an image of Mom in the kitchen, strumming her fingers on the cupboard door, trying to figure out how to put together a meal from what was or wasn’t there, saying, “Oh sugar” because it was better than saying oh shit.
She switched from shit to sugar after I spoke my first word. Yep, you guessed it. Little me, so proud to know a real word, “shit, shit, shit.”
Mom made Congo bars on her birthday. Spaghetti and meatballs on Christmas Eve, and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. The pie didn’t always come out quite right but she’d serve it anyway, with apologies.
Mom’s favorite books were The Dragon Riders of Pern. She also loved Harry Potter and read the whole series several times. Mostly she read Harlequin Suspense. She’d put in her order and get a delivery every month. They were simple books with happy endings. She read to escape the darker side of life, not to explore it.
Mom read to us regularly. I remember sitting on her lap, asking her to read The House that Jack Built over and over again.
My favorite Mom- isms:
Leave well enough alone.
Don’t make mountains out of molehills. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything.
Mom was all about keeping the peace.
My greatest wish for her now, is that she be at peace.
Wonderful tribute TJ. Heartfelt, sincere and loving. I don't really have anything else to add because you said it all. Best to you and yours in this difficult time. - Jim
So hard to see them go, TJ, even when we know it is for the best. Treasure those memories!