Mom

This post is not about my mother, but rather my mother-in-law whom I called "Mom" when I was living in Ohio with her son.



I'm not sure I even have the words to describe her, though some that come to mind are: loving, warm, kind, upstanding, truthful, righteous (but not self-righteous), good . . . truly good. There haven't been many people in my life that could be described with two of those words, much less all of them. And I know I'm leaving out a lot of them, just from lack of vocabulary. She prayed daily and often and had the strongest faith I had ever encountered. I'm still not sure how she could have produced The Man to whom I am still regretfully married, in spite of having been separated for nearly four years. (That's my project for August of this year, at which time I will have--hopefully--settled in from moving yet again!)

Mom died in January of this year from what I believe was a brain aneurysm. At that time I could not afford the price of the gasoline to get me to Ohio for her funeral. Just as well, I suppose, since the self-righteous hypocrite who is her son and my legal husband "ordered" me not to come. He did it out of spite because I had finally convinced him I was NEVER coming back to him, no matter what he did, and he might as well stop asking. Mom would not have been very proud of him for that.

My last conversation with this wonderful woman was concerning The Man, her first-born child, who never showed her one ounce of love or respect that I could see. This conversation took place after the death of his son in November of 2007, a time when I WAS able to afford to drive to Ohio for the funeral. Mom gave a beautiful eulogy for her grandson who had died in a motorcycle accident. I still don't know how she stood in front of all those people and read the most heartfelt and sincere account of her "Brian's Song." She was so composed, so loving and sincere. As she finished, I whispered to The Man to go help his mother off the platform where she had been standing. (Not only could he not think of it himself, being the selfish pig he is, but I actually had to repeat it.) He did help her down and even gave her a hug in front of everyone. And this simple gesture is what our last conversation was about. This small act had given her so much pleasure that it was really sad. She asked me if I knew what she could possibly have done to make The Man dislike her, and I told her truthfully that I did not know. He had indicated to me at some point in the last 15 years that there WAS something, but he never told me what it was.

Mom would have celebrated her 80th birthday today. I have been thinking of her since I woke up.