Tell Me About Your Mother...

I did and thought it deliberate and staged.

Which is what I mean: that's great, that she's able to do that for him, and is there to help; but in no small part it's because she's just not good at accepting that not everyone has her priorities, and so if she's involved with my brother's finances somewhat, she can make sure he does things "correctly."

In fact I'm not soiling my mother under any circumstances.

Oh yeah, she's also from a small religious town in southern ohio, was a student at Kent State in 1970, and thought my dad was a wild partyguy when she first met him(he went to Michigan State, y'see).

her favourite word to describe anything she doesn't understand or immediately comprehend as "weird", with a slight pejorative sense to it.

All in all, my mom is the cat's ass.

And get your cat's ass away from .. wait .. what?

golden bikini to thread

carrie fisher was majorly wasted on coke from the late 70's thru the early 80's. that's bad.

you don't have enough coke, that's good.

the frogurt is cursed. That's bad.

but you get your free choice of topping. that's good.

the toppings contains Potassium Benzoate.

http://www.duffzone.co.uk/framegrabs/9f04/017.jpg
that's bad.

She will and does give away basically anything at all at will, no strings attached, but then she'll turn around and criticize you with a cutting remark or two. She's loving at times, but at times I feel as though nothing I do would make her happy. She helps out a lot, but I constantly need to be there to take care of her. We have a loving but distant relationship and we will often get into heated "discussions" about various things.

I do sometimes feel the need to move far away from here, to leave Mom to be taken care of by other relatives, because I will occasionally feel overwhelmed and exhausted by it all, but then I realize what Mom did for her parents and I feel ashamed of myself for thinking of such things.

As you can tell, my whole family's pretty big on Catholic education. ;)

She dropped out of high school at 15 to marry her then 21 yr old boyfriend. At 16 she had a stillborn son. This first husband beat her and his father forced him to join the Marines thinking this would straighten him out. (great logic huh?) They moved to North Carolina I think (only time my mother's ever lived away from this area) and after many broken bones and a murder attempt (he drove them off a cliff in an attempt to kill her) she finally left him and moved back home to Texas. She was 19.

She enrolled in the high school that I would eventually attend and graduate from, and met the asshole who became my father. They got married during their senior year and she was already pregnant with me by then. My little brother came along five years later. She and my father divorced after 11 years. She had a hard time supporting us on her own (like all single parents) and had a lot of trouble with drugs and alcohol--in and out of rehab and hospitals for many years.

She got clean and sober about 10 years ago, when she met my stepdad. He's an okay guy. Nascar fan and kind of racist but he doesn't beat her or molest children so this is good. He works on the line at Lockheed Martin. Mom's always had a variety of job jobs but hasn't worked after being laid off around 18 mths ago. She has a lot of health problems like Lupus and had a colon tumor removed in December. She complains about not getting to see me or my brother's three kids often enough. She and my stepdad live in a little hick suburb about an hour from here. She clips coupons for me and bakes. She's afraid to drive on the freeway and just turned 50. She's mostly a nice mom.

Save for the bit about the father's family, this is pretty much exactly how my father's early years went. Dad was adopted by his paternal grandmother. We never really got to know his egg donor's family. Oh yes, and my dad got to meet his dad like five times before Dad's slightly-more-than sperm donor passed away when Dad was 15 or 16.

Divorced from my father after five years, she raised my sister and me alone for six years, managing to feed, clothe, and school us, while working part-time and completing a BA and then an MA in Special Education. She had a failed marriage in my early teens, but came through that stronger than ever and became active again in politics, this time working for environmental causes.

At age 45 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, underwent a mastectomy, and then a year of chemo. She has now been cancer-free for 11 years. Four years ago she started dating a wonderful man that she has known for 20+ years, a widower with grown children. They married two years ago and are madly and happily in love. She continues to be active in environmental causes, is the president of a wildlife rehabilitation no-profit, serves on the city planning committee, picks-up garbage along the side of the road every morning on her way to work (she teaches at three extremely rural and impoverished schools, where she works with children who come to school barefoot in the snow, are malnourished, and so forth. And she teaches them survival skills and helps them find their way into the world).

She is not perfect: far from it. But she is strong and she is good. She accepts most all human failings and sees the beauty in people and their decisions. Right now she is spending all of her extra 'fun' money purchasing grains and corn for a herd of deer that live on her mountain, hoping to keep them from wandering off the protected land and into the path of hunters.

She is my idol. She is my best friend. She is my Moma.

