Tag Archives: Mom

14May/17
Mom

What Is A Mom?

Aging, Life, , , ,

 and are we still a Mom after losing a child?

Mom

Mom…what a wonderful word…

To hear your child call you Mom is the most wonderful sound in the world…unless they say it repeatedly until you want to scream. Seriously though there is nothing better in this world than being a Mom. I have been doing a lot of thinking about this with Mother’s Day being today and having lost one of my children. As people have told me, “it’s so great you have two other children.” Yes, I am so very happy I have my two wonderful daughters. But that doesn’t make up for losing one.

A friend commented the other day she was dreading Mother’s Day this year. She was a mother and a daughter, now after losing both her mother and her daughter she was neither of them. I thought about it and then told her she was still both, she “was” a mother and a daughter…but her child and Mom just resided in a different place now.

On this same note, someone recently asked me how many children I had. Before I realized it I said 3 and then stopped quickly and looked at her. She asked me what was wrong and I told her I had lost my son several months ago. I told her,  I’m sorry I don’t know what to say…. do I still say I have 3 children? Do I still have 3 kids? Do I have to clarify and say I had 3 and one passed away and now  have 2 that are living? I don’t know how to answer that question. And.. I really don’t want to.

Then there are these so called holidays…Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. They make it very difficult for people who have lost loved ones. I never really gave it much thought before I lost my Father and Mother and now my son. I am very grateful I still have my two daughters but what about those people who only had one child. Are they still a “Mom?”

“Being a Mother is not what you gave up to have a child, but what you’ve gained from having one.” ~ Unknown

The question is…are they still a “Mom?” Yes, my answer is a resounding yes! They are still our children wherever they are. I choose to believe my son is in heaven. But where ever they are, they are still our children and we are still their Mom.

It has been hard for me to celebrate these “holidays” after losing my parents. But I had children and grandchildren of my own to celebrate my day with. Now after losing my son it once again forces me to see the day is somehow different. My son won’t be buying me flowers or a beautiful card or putting in a new kitchen faucet for me this Mother’s Day. I don’t really care about any of those things no matter how wonderful and sweet they were. What I “will” miss today is the hug and him telling me how much he loved me. My son gave the best hugs in the world. I felt it all the way to my toes. He was always a hugger. I will miss those hugs forever. But I’m still his Mom.

I always see those poems about if we could spend an hour with someone you love and lost, what would you say…I wouldn’t say anything I would just ask him for a hug. I hope he is hugging my own Mom today and my sister and I hope he knows I’m still his Mom. We are still Mom’s, we love and we are loved…sometimes the person we love just doesn’t live here anymore.

“We never die…we become the sand on the beach…the waves on the sea…the voice that resonates from the seashells…we live forever in the hearts of those who remember us…” ~ Unknown

09Feb/17
funeral in the church

The Unexpected Things I Learned About Myself At A Funeral

Aging, Life, , , ,

You never know when you will have these “light bulb” going off experiences…

funeral in the church

the light went off in the church…not literally

I have been blessed in my life to have three “Mothers”. My Mother who gave birth to me, my godmother Lorraine and my Mother-in-law, Peg(actually she hasn’t been my MIL for many years, since her son and I divorced). My Mother passed away in 2014, I was grateful to still have Lorraine and Peg as my “other Mothers”. Lorraine passed in October of last year and Peg, this past week.

All 3 of these women were so important to me and such big influences in my life. They helped to shape me into the woman I am today. All of them were very different, the one constant being their deep love for me and my love for them. I have written about my Mother several times and have shared how much I miss her every day. I was so grateful to have these other women in my life when she passed. Now they are all 3 gone.

Peg had been in a nursing home for the last several months. The very same one my Mother had been in for 4 years and the exact same wing she was in when we said goodbye to her. So it was very hard to go back there when my MIL was sent there to recuperate from an illness. We thought she would go back to her home and that is what she had hoped for also. But that wasn’t meant to be. We went to visit almost 2 weeks ago and she passed a few days later. We knew most likely when we left that day we would not see her again..on this earth.

“Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

I had been dreading the thought of her funeral, due to the fact that it seems like all I do lately is go to funerals of people I love. However this particular one was different…and we spoke about it many times when we were together. It was different because my ex husband would be there. A man I had loved dearly, a man who was my first love, the father of my children and a man I thought I would be with forever. Knowing also the funeral would be held in the church we used to go to as a family when we were together and where we got married for the second time(yes, we did..incase you missed this in my previous posts, I did marry him twice). It took me a long time to get over him after our divorce. I thought love was supposed to last forever. I couldn’t believe ours didn’t.

My oldest was out of the country at the time of the funeral but my youngest came home with her 3 boys. We all went to the funeral together and also took my son’s 2 children. All 5 of the kids loved their Nanny and wanted to be there. For those of you reading my blog for the first time, I lost my son in July of last year. The 7 of us walked into the church and immediately memories from the past came flooding back. I though it might be hard but I didn’t expect it to be that hard. Thank goodness for the love and support from my Brother-in-law and Sister-in-law and their whole family including my nieces and nephew who quickly surrounded us and hugged us. With me not being “real” family and knowing how my ex felt about me, I knew I was the odd man(woman) out…but they did everything they could to make me feel like part of their family. Their warmth, love and understanding was truly appreciated and something I will never forget.

Without going into too much detail, lets just say things between my ex and I aren’t exactly good. Things between us aren’t really anything at all since we don’t speak and I haven’t seen or heard from him in over 30 years. He doesn’t have a relationship with his children(our kids together) and he has never met his grandchildren(his choice). So the fact my Mother-in-law and I could keep a relationship through all of this albeit a close one was amazing. We never knew what to call each other, so I would call her Mom and she told people I was her daughter-in-law. We got tired of  saying ex DIL and MIL and explaining it to people so we just settled on that.

I loved my MIL and I was going to the funeral no matter what. I needed to pay my respects to her for all she had done and all she had been to my children and grandchildren, and of course me. I knew my ex wouldn’t be happy about my being there so I didn’t know what to expect when I saw him. What I really didn’t expect were all the feelings that came over me the moment I first saw him walk in. So many mixed emotions and feelings of “what ifs” and what could have been. I was brought right back to that time many many years ago when we were a family and raising our kids together. I guess its normal to feel this way especially when you haven’t seen the person in such a long time. I guess its normal to wonder what might have been and how life would have played out for us if we had stayed together. I guess it is, I’ve never been in this position before so I don’t really know. I just knew I was overloading on memories and freaking out a bit.

My daughter sensed all of this going on and leaned over and hugged me and asked me how I was doing. I told her I wasn’t doing too good. I told her there was so much going on and so many feelings I didn’t expect to feel. While she was hugging me she whispered in my ear, “turn around and look a few pews back.” I turned around and there was someone else from my past seated all alone just smiling back at me. A friend, a good friend that had been around during that time and knew what I was going through. It was a friend I hadn’t seen in a very long time. But somehow just seeing this person there helped. It jolted me right out of my “what ifs” and “what could have beens”. It reminded me of how far I’d come since that time way back then and that I made it to this point in life all on my own. I had raised my kids myself and did a pretty decent job. My son may be gone but he was a good, kind man and he created 2 sweet loving children to carry on his legacy. My girls are both wonderful young women and they are also my friends. My youngest is raising her 3 boys and they are growing up into caring young men. I realized I had done pretty good without him or his help.

Having these 5 grandchildren sitting beside me made me feel so loved. They were worried about me and wanted to protect me. So did my nieces, they sat in the pew with me as well. I don’t think I have ever felt so loved, especially at a time such as this when I wasn’t sure I could even make it through the day. I do know their grandfather will never know that kind of love. And I feel sorry for him. When he stood  at the podium looking out over the church to read what he had written about his mother, there we were… all 7 of us lined up together directly in his view. He couldn’t NOT see us. He has not seen us for 30 years but he saw us that day in the church. The day we came to pay our respects to the woman who raised him. The woman I called Mom.

