This has been an absurd week of endless (and exhilarating) blog-touring, interviews, and reviews. Emlyn Chand, who runs Novel Publicity, is a wonderful gal and I encourage those who want a seriously fun way to increase their book’s profile to hit her up with questions about availability. I would not recommend her unless I was convinced of her excellence. I am recommending her, and Novel Publicity in general.
Friday, the tenth of August, 2012, is the final stretch of this weeklong insanity. And what Emlyn usually sets up is a kind of contest. It’s where she gets people involved in a small but meaningful way — they enter the contest, and if they get picked as the winners, they get Amazon gift cards for Kindle books or whatever. Promote a book, get new books, seems the be the mindset.
In all honesty, I was uncomfortable with the idea of contests from the start, because I didn’t want to make a joke out of my mother’s death and the book that came from it. But Emlyn understood that, and we’ve tailored things in a way that suits me, suits the contestants, and stays true to the way Novel Publicity does things.
So here’s the contest. Anyone — including you, and your neighbors, and even the bin Laden family — can participate. The point is to share, in the comments section on this page, a story about your mother, or the woman who helped raise you if you didn’t get to grow up with your mother. What we’re looking for is stories that reveal how you, in your personal circumstances, discovered in your mother that old universal truth: even the grownups make mistakes. Even your parents are capable of being wrong, of being sad.
In short: Please share a story about your mother that lets us know something about her as a person in her own right.
Something she did that you admire. Something she did that ended up being a big mistake. Whatever you think conveys the fragility of the person wearing the mask of Mother.
I believe the way we’re doing this is that the most “touching” or “moving” story will win its author a $100 Amazon gift card. There will also be a randomly selected second winner; that’s a $50 Amazon gift card.
Good luck.
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If you feel like reading a bit more from me, I just dug up an older version of Praise of Motherhood, and thought I’d share the original ending, the last full page of the “second version” of the book. It’s different in tone, it’s less polished, it’s ultimately less “good” but I think it might interest a few of the people who loved the final verison…
We probably all know the special kind of person who exposes herself so much that nobody can inform her of her flaws, because she already knows about them. She has spent her life dissecting herself, letting her wounds fester and urging people to stare at her scars; she doesn’t do it out of narcissism, but as an escape from the horror of having to hide things, the shock of having one’s failures pointed out. For if she gets there first, if she reveals everything there is to her before anyone else can discover it, then she can remain a purely empty being, transparent and irreproachable despite her morbidity. Since our only substance is what we keep hidden, a person like this can be without any defining features, and so infinitely interpretable. I do not want to be this person. I want to feel allowed to express only what I want to express. I can say much more about my mother — I can say more about myself, about my insecurities and my failings, but enough is enough.
I don’t want to turn the disappearance of my mother into a metaphysical tragedy, when in fact it was nothing more than the tragedy of the physical, the impermanent, the sickness that devours life merely because life gets so crowded in itself. There is simply so much of it there: so much noise, so many brutal quarrels and partnerships and achievements. There is no end to the insanity of the living, and it breeds so many possibilities for the great humbling of mankind that to think of it feels like staring into the abyss. Better not to go there; better never to be born.
The night my mother stopped being there, I saw myself rendered into a thing incapable of distinguishing life from death, unable even to register her absence. There was no opposition between here and not-here, no difference between alive and forever gone: at all times my mother was both there and nowhere, still a visible body but not something with which anyone could communicate. I can admit to having felt a pleasant thrill when I realized she was gone: the thrill of life, of being awakened after many somnambulistic wanderings through the world, my mother’s hand steering me clear of pitfalls and puddles. Better never to be born? Not that day. It was the first time I felt entirely removed from my own consciousness. The liberating potential of your most cherished one’s death should not be kept a secret. It forces you to behave according to new standards, to live as though only through you could that person continue to exist, to act as though you alone can bring them back to life through your good and your evil.
It terrifies me, but there is nothing like being left behind when the next destination is a ravenous nothing.
My mother was 48 for about fifteen years. Or so I believed, not because she ever said she was 48, but because, in my mind, she never changed. Her hair was the same silvery blond, her eyes the same pale blue with that same shadow of seriousness lounging somewhere above the iris and below the lash. Her patience seemed endless, her humor always gentle, and the worst curse I ever heard her utter was, “da#!.” She did say that one three times in quick succession though. Upon reflection I have come to believe that Mom arrived at the age of 48 somewhere around the year she actually turned 40, and stayed there until she was at least 60.
Before that though, before she settled into being 48, she left school, married young, stuck by her soldier husband until he came home, bore him three children, kept house, went out to work, earned her GED and her degree, raised her children and more than that, loved us, whether we were currently lovable or not. And, like all kids, frequently we were not.
She adapted to the changing circumstances of her life with grace and humor – so much so that I once heard an acquaintance mention that he had never seen her angry…right after having had a serious argument with her. He didn’t even realize she had been angry, but she won the argument. Most people probably look at her and see an ordinary woman with an ordinary life. I see my Mom; every inch a lady from hair to nails, gracious, gentle and smart, with a spine of steel and a stalwart, endless heart.
While I love my mother dearly and always have, I have done everything in my power to be the opposite of how she was as a mother. My mother worked for Child Protective Services during my freshman year of high school, so it is clear that she understood what abuse was & what to do when it occured. Unfortunately, it seems I was the only person she didn’t find the need to protect. One day I heard my mother screaming for my dad to stop, foolishly I grabbed my baseball bat & screamed to my father that he wasn’t going to hurt my mom. I was correct, he didn’t hurt my mother; my father broke a wooden Louisville Slugger on my back, and I ran outside in the snow barefoot, in order to escape. A few days later, I was in a situation where I could report what had occured and I did. I was removed from my house while the case was investigated, eventually being allowed to return home as long as my father wasn’t there. That weekend my mother spent the entire time telling me how it wasn’t fair that my father had to leave, he was paying the bills afterall. That Monday, I met with my caseworker at school and told her what had gone on over the weekend; I told her that I wanted to go into foster care, and I was placed that night.
