10 Things About My Mother

10 Things About My Mother

1. My mother endured a very long married life (52 years) with a husband who abused her both mentally and physically. These fights continued until my Father died after a long illness.

2. My mother was out on her own at the age of 14. She was a telephone operator. She had an apartment and took care of her younger sister.

3. My mothers spirit was broken at a very young age. I once asked her WHY she had married my father and her answer was that she thought he was happy and the life of the party. She didn't understand that he was drunk.

4. My mother loves taking care of her house. She loves to update and remodel. My brother helps her with the very heavy labor.  I put my foot down, however, when it came time for her to paint the outside of her two story house. NO....on the ladders!

5. My mother still mows her own lawn.....in her jeans and pantyhose, no less. She takes care of every inch of her house with great pride. She is 76 years of age and a size 8 or 10.

6. My mother is accident prone. (Gee, is that where I get that from?)

7. My mother feels very uncomfortable in ANY social situation and avoids people and places. (Her comfort zone would be the grocery store, bank and mall twice a year.)  Could it be the lifetime of torture she endured?  Anything she said or did was wrong.......according to my father. So, she just stopped saying or doing. Somebody once explained to me that with an alcoholic; should they give you two eggs, one to fry and the other to boil....you would boil the wrong one and fry the wrong one. I find this to be a perfect "stinkin' thinkin'" of an alcoholic. Unfortunately she was on the other end of that thinking in a time when good wives obeyed their husbands and didn't question them.  She had no "outs." She refused all help of therapy and or Al-Anon.

8. My mother is finally living a peacful life. Her home is her pride and her peace.

9. My mother seems to enjoy buying things for her great grandchildrens birthdays and Christmas.

10. My mother does not travel and has not visited me in over 24 yrs. In the 37 years that I have been married, she has called me less than 10 times, twice to inform me of deaths in the family.

I shall never forget the day she called me to tell me of my fathers death. I wasn't home so she left a message on my answering machine. (She hates those modern machines!) She said, "I'm calling to tell you that your father has expired!"  hmmmmm, I never knew he had an expiration date or I would have turned him upside down years ago to find it! I know...........THAT was uncalled for!