18 posts tagged “mom”

One year ago today, I packed up most of my son's baby bottles and went to bed thinking I would need to get up a little early to call my dad and wish him a happy birthday, then update Mom on the baby's newest accomplishments (including successfully eating pasta with no reaction - I still remember what I had on my list of things to tell her).

Instead, my sister called me in the dark hours of the morning to tell me that Mom had passed.

I never got to talk to her again. I never got to see her again. She was supposed to come back from the Philippines and stay here for a year. She was supposed to cook for my older niece's 7th birthday party. She was supposed to help me with The Boy's first birthday party. She was supposed to see her youngest brother's daughters graduate from their respective colleges over the summer. We were going to celebrate Christmas together - our entire family - for the first time in more than a decade, and it was going to be her first Christmas with all her grandchildren. My sister and I were supposed to throw a big 40th wedding anniversary for my parents last weekend.

I'm feeling very sad. No, "sad" doesn't begin to explain it.

She's been gone almost a year and I'm still processing pieces of it. To be fair, I've purposely kept myself busy. It's hard not to, with work and The Boy and, well, just life in general. There's always something I need to do, whether it's laundry or dishes or running errands... I haven't let myself really give in and grieve. On the flip side, though, if I didn't have The Boy and work and other things to keep me going, I'm not entirely sure what my mental state would have been like when I came back from the Philippines last year. I think I would have crawled into bed as soon as I got home and spiralled into a dangerously severe state of depression.

Mom was one of my good friends. It took us years to get there, but our relationship reached a level where I could (and often did) talk to her about everything. We'd talk about books, about current events, about religion and politics and everything inbetween. Time zones apart - often even continents - we'd talk on the phone with little regard for the time, and I treasure those calls now.

She's been gone almost a year and the pain is just as raw.

God, I miss you, Mom.

I haven't slept well the past two nights. Getting to sleep is fine (once I actually crawl into bed), but I've been rather rudely awakened.

Sunday morning, my cell phone rang at around 4:15. It was an unlisted number, and, since I didn't get to the phone in time to actually answer it, I have no idea who called. This would only be a nuisance, except that Sunday would have been my parents' 40th wedding anniversary and marked one year since I last spoke with my mother. So, as you might imagine, the memory of how I learned of her passing, already weighing heavy on my mind, was far too vivid. And I broke down and wept. Just as I fell back to sleep almost an hour later, though, The Boy awoke, and sleep was only a fleeting notion after that.

This morning, The Boy awoke just after 3. I went into his room, gave him Tylenol for his teething, offered some water, and watched him pop his pacifier back into his mouth, thinking that he would simply lie down and go back to sleep. Alas, he tried instead to vault himself out of his crib and insisted on my carrying him out of his room and into our bedroom when that proved futile. Around 4, he finally fell back to sleep, but he awoke again when my husband got up to take a shower. I insisted that he put his head down and rest with me for a little longer, which he did, until he decided he was done with that and slapped me several times before head-butting me.

I now have a beautiful fat lip, courtesy of The Boy.

I certainly hope tomorrow morning will bring a better start to the day.

Today, I turn 34 years old. It's my last year of checking the "18-34" box of surveys.

This is also my first birthday without my mom. I would normally call her at midnight and wish her a happy birthday (it was the day she gave birth, after all), and about eight hours later, she would call me and wish me the same. We started doing this in 2000, my first birthday in Florida, and it became a tradition. So, I feel a little empty not having her to call.

Daddy called me earlier today. He had to go to the Philippines to attend services for my aunt who passed just before New Years. I asked him to visit Mom at the ossuary for me. If I were there, I'd do it myself.

