List 100 things I remember about my mom

she sometimes said “If it was a snake it would’ve bit me.” This is a country expression that means you were looking for an item, and it was in an obvious place, usually really close by, where you should’ve seen it immediately but you overlooked it.

was a collectable plate. Later, I donated it to a church auction that was raising money for mission trips. I didn’t know I was going to lose mom soon. I wish I had it back. Maybe I will replace it someday. I’ve always liked poppies, and almost any sort of dog. I think we saw the printed advertisement for the plate and cooed over it together. I never dreamed she’d actually buy it for me. I remember making a magnet out of the ad and giving it to mom – can’t remember if I did that before or after she gave me the plate.

That’s something I’ve always done – if I see something advertised that I can’t afford, I still pin up the picture or stash it in some file. As a girl it was often pictures of gemstones, larger and more luscious than in real life. As a young teen, it was pictures of models and actresses that I felt drawn to. Now it’s often landscapes.

I moved out of my parents’ house at 15. Before I was 18 I was back, but things were different. I had an epiphany while I was gone. I heard their voices on the phone, and heard all the things they couldn’t put into words, heard them aging, heard their regret. I’m a bright enough girl, but I suspect divine intervention played a part in the very mature decision I made to forgive them both for the wrongs they did me. I knew the hate would kill me if I held onto it.

So, back in their house for a short, sweet, peaceful time where we all learned to interact in this strange new world where I was nearly an adult, and not frothing at the mouth with self-righteous rage. I worked at Subway. I got a GED (equivalent to high school diploma). I tried to get my act together.

One day, I must have been mooning around, waiting for some boy to call, because mom called me into her room and asked “Hey, you busy?” I was clearly not. She slips twenty dollars into my hand with a grin and says “Why don’t you go up to the dollar store and get yourself some worthless junk?” We were dollar store fiends, she and I. Of course, I can’t remember what I got that day, but I’m sure I found some little something for her, to thank her for my hour or so of feeling like a Rockefeller.

It was for my second wedding. We were sitting pretty far apart, just by chance, but I sat there so happily, just watching her there in the lovely deep blue dress I’d helped find. I wish it could’ve been a longer ride.

The limo was sort of a dumb, expensive extravagance, but now I’m glad we did it, if only for mom. The one in the photo is not the one from my wedding, but it was white. I can’t remember how long it was. I would’ve preferred a black one.

My mom’s prom date was a guy named Orville. To the best of my knowledge, once she moved away from her hometown, they didn’t speak again. By chance, he read her obituary and he came to her funeral, where we met and he gave me some cool pictures from mom’s early life. He’d had them for…around thirty years? So I guess you could say that she’d had an impact on him.

As we were highly disfunctional, the holidays were not a sacred time of togetherness in my family. We all just kind of did our own thing and did our best to ignore the sad truth all around. One year I’d been given permission to attend the Thanksgiving feast with a friend’s family, which I thoroughly enjoyed. My brothers were off who knows where, and dad padded around the house softly as mom lay in a drunken stupor in her dark, cold, cavernous bedroom. At some point she woke up enough to realize what day it was, and she felt something, either sadness or anger, and she insisted dad go buy a turkey so she could cook it, even though we weren’t there to eat it. Dad dutifully brought home a bird, and mom put it in the oven…with the plastic bag of giblets still inside. Soon the kitchen was full of black, foul smelling smoke and dad was trying to salvage the poor thing. It made for a funny story later, but at the time, it was just pathetic. I don’t know what mom was thinking. Maybe she had a little fit of guilt and remorse that her children all wanted to be somewhere else on Thanksgiving. Maybe she just wanted some turkey.

No, not that kind.

Mom liked jewelry. Yeah, a lot of people do, I know. At the end of her life she had acquired a lot more of it than I realized. Mostly cheap stuff but with a hint of quality, like amethysts set in silver. She preferred gold, I preferred silver, now I like both but I still lean toward silver generally. Of course I like white gold and platinum too, but my world is one where I can only afford sterling. It’s not so bad.

But mom, and the jewelry. She didn’t have high self-esteem and I think the jewelry helped her a little, gave her a tiny boost. On a day when she had to go to work with the shakes and dry heaves, she could throw on a couple pieces of jewelry and look like she gave a damn. Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe she just liked the stuff.

I think she collected it so voraciously at the end because she wanted something to leave behind. Her grandkids and I certainly had fun sorting through it. Thanks mom. <3

For a while mom worked at this burger joint. She got me hooked on bbq sauce mixed with mayo. She worked her butt off and kept up very well with her teen coworkers. Unfortunately, some of their vernacular rubbed off on her. For months I was subjected to “You go, girl!” which earned mammoth eye rolls from me. Eye rolls with attached grins. Recently I acquired a diary of hers from that time period. Much of it is dull and routine, but there are a few gems.

She loathed it. She was adamantly anti-pink, and so was I for a few years. Then I went overboard with it, and now I’m just at ease with it.

I think…I may be wrong, but I think her favorite color was sunny lemon yellow.

A couple of times, my mom went to Kentucky to stay with family and dry out a bit. (Like rehab, but with no money.) One of those times, she stayed with her brother, his wife and my little cousin, Jackie, who is about 5 years younger than me. She was there a few months I think. I have always been ferociously jealous of Jackie because of those few months. There are oodles of pics of them doing ordinary family stuff together, stuff mom didn’t do with me. Mom’s face seemed full of pride and pleasure in Jackie, and I felt she should’ve been spending that time with me, doing family stuff and being devoted to me. Don’t get me wrong, Jackie’s a great girl. It boils down to this: I just wanted mom to love me.