I was fortunate to have my mother with me until she turned ninety. I miss the many women she was during those years.
When I was a first grader at Rockton Grade School, a playground swing, constructed with a thick, board seat hung from a pair of chains, hit me in the head giving me a brain concussion. I remember the thirty-year-old woman who spent the night with me at the Beloit Hospital. To check my eyesight, I can still see her standing at the foot of my bed and asking, “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Mom and I didn’t always see eye to eye. For seventh grade, I started riding the yellow bus to the new Durand Junior High School. During breaks in the day, I joined a group of girls practicing for cheerleading tryouts. In years past, I’d admired the dresses Aunt Frannie made for some of the high school cheerleaders. I dreamed that would be me someday. To participate in the tryouts, I brought home a permission slip to be signed by a parent. Mom said I couldn’t because she would be busy with evening milking when I would need to be taken to town to attend boys’ basketball games. I was mad at her for days.
When Dad and Mom became grandparents, they were usually available to babysit when my husband and I went out. Our three children spent the night at their house. Friends envied our being able to sleep in the next morning after being up late the night before.
My mother was my relief when Linda, our developmentally different daughter, pushed me to my wits’ end. Mom suggested I take a day off once a week. I looked forward to time by myself shopping in Rockford and enjoying a leisurely lunch in a nice restaurant.
I knew my mother didn’t want to be the dependent, old woman she turned into during her eighties. Helping her remain in her home was my chance to return some of the love and care she had shown me.
How do you see your mother?
My relationship with my mother was complicated. She and dad were very supportive of me & Janice, but she was never one I wanted to emulate. I don’t think that mother & dad were very well suited for one another, but, except for a couple of years, they stayed together. After dad died, mother found Willie, & I think he satisfied her more.
Mother favored Janice more than me, and in later years this grated on me though I did try to be supportive of her by going down to first Beloit, and then Woodstock once a week for many years.
As I said, the relationship was complicated.