I Knew Mom

I Knew Mom

Daughter. Sister. Wife. Mom. Artist.
This is how she would have wanted to be known.
And in truth she was just that.
However . . .

If you knew mom in the last five years,
You didn’t know her.
She wasn’t that frail, mind-diseased person
Sitting in the bed waiting . . . waiting.

If you knew mom in her 20 years of retirement,
You didn’t know her.
You knew a woman who wanted so much to be the person you thought she was.
She loved the perception . . . but she wasn’t that person.

If you knew mom as her boys turned to men,
You didn’t know her.
She wanted so much more than she had, and
She had so much. She just couldn’t enjoy it.

If you knew mom as her boys were growing up,
You didn’t know her.
The struggle was so difficult.
Raising two boys and caring for an injured spouse was too much.

If you knew mom as she labored at the ordnance plant,
You didn’t know her.
You knew the patriot --
Honoring her husband -- raising her child, standing tall.

If you knew mom as she chased her “Bob” around the country,
You didn’t know her.
She needed the warmth and identity of her love, but
It wasn’t enough.

If you knew mom as she was growing up,
You didn’t’ know her.
She was her family --
Nanny to some, demanding to others. She tried so hard.

But . . .

I knew mom.
I was five.
She loved me.
She was MOM --
The daughter, sister, wife, mother, artist.

Mom

When I think of Mom, what comes to mind? . . . It’s strange – very little.

I can picture the look of hate and incomprehensible distrust the last time I saw her in Arkansas. I see the mother who took joy in my accomplishment during my youth. I hear her yelling at my Dad for minor things. I can feel the warmth of her hug when I skinned my knees as a five year old. I hear her constant complaints of being shunned by others – of no one eating her potato salad. That was Mom.

As Mom grew older, her life became clouded by prescription drugs and her, ever present, inner demons. I regret that. I miss the Mom that should have been, but never was.

I’ve always been impressed that my Dad stuck with Mom through the years. I would not have. I’m ashamed of that feeling, but I know that it is true.

It was somewhere in high school that I realized that Mom was different and that realization made me different. It was a sadness -- an emptiness -- that I can not explain. Even today, I have no explanation. It is just that Mom wasn’t Mom anymore.

As time passed, my love and respect for my Dad grew and my love and respect for my Mom waned. I’m sorry to say that my feelings for my mom left me years ago. In its place is vacancy, an emptiness that nothing can fill.

I’ve envied my friends for their relationship with their parents. For many, as their parents grew older, they transitioned from son/daughter to friend. I did not have that -- Mom would not allow that to happen. We've had that with our children and I am so pleased.

I’m ashamed that I wanted my Mom to die before my Dad. I did. It would have allowed me to be a closer friend to my Dad. It did not happen. I deeply regret my feelings and that lost opportunity.

Today, we are gathered to say goodbye to my mother. I respect the effort she made to be my mother. For that, I thank her. For those that she has offended and alienated, I apologize -- that person was not my Mom. It was a person that had lost control of her life. It was a person confused by relationships. It was a person that lost her battle with her demons. To those who found Mom to be kind, warm, caring and generous, please keep those memories. This was the person she should have been.

Mom, you’ve reached that point where peace is finally upon you, where your demons can no longer reach you, where your families’ love can finally break through your barriers.

May God bless your soul and may you rest in peace.

I close with the Joshua Loth Liebman poem “Peace of Mind”. This is the same poem I used for Dad's memorial. It is fitting, although Mom's view of life was very different from Dad's just as Mr. Liebman describes.

I often feel that death is not the enemy of life, but its friend, for it is the knowledge that our years are limited that makes them so precious. It is the truth that time is but lent to us that makes us, at our best, look upon our years as a trust handed into our temporary keeping. We are like children privileged to spend a day in a great park, a park filled with many gardens and playgrounds and azure-tinted lakes with white boats sailing upon the tranquil waves.

True, the day allotted to each one of us is not the same length, in light or in beauty. Some children of earth are privileged to spend a long and sunlit day in the garden of the earth. For others the day is shorter, cloudier, and dusk descends more quickly as in winter’s tale. But whether our life is a long summery day or a shorter wintry afternoon, we know that inevitably there are storms and squalls, that overcast even the bluest heaven and there are sunlit rays that pierce the darkest autumn sky.

The day that we are privileged to spend in the great park of life is not the same for all human beings, but there is enough beauty and joy and gaiety in the hours if we will but treasure them. Then for each one of us the moment comes when the great nurse, death, takes man, the child, by the hand and quietly says, “It is time to go home. Night is coming. It is your bedtime, child of earth. Come; you’re tired. Lie down at least in the quiet of the nursery and sleep. Sleep well. The day is gone. Stars shine in the canopy of eternity.”


Mom, sleep well. Love Dad, as I know you did. Find peace together.