As a mother and woman, I have vowed to never put a partner before my children. I have also made a concious effort to ensure that my children are told & shown that I love them everyday!
I always told my mother that when she was ready to leave my father, all she had to do was call. A month after I had my first child, my mother made that call. I made the arrangements for my mother to travel from my house in Indiana to her siblings in California. While it was terrifying to be a new mother at 19, and be without the guidance of a mother, I know that I made the right choice.
Two Mothers create a Matriarch
I came into the Gier family a bastard and emerged a queen. My two mothers are Granny and Moma. Theirs was already a tremulous relationship before I came…but then throw in a child born with an instinctive ability to manipulate and some would say it’s a wonder they even talk now.
Because of my mothers age of 16 when I was born and varying status all my life between singer mother or married to a dick with a body I have lived in roach infested apartments, flew down highways clinging on for dear life as a mad, drunken stepfather told me who my “real daddy” was, and worked since I was 13 years old.
Then on the flip side of that when I was with granny (and that was often) I visited VFW halls, shopped often, learned to cook scrambled eggs, developed an addiction to the local Dairy Queens little cheeseburgers, and was loved and doted on so much I was beyond a brat. As a child I was a most overwhelming cocky ass monster.
So because of these two extremes I eventually become someone with astounding abilities and confidence.
Momas undying daily fight to teach me “It’s not always about Briana.” Has made me someone empathetic and mindful of my own constant revaluation to be better… To be unselfish.
Granny’s daily affirmations both in deed and words of “It’s always about Briana.” have given me confidence that is sometimes beyond even I can comprehend. I can honestly say that I’ve been loved unconditionally.
To these two women I embody their moon and stars & it’s been a constant competition for all my affection. Then the same competition doubled with the birth of not one but two daughters.
Because I love them both I moved 2,000 miles away. Needs from both ends I had previously fulfilled forced then to turn to one another. And now the proper order of things are in place.
But every summer for two weeks a year the old war resurrects when I visit “And it’s all about Briana and her two daughters.”
My mum is an amazingly strong person and she gives me hope when I’m feeling my lowest and struggling with the disease I myself am battling.
This amazing woman is a survivor of not just one but two brain aneurisms and a heart attack that we thought was going to take her from us four years ago. She survived it. Not 100 percent the way she was but doing still what she loves most in life and that’s baking to make us all fat and spoiling her grandson.
Great story you wrote and I really enjoyed it!
My mother loved a good party. And those were the ones she herself threw. A master hostess, if there is such a thing, she was Martha Stewart, Emily Post and Liberace all rolled into one. Most of my party etiquette comes from her able hands. And the one bit of advice she drummed into our heads was “never overstay your welcome.” Knowing when to leave the party was the epitome of good breeding, precisely because it is not something that can be taught. The art is in the subtlety. It is a known thing.
And my mother never overstayed her welcome. She died at 63. I was 31 years old at the time. I lived with her premature death for years, without giving it much thought. But when I turned 40, it was all I could think about. One niggling question dogged me throughout my birthday: What if my life was two thirds over? Some call it ‘mid-life crisis’–others call it ‘waking up.’ Some use the word ‘epiphany.’ In Buddhism, they say that even a room that has been dark for thousands of years can be illuminated by a single candle. My mom’s death was my candle. That simple death date fueled some powerful decisions I would make and it would sustain me when in the darkest night of my soul, I questioned those decisions. In a way, while my life was the one obvious gift she gave me, her death was the much more profound one.
I knew when my mother died, she wanted more years. She wanted to hold her never-to-be seen grandchildren, she wanted to dance, to host a few more dinner parties and for sure she wanted to see all of her children married, not just one–which oddly was me. It was one of the first times that destiny took me in hand, and overrode my own ego. I always joked that it wasn’t my wedding–it was my mom’s. I never fought her on it. She picked out the chateaubriand, the baby bouquets of violets, the lavender eyelet dresses, the dinner jacketed tuxes. She selected the bridal party–both sides– and of course the guest list and ever important seating arrangement. She had a ball. It would be her only wedding.
Destiny again came knocking unbeknownst to me when I decided to have a huge anniversary party for my parents on their 38th anniversary. At the time, I thought I was a genius because she would never suspect something on an off-year anniversary. Funny. I didn’t realize that I was again destiny’s pawn. Unbeknownst to us, bone cancer was creeping through her body, and she would never see her 40th anniversary.
Some call it instinct; some know it as intuition, others just shrug it off as coincidence. Whatever it is, I know this: it is. And like staying at a party way too long, it is a known thing.
My mom is an amazing person. Shes the type of person to give you the shirt off her back, give you a home if you needed it, give you the last of her groceries, lend a helping hand, etc. Shes sweet, kind and always has a good word for everyone. She sees the best in people. Shes the type that if your glass in half empty, she sees it as half full and is grateful for it. Ive always looked up to her. If i can be half the person she is, id be happy. My mom works as a manager of a home that takes care of mentally disabled people. She had a staff member that tried to get her fired more times than i can count, she gave my mom a hard time, and made her job..hellish. The woman had a boyfriend that stole her purse, which had all of her money, credit cards and the petty cash from her work (shed just cashed the check). (Over a thousand dollars i think