Anyway, I'm not expecting much for my birthday. My sister gave me my present when we were up in New York, so I'll open that in a few hours, and my friend Todd gave me a birthday present, too, when we saw everyone on New Year's. I bought myself a little tool kit for the car that I found ridiculously marked down to $1.25. Even in this crappy economy, I can at least afford that! It's got a measuring tape, interchangeable screwdrivers, zip ties, and a bunch of other random stuff. I only gave it a cursory look before I decided I had to have it - and at that price, it's really silly not to. Plus, the measuring tape will always come in handy for those trips to IKEA.

The Boy is still awake, though, which never bodes well, but as he had a midnight snack (I'm a bad mommy, I know) of a wheat tortilla and some turkey slices, I'm hoping he'll sleep in a little tomorrow morning and not demand breakfast at 6 o'clock. But, of course, he's also mid-growth spurt, and I'm not about to deny my child food - hence the midnight snack, which I brought upon myself by not forcing him to eat dinner when it was time for dinner. He ate some pasta, nibbled on turkey, and had a couple of bites of rice pilaf, but he was otherwise completely uninterested in food. And how do you get a toddler to sit down and eat (because, of course, I chose tonight to pack up the high chair) when he doesn't want to?

Another conversation topic I would have had with Mom tonight, if only I could call her.

So, happy birth day, Mom! Thanks for laboring and giving me the gift of life - and for nurturing, raising, and continuing to teach me for so many years afterwards. And thanks, too, for being my friend.

I miss you so so much!

I signed up for a newspaper subscription earlier this year. I only wanted to get the Wednesday and Sunday papers, but Thursday and Friday came bundled with the deal, too. Those basically get immediately sent to the recycling bin, so it's really just a waste of paper, but it didn't cost me anything extra.

My mother was an avid coupon-clipper, as was I when I was in college. After all, unless you have a trust fund and/or access to a parental unit's credit card, money is pretty scarce. (My roommate, Cherie, was a master of using coupons. She would often save more than she spent. No kidding.) I clipped coupons when I lived on my own, too, only less frequently because I never had a newspaper subscription until this year.

Anyway, each Sunday is a bit of a ritual. Chris looks through the paper, separates all the sales flyers and the coupons, and I look through the latter group. I will inevitably clip twenty or thirty coupons, all for items we frequently use and might need to replenish before the coupon expires. The most frequently used coupons are diaper coupons, of course. Even though we have The Boy in cloth diapers when he's at home, 30 cents a change gets really pricey after a while.

I keep my coupons in repurposed wipes box. It serves its purpose of storing all the coupons, but I'll admit it's a rather haphazard system. My biggest issue is with remembering to clear out old coupons at least once a month. Here we are, in the middle of October, and I've just now purged coupons from August. Some of these were good coupons, too, though I ultimately saved the most money by not buying the item for which I would have saved $1.50, anyway.

It made me think of Mom, though, how she would sort through her coupons, hold up an expired coupon and lament wasting its savings. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, after all.

Shirley didn't suffer a stroke last week. She had seizures while she was in the emergency room, yes, but it turns out she has a brain tumor.

I went to the hospital to see her on Saturday. She was in excellent spirits and looked great, only annoyed to be hooked up to all sorts of contraptions. She was patiently waiting for her Sunday morning surgery when they would remove most of the tumor (not all because it's located in an area that affects her motor skills), but she was otherwise anxious to get home and back to her regular routine.

We found out from Todd, her son and our friend, yesterday that while the surgery went well, the cancer was far worse than the MRI showed. It had spread to several other areas of her brain, and while they plan to proceed with radiation therapy and chemo, the doctor has estimated that she has two years.

A part of me wishes that someone told me Mom only had X years left, but at the same time, I'm very glad for my mother that she went quickly and didn't endure a prolonged process. That was something she really feared.

Shirley, my friend's mother, is in the hospital tonight. She felt a tingling in her left arm and called 911 right away. After she arrived at the hospital (which happens to be the hospital where she works as a nurse), they flew her to Florida Hospital downtown. I'm not sure the time frame in which it happened, but she had some mild seizures, too. Apparently, x-rays showed some minor lesions in her brain, and she'll have an MRI done tonight. Tomorrow morning they'll have more information.

