Mom

When I look back into my childhood the first memories I have of my mom was when I was around seven and a half or eight years old. Up to that point it is my grandmother I always remember. My grandmother had come to live with us before my brother was born in 1950. My parents were married many years before my brother came along, and I was born 4 years after him. My mom had always worked, even as an adolescence during The Great Depression she sold eggs from the farm and later during World War II when she was assigned to one of the first POW Camps here in the US for German Officers in Baltimore, MD. She was never the domestic type and so when she finally got pregnant after 13 years of marriage Grandma came to take care of us and my mom kept working. Growing up it was my Grandma who wiped my tears, and put bandages on my boo-boos. I can remember sitting in her lap as she sang me lullaby es and rocked me to sleep. She had a beautiful voice and I would love to hear her sing especially in church. I would stand next to her and hold the hymn book as she sang those old classic hymns such as "In the Garden", The Old Rugged Cross", and "The Church in the Wildwood". I did not really learn to appreciate my grandma until I was a grown woman and she was in her eighties. She passed away in the spring of 79.

I love my mom, but until I met my husband the year I was 17, I really did not have what you would call a close relationship with her. During that time, I started talking to her about life issues and when I married we bonded more. Presently my mom is 88 years old. She has outlived her three brothers, and her two best friends. In her old age she has always been spry if not as energetic as she once was and she does not have one senile bone in her body and her mind is very clear. She can argue politics and keeps us with current events and 8 years ago when the Supreme Court put Bush in the white house she went out in the back yard and burned the American Flag! (Oh yeah...she once was a political activist).

My mom also takes care of my mentally ill brother and my 91 year old father. She became domesticated once she retired almost 28 years ago. I was pregnant at the time with my daughter and she wanted to make sure she had plenty of time to spend with her only grandchild.

There have been times in the past twenty years when she was sick with one thing or the other, not anything serious. She has fought the flu during each winter, and even though she has high blood pressure and high cholesterol she did not get heart disease until her late 60's. She has lived a long time with being able to control both of those issues and I have always felt my mom was invincible...until now.

She had a mild stroke a few days ago. She is doing okay, is actually up and walking around the house. Her vision is somewhat whacky and she is very weak, but she is still here. The doctors have put her through several test trying to find where that blood clot came from, and even once or if they find it at her age what can they really do?

I hope I live well into my 80's or more and have the quality of life that her and my father have had. I also pray that by then I will see a grandchild of my own and not be so senile that I can't hold a decent conversation with my only child. Well, we never know what tomorrow will bring.