Why I'm like my mother

This past week was the 10th anniversary of my mother Esther's death. She died on July 1, 1998, while I was in the middle of graduate school. We never found out what was wrong with her for sure, because she was "done" with tests and other invasive treatments by that time (she was 86, and had had at least six major surgeries in her life - she wanted no part of any more). I think she died of a broken heart. The last year of her life, my dad was becoming more and more confused and "demented" - it was the year of the huge "El Nino" and they spent nearly the entire winter in the house. Dad wouldn't go anywhere, and he would barely let me take her anywhere. She had lost her sister Carrie and sister-in-law Winnie during the previous two years and was losing her friends right and left. Every time I talked to her, she had been to another funeral. It was as if everything that had given her a reason to live was leaving her. We were the only thing left.

At Mother's Day that year, I remember thinking, "this is the last year I will have my mom on this day." She wasn't eating much and she just started to fade away. She died a month and a half later.

The night she died, we were all at the nursing home, waiting. She was out of pain, they had given her morphine, and I sat holding her hand and listening to her struggling ragged breathing, telling her it was ok to go. She finally took her last breath about 8 p.m. and nearly at the same time, a small bell rang in the hall.

At the time, I didn't want to be like her. She had picked a difficult man to marry, my father, and I felt that she often let him walk all over her. She didn't know how to cope with his rages and made excuses for him and didn't know how to protect us from him. She should have left him years ago, but wouldn't go. It was a source of frustration to my siblings and me. There was nothing we could do about it except forgive her, which I eventually was able to do. It was a different generation and she just couldn't bring herself to leave or kick him out.

Now I can think of my mother with joy and fondness for my memories of her life and a new appreciation for her accomplishments in spite of the limitations she had. From the vantage point of ten years after her death, I can see the gifts she gave me by what I have also accomplished in spite of my OWN limitations and I see that many of my own areas of interest had their beginnings in something that she exposed me to in one way or another or encouraged me to do.

Just a few...

• I love birds, being outside - all our trips to the Sierras (the bluebird above was hers)
  
• I am a farmer at heart - growing things gives me an enormous satisfaction - I used to follow her around in the orange grove and help with the irrigation. I started pulling weeds at age 4.
  
• I love to help people - we have a long streak of "social worker" types in our family - my mother was always helping someone, including the hobos that came to the back door in the early 50s.
  
• I love books - Mom took me to the library weekly in the summer and made reading a perfectly good alternative and reward to doing chores
• I went to college with no support from her and Dad (he was retired by that time and didn't have any extra money) - she made it clear to me that I was absolutely capable of it and shouldn't think I couldn't. I managed it somehow.
  
• I love God - while she couldn't go to church for most of my childhood (my father wouldn't let her) - she encouraged me to go with my grandmother and aunt. This is a foundation of my life.
  
• I love to cook - she let me try weird things when I was taking cooking in 4-H and ate my concoctions even if she didn't like them (I remember one shrimp curry that was particularly nasty...). She was also not a slave to recipes and taught me the basics of canning.
  

I DIDN'T get her drawing and painting ability and though I can sew, it's hard for me to take time to do it right now. Maybe later. My daughter got the artistic genes and the pie-making genes - I am hopeless in that category. And I am definitely not the fisherman she was!

Today I told my daughter that I was canning and she said "you are totally turning into Gramma!" That's what started all this...

Mom, I miss you.