Mom

Normally, these Mom tributes come on the actual Mother's Day, but my mother Marge died on May 12, 2001 and the calendar of that year was the same as this year's, so she passed the day before Mother's Day.  Just an hour or so.

I've spoken before about her being bipolar.  She could be a difficult woman to deal with, but on the other hand, many just knew her as crazy Marge, being the belle of the ball, getting people laughing, even during her final days in the nursing home when the cancer had done its best Pac-Man impression and gobbled up her brain and insides, leaving the black sludge behind.  And when the sludge had enough, it took her.

She sat up in bed for the longest time, her legs close to her chest, her arms around those limbs.  She said very little, just breathing.  The nurses who adored her came in to take her hand, and whisper to her.  My brother and I stood and sat and waited.  She breathed once more and let go.

When I'd gotten to the nursing home that Saturday, its was about 85 degrees and I was in t-shirts and shorts.  By the time we left, it was about 45 degrees, and I was shivering from all kinds of reasons.  We drove home in one of my brother's classic cars, one of the ones so classic, it didn't have a heater.

The next few days were blurs of things being done, and then being over, and then more to do. And then done. Totally done.

My psychologist told me that one of the deadlier combinations in mental health is two bipolar persons being dependent on each other, and when one is ripped away, damage ensues. Marge was dependent on me for support in many ways, and I always had the need to rush in and save everyone from the world or themselves.  My mother has been gone for 11 years and I find it difficult to go to my brother's house, with whom Marge lived "temporarily" for 17 years, always expecting to hear her footsteps coming down the stairs from her rooms.  It took me ten years to finally place a marker on her grave:

But I did.  She'd encouraged me to write, act, do comedy, have fun, but eventually settle down with a nice girl and have a good life. Done and done, Mom.  We're good here.

Shout-outs to the Moms  - Deb, Tracie, Tara, Brittany, Joyce, Rose, Sonya and Kristen and Aunt Kay.
And to the Moms we miss -Barb, Janet, Ag, and Marge (and the others in your thoughts).