My Mom

Well April has arrived which means my mother's d-day is around the corner. She died April 17th, 1999 - 10 years ago. I am thinking about visiting her grave site for the first time in 10 years. I am still a little afraid to go. For one it is about 4 fours away to get there and two, I am afraid how it will effect me. Will I break down into tears? Will I have no tears at all and feel bad because I didn't cry? Will she even have a head stone?? The reason I say that is because after she died, my aunt asked me if I would buy the head stone for her. At that time I was only 22 and had very little money. I was also a complete wreck after my mother's death and had no strength to create a head stone. It wasn't something I was ready to do as I was still trying to accept that she was gone.
So if I go there and she still does not have a head stone, I will feel really bad. But I will make it right and give her a head stone if she needs one. I can finally afford one for her if I need to.

I have been thinking about her a lot lately. She is on my mind almost every day. I feel like I should do something special this month for her. I have been thinking about getting a tattoo for years in remembrance of her. I was very close last year and then chickened out. This would be a perfect year to do that, but part of me thinks my mother would not really like me getting a tattoo in her honor. I don't think she was the tattoo type of lady. So I am not sure about the tattoo anymore. I think if I got one, it would have to be for another reason. Overall, I would say visiting her grave site would be special enough for her 10 year d-day.

Along with thinking of her, I have been gathering questions that I would ask her if I had a chance to. I have been thinking about my mother's Tarot Cards and wonder how often she used them and if she had any psychic gift with them. She also had stones that she use to meditate with. I remember seeing her laying on the bed with a pink stone in her hand and holding it close to her heart. She also told us stories about her experience with seeing spirits. I think she as said she put her hand through one and her hand got cold when she went to turn a light on. She even said she sensed spirits in our house as well. As a young child, I don't know if I was freaked out from her telling me that or if I could feel them too. There were many times that I was scared in our house and felt like there was something in my room or down the hall. We had mirrors at the end of our hall way and it was always a freaky thing to walk down the hallway in the dark. When I had sleep overs that was always the dare at night was to walk down the hall in the dark and face the mirrors.

After my mother passed away, I did find her Tarot Cards and they looked very used. They looked like she used them A LOT. I really wonder if she had a gift or just used them for fun or for hope that her future would change for the better. I will say that if she were alive today, I think she would love being a grandmother. She would have loved Myles (my son). I think my husband would have enjoyed her as well. She had an infectious laugh and fun personality. She was a little goofy, but that is what was cool about her. She was different.

As I get older, I can see a lot of her personality in me. All the things that bugged me about her when I was younger are becoming a part of my personality now. I was such a little brat when I was a young teen. I felt like I was smarter than her and I made fun of her with my friends as they all thought she was weird when she would talk about her stones and her crystals.

My mother did not have a lot of friends and dedicated most of her last 22 years to my brother and I. She was a great mother! She was a stay at home mom and my dad worked across the street at his business that he owned. I had a great childhood because of them. I could not ask for a better child hood. I had great neighbor hood friends and we took a lot of family trips that I will never forget. We were a great family of four. My mother cooked us a wide variety of healthy foods but always make us a yummy desert for later. She was actually pretty cool and I wonder if that is how I am now with my son. Hopefully Myles doesn't think I am weird when he is a teen like I did for my mom!

She also let me experience life and do things that might not happen is this generation.
I climbed the roof and jumped off once onto a mattress
I climbed tall ladders and jumped off with an umbrella
I slid down our steep hill behind the fence and into the ditch on a card board box
My bother and I would roll down hour hill in the box (with the large staples still in the box)
I slipped through the fence all the time and traveled down the ditch until I could not go any further.
I went on long bike rides, farther than a child should go with not helmet or pads
I crossed our four lain busy street all the time!
My bother and I played in the front yard gutter when it rained and it filled up with a big river of water
(we actually have a picture floating around with my brother and I in our bathing suits, under an umbrella, in the rain, in front of the little river flowing through our front house during the rain)

These are all things that a parent would never let happen today. However thanks to the freedom she gave me, I became very independent at a young age and was able to take care of myself when we lost our home and all our money. I moved in with my best friend's family and finished the last three years of high school with them. I forged all the parental signatures and got a job to help pay for my first semester of collage. I applied for a scholarship and moved 6 hours away from home to a four year university. I graduated in 1999 with a degree in Family and Consumer Science. She died one month before I finished collage. I graduated on my birthday, May 28th, 1999.

There is no way I would have done all this if she would have stood over me my entire child hood and said "no" to everything. I love her for that! Who knows, maybe it was her being naive and she had no idea I was doing those things. Or maybe she knew and peaked at me to make sure I was ok with out me knowing. I do know that things happen for a reason and my childhood was the foundation that I needed to push forward our difficult times. My life has been faced with many challenges and I have always manages to find away to get out of it, push forward, and make things right again. I would not be where I am today if it were not for my courage and pursaverance that I inhereted as a child.

I really wish I new more about my mom before she had us and what kind of person she was. What did she do for fun? What was her favorite song? What was her favorite color? Did she have any psychic or medium abilities? What was up with the Tarot Cards and the stones??

You would think I would know all these answers, but I don't. I moved out at the age of 14 (or was it 15?) and just visited her and talked to her on the phone. When we talked it was about me and what I was up to. I do remember some of her stories, but I wish I could hear them again along with some new ones that I never heard before or forgot about. All I know now is that I miss her and wish I could give her a big hug and kiss. I would also like to be held by her and have that feeling that "everything is going to be alright". I miss her hugs and I miss her smell.

Dear Mom,

I love you and I miss you a lot. I am sorry it took me this long to appreciate you. But I do and I see more of you in me each day. I feel like I am understanding you more each year I grow and experience motherhood. I feel like I am discovering you through being a mother to Myles. I guess that is why I think about you so often. I hope I am as great of a mother as you were. And I hope Myles is a little more kind to me than I was to you. I am so sorry I broke your heart when I moved out. I am so so sorry. You dedictated a portion of your life to me and I crushed it by moving out. I could have stayed and gone another direction in life. I could have stayed and kept you company for the next 5-8 years. But I didn't.
However, my experiences away from home made me a better person and it lead me to a good life ahead. Maybe you saw that too and forgave me. I hope so. I hope I make you proud and I hope you can see how adorable your grandson is. I know he would love you and fallow you everywhere if you were here.

You are always on my mind and in my heart.


Forever Love,

-Trina