This is especially hard for me because I lost my own mother earlier this year to a massive cerebrovascular hemorrhage. I can't help but wonder what might have been if Mom knew the signs, if she had a mild stroke instead of a massive one, if if if. But, of course, she didn't, so my sister and I need to make sure we're educated and know the signs for ourselves.

But more than focusing on Mom's death, I am just hoping praying that Shirley is doing okay. In my heart, I know she will be. Shirley's dad died earlier this year (not long after Mom), and her mother still misses him terribly.

God may have a sick sense of humor, but he's certainly not cruel.

Some of it is fun. Some of it involves a last-minute project. Some of it is because I've been completely uninspired all day and procrastinated for most of it.

Well, not completely uninspired. I've actually done quite a bit. I just don't feel like buckling down and doing all of it.

Anyway, the fun homework (which is all I will discuss) is part one of a sewing project!

Back in February, after I got back from the Philippines, I asked my friend Nancy if she would teach me to sew. Nancy used to sew for Disney World back in the day, and she made a number of clothes for her kids - and she's been sewing since she was about 9, so I know she knows what she's doing.

I gave myself a year to learn to sew. If I mastered the mechanics of sewing and successfully completed at least one project, I would ask my sister and father to bring back all of my mother's patterns, her sewing machines and paraphernalia, and all her fabric. If not, it was agreed they would donate all of her things to a local high school in the Philippines.

So, at the end of February, Nancy and I took a trip to the store and looked at patterns. I picked out a pattern for a bag, and she helped me select proper material for the project. But then things got insanely busy at work, and between hectic workdays and sick days and vacations, we didn't get a chance to really look over the pattern until this afternoon.

Now I get to bring home the pattern and fabric and cut out my pattern. I'm very excited about it; I've been wanting to learn to sew for several years now, and I'm more motivated than ever to learn. Sewing was something my mother enjoyed, and she was incredibly skilled at it. Sharing in her craft - even posthumously - would bring me more joy than I can express.

And she had some really cool sewing things, too!

I've been finding my mother in the oddest places.

Let's rephrase that. I find myself reminded of my mother while listening to what I once thought was "safe" music. And it's a little unnerving.

Last night, I broke into tears while driving home when "Gone Away" by the Offspring played on the radio. Then this morning, "Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day made me tear. Just now, My Chemical Romance's "The Black Parade" caused me to reach for my box of Kleenex.

Typically, those three bands wouldn't reduce me to tears. I think I would be more apt to sob while listening to Morrissey, Joy Division or Natalie Merchant.

I guess it goes to show you that Punk has heart, after all.

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 62.

The last time I talked to her, a week before she passed, she told me she was looking forward to filing for her Social Security benefits. "Already?" I asked, completely incredulous. (My mother never looked her age, and I could never remember how old she was without needing to do some quick math.)

"I'll be 62 in March," she said. "I can file for my benefits, and I don't care if I don't get all of it. I'm not going to be like your Lola and wait until I'm 65 and die before I get a chance to file!"

How cruel is irony?

My heart feels like it's caving into my chest. I know of no other way to describe it. It's a very heavy feeling.

My mother wasn't a perfect person. I know this. She had her quirks. (Don't we all?) Some of them were more palatable than others, but they were just Mom's way. And you simply didn't rush Mom into altering her behavior, either. She was amenable to change, but, like most of us, it was best if you allowed her to make those changes on her own terms.

I've inherited many of those quirks, both the good and the bad. It's natural - one learns by example, after all, and Mom was the only mother I'd known. Everything I've learned about housekeeping, motherhood, and taking care of the family, I learned from her. Is it perfect? No, and I know this. Are there a lot of things that can and should be changed? I'm sure there are. Like Mom, though, I need to be allowed to make those changes on my own terms.

