With Mother's Day quickly approaching I am reminded - thanks to holiday commercialism - of my own mother who passed away a little over a decade ago at the young age of 60.
It seems the longer she is gone - or maybe as I age and experience the highs and lows of being a mother - the more I appreciate and miss her.
The other day I made Skye a grilled cheese sandwich for a snack. As I was making the sandwich it brought me back to a childhood memory.
Unlike myself, my mother was really good at keeping her emotions in check. Not that she didn't wear her feelings on her sleeve but she was never prone to explode like a stick of dynamite like I have a tendency to do. I'm volatile and easily provoked. Mom had to be pushed to the far edge before she melted down. I'm sure she can thank her Catholic upbringing for her manners.
Anyway, I can remember one night when I was around 6 or 7 years of age my mother had a major meltdown. She had made grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and I apparently had an issue with the grilled cheese sandwich. I really have no recollection of what the matter was other than it had to do with the sandwich.
My mother totally blew up on me and sent me to bed for the night. All I remember is lying there in the dark in my bed crying my eyes out that my mother that I loved so much was really mad at me.
After what seemed like hours she eventually came into my room with a coat on full of apologies and tears in her eyes.. I'm assuming the coat must have meant that she had fled for a little while to gather herself.
All I knew at the time is that my mother had forgiven me for whatever infraction I had committed earlier that night.
As I made Sky's grilled cheese I had the realization that emotional night had absolutely nothing to do with grilled cheese or with me. It took me over 40 years to make the realization.
If I could talk to my mom now, I would say..."Mom, I understand."
I was going to post a pic of me an my mother and realized that other than the pics of my mother holding me as a baby I have no pics of the two of us together. How sad....
Anyway, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM!!...wherever you are...or wherever I am....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Bless your heart, I am sure she is never far from you. ♥ ♥ ♥
ReplyDeleteIt surprised me when you said you didn't have any pics of you and Mom together. I started looking through the pictures I had and realized that Mom was always taking the pictures (Pops and us two, or Dad with us). I only have one of Mom with me that someone else took with my camera. I felt bad because I couldn't remember what she looked like so much, and then realized it was how she made me feel that I remember... her soul, not her physical person. I remember she blew up on me one time for no apparent reason. I was in the back of the Pontiac (the one you busted the back window on) - I think. I was about five or six and we were traveling on DIP, somewhere between the old Post office and that little mom and pop meat stop and the intersection of McVay. Scared the crap of of me... figuratively.
ReplyDelete