*is badically amazingadelic
*is the only person who called me today
*made me a Tom Waits mixtape for me when I was like 14
*took me to lunch on Friday; I owe her lunch tomorrow
*is an awesome grandma
*used to softshoe tapdance in the middle of the night
*carried me in her womb, y'know?
*has a very good sense of humor
*sounds a li'l bit like a little girl on the phone
*sometimes lets me borrow her brand-new Jetta just cuz she knows how much I like it
*spoils my boy rotten
*spoils my sister's brand new boy rotten
*thinks I should quit my band and play more mellow music
*is 5'6"
*one of my favorite people ever anywhere anytime in the whole world

knew everyone in the Irish gangs down there, laughed when the leader of one of those gangs got his ass BEAT DOWN by a long-haired hippie Mexican dude he hassled in a bar (that dude turned out to be Carlos Santana). said gangmember then married aforementioned older prim sister

dated pretty much only Mexican guys, once took me on an old boyfriends tour of San Francisco: "that's where Speedy Gonzalez lived, well, don't get mad, he had a nice car!"

skipped school too much, graduated from Immaculate Conception H.S. with C avg., went to work in bank as teller, fell for young bank examiner, married at 19, had me at 20, two more kids before she was 25, moved us all out of SF cause she hated hippies

put up with a lot of crazy shit from my dad for many years, finally things came to a head when I was 14, separation, divorce, battles over alimony and child support, alla that. once saw her flip my dad the middle finger behind his back, she saw me too, we both just started to laugh

she (and we) met her dad only once after he got out of prison, we all thought he was dead. danced with me to the clash's "bankrobber," it was appropriate ("well, he never did hurt nobody"). he was cool.

she was my best friend all the way up until I was 18, it kinda broke her heart that I went away to college but she understood and supported me, what really made her mad was when I didn't move back to Oregon after college

and when I got married and didn't move back

and when I had kids and didn't move back and couldn't visit as often

and now things are kinda strained between us and I was gonna post this like three or four times before now but I just couldn't do it.

she has said things to me that hurt a lot but she has also supported me in so many ways with little 'mum-type-things' like sending little 'love parcels' when im in need.
she always knows when im in shyte, and phones or sends me stuff out of the blue.
she is smart, funny, pretty and loving.
she has remained married to my dad for almost 45 years. one strong woman there, and they are still friends!

i hope my boy will think this much of me when im old and greying.

"My mother? Let me tell you about my mother...."

Had a wonderful sense of humor. Drove a stick shift. Rooted for my baseball team. Bought me my first guitar when I was 13. Sent cards and letters when I moved away from home. Once told me that she would rather see me get in trouble with a girl instead of my buddies.
She loved the ocean.

Now, deeply laden with alzeimers she barely knows who I am and I miss her immeasurably.

I worry sometimes that such a fate may befall my folks. I can't imagine what it must be like for you.

Now for something a little humorous.

A couple of years ago, I visited and took her a book. A bio. I forget just who's. She was seated at a table with about five other women afflicted with the same disease, none too advanced at that point. Mom thanked me for the book and handed it to the next lady for a look who in turn passed it on. They all got to see it and said things like "Oh yes, I remember her". Eventually the book comes full circle back to mom and she looks at it like it's the first time and thanks me again and passes the book to the next lady. Repeat scenario. I feel a little guilty, but it was hilarious.

Weird. I didn't know luna and I were siblings.

ok, maybe it's a lot different.

I have conflicted feelings about my mom, who is very very crazy. Love her all the same, though.

I take everything back. My mother is nothing like this. She's dishonest, lazy, a liar, and wouldn't give you 25 cents to buy a donut if you were starving to death. She's cold, unloving, and really a kind of an awful person.

Christ, I need therapy.

She's the best though. I love her so much. She's a great mom. :-)))))

i'm gonna go to a sporting or music thread now.

She was a member of the National Honor Society and a first-generation Elvis Presley fan in high school. (She has photos she took of him at the Norfolk Arena when he was still on Sun. One from a couple of feet away as he came through the stage door.)

Very caring, very funny, very opinionated in the very best way. She loves movies and her faves include "Dr. Zhivago," "An Officer and a Gentleman," "Stranger Than Paradise" and "The Brother From Another Planet." She's been a wonderfully supportive grandmother to my brother's daughter. She's just great. One of my few regrets about living on the other side of the country is not being able to see her more often.

That is truly a unique combination of favorites. Salut!

How times have changed.

my mom in the 50's. too cool.

https://scontent.fbos1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13567434_10157111731975298_2978608472615716068_n.jpg?oh=2d81c63655bb734b1690e452deee3999&oe=580C61E3