What I cannot stand right now is criticism of my behaviors - my quirks - especially those I shared with Mom. I know cerebrally that the person offering those criticisms (constructive or not) is not attacking Mom (or me, for that matter), but emotionally, it feels like an attack on Mom, my memories of her, and the legacy she left me. I can feel my blood pressure rise, my hands clench into tight fists, and, for lack of another outlet, I find that I burst into tears because the other person will not stop.

The first time this happened, I was on the plane coming back from Manila with my sister. I was sharing with her an ironic anecdote. You see, Mom had a recipe on her refrigerator for pan de sal, a traditional Filipino bread. Years and years ago, I was in search of such a recipe, but at the time, Mom said to me, "That's too much work. I just go to Magnolia and get pan de sal when I want it, and it's much easier." So it was very ironic, then, that here she is, actually in the Philippines, and she has a recipe for pan de sal on her refrigerator.

Rather than seeing the irony in it, my sister instead tried to solve the perceived problem of not having a Filipino bakery nearby (which really isn't an issue) and suggested that the next time I visit her, I purchase a few dozen pan de sal and store them in my freezer. When I reminded her that I don't have enough room in my freezer to do so, she then asked, "Then what are you going to do when you make the recipe? It makes 30 pieces!"

Honestly, I hadn't thought that far ahead. The recipe was written in Mom's handwriting. She didn't have the oven temperature or baking times listed. I was thinking that it would be a nice recipe to test out with a friend and figure out the missing elements via trial and error.

Then my sister offered a major blow: "You take on too many projects, Eileen. That's your problem. You take on too much."

She might as well have added, "Just like Mom."

Last night, my husband said something very similar in reference to household chores. He didn't say, "Like your mother," but the particular things he was referencing were things I specifically learned from Mom. And, just as I did flying over the Pacific Ocean, I lost it.

Mom wasn't perfect. I'm not perfect. I'm doing my best, just like I think she did. Somehow, she was able to get a lot more accomplished than I can, with less help from my father than my husband offers me. I think a major difference, though, is that Mom had help in looking after my sister and me when we were very little. Mom had help from all sorts when it was just my sister; they immigrated to the United States after my sister was more than a year old. And she stayed at home with her in those early days, which I don't have the luxury of doing. When I was born, and Mom was already back in the workforce, my lola, her mother, lived with us and took care of me during the day and in the evenings, affording Mom the opportunity to cook and clean and do all those other necessary chores.

There are a lot of chores that need to be done around our house. Basic things that should be done each week, like changing bedsheets, Swiffering the floors (especially now that Baby C is super active), vacuuming the areas where Baby C spends a lot of time, cleaning toilets, cleaning bathrooms, etc. Could I have been doing any or all of these last week instead of sitting quietly on the couch playing solitaire? Definitely. Did I want to at that moment? Clearly not. Housework isn't something that relaxes me, and the one thing I need to do at night is try to let my brain unwind so that I might be able to fall asleep on my own and possibly even sleep fitfully.

So, rather than getting up and cleaning the house, I sat on the couch, Palm Pilot in hand, and played a few dozen rounds of soliaire.

Just like Mom did in her later years.

I don't want to feel guilty about what I believe are core housekeeping competencies - or my tendency to always want to do more - right now because these are things I've largely picked up from my mother. My mother, who was the first person who ever loved me and who, until the day she died, knew me better than anyone ever could or ever will (including myself) because she was the only one there from before the very beginning. My mother, who taught me to the best of her ability, which, for better or worse, included some quirky behaviors. My mother, who was the first person I ever loved, the first person who made me feel safe, the first person to offer me true, unconditional love.

My mother, whom I will never see again, and whom I miss so very much.

I don't want to feel guilty about being like Mom. And I don't want to be criticized for being like Mom, either. Mom was who she was, and I am who I am largely because of who she was. Do I think some of my behaviors need modification? Absolutely. But I need to make those changes on my own terms.

Just like Mom.