“No one ever really dies as long as they took the time to leave us with fond memories.” ~ Chris Sorensen

18Feb/16

Top Ten Things I Learned From Mom

Fashion, Humor, Lifestyle, ,

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“we are our Mother’s Daughters”

At least I know I am…I find myself so often doing things or saying something just like  Mom. These were things I hated as a child, but now here I am doing the exact same things. I look in the mirror and I see her. I hear her in my voice. She has molded my life like no other person and shaped me into who I am today. I wish I could pick up the phone and call her so many times recently and ask for her advice. She always helped me through tough times and I’ve had a lot of them lately. Yes, she sure taught me a lot…and not all of it was good. LOL..

Things I learned from Mom:

  1. A Love of family – She loved her family above all else. Everything else came second to them. Mom didn’t just say she loved you, she showed it in every thing she did. Her Mother and Father and siblings were so very important to her, she respected them and honored them. And she passed that on to her own children and grandchildren. We knew we were loved.
  2. To have a caring heart – she deeply wanted to help people and she did that. She gave freely of her money and her time. She volunteered at the schools, was a PTA President and a Girl Scout leader. She also gave to over 100 charities. Yes, really.. If someone, anyone, needed something or a few dollars Mom was always there to help them, all they had to do was ask.
  3. Love of animals – Mom loved animals and had 3 dogs. She loved them and treated them like her kids. Personally I didn’t like any of them.
  4. To be a strong woman – She was a little ahead of her time, my Mom.. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and didn’t care if anyone liked what she had to say. If you asked for her advice, you were going to hear it. Most of the time she was right. She fought for what she believed in and heaven help those who tried to tell her otherwise or hurt someone she loved.
  5. A love of food – this is one I wish I didn’t learn quite so well. She loved food and was a great cook. We had dinner together every night and we ate what she made for us or we didn’t eat. I just wish she wouldn’t have taught me to love potato chips.
  6. To love yourself – Mom did a good job on this one. She was a beautiful woman and she took care of herself. She wasn’t skinny by any means, and at times was quite heavy, but her weight never made her think less of herself. She thought she was beautiful and so others did as well.
  7. A sense of style – she had her own sense of what looked good on her and what didn’t. Mom didn’t follow trends or wear what everyone else did. She looked amazing in everything she wore. And as I have mentioned before, she had a statement piece that was her….the big earrings. She was never without them.
  8. Get up and make up – my Mom got up and put on her makeup every single day, whether she was going out or staying in. She styled her hair and put her makeup on, every day. And she would never go out of the house without dressing up or her make up.
  9. A love of the beach – writing this now is funny to me since I can hardly ever remember her getting in the ocean. She would get in pools but not the ocean. She didn’t want to get her hair wet. But she did love the beach. We went to Florida and the many beaches close to PA. Even if it was just for a day, we would all pile in the car with sandwiches made by her for lunch along the way and we had the best time ever. As a side note… I hardly ever get in the ocean anymore either, unless the grandkids shame me into it. But I love to sit on the beach and enjoy the beauty of it every chance I get.

And my favorite is #10. Shopping and bargain finding – My mom was the queen of  shopping and she loved it. It was her hobby. Finding a bargain was the best thing in the world for her. We would go shopping all the time. When we were kids she took us downtown every Friday and we shopped until we couldn’t walk anymore. As she got older, she still loved to do it and made my Dad take her every Wednesday and Saturday and my sister and I and then later my kids went with her on Fridays. I honestly think she would have loved to go every day. This has certainly had an effect on me and my daughters. We all love to shop and when we do it together it is even better. Trying things on and laughing together until we almost pee ourselves is the best tribute to my Mom. I am sure she is looking down on us and saying to herself…”I taught them well.”

“When you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know.” ~ Charley Benetto

What’s the best thing your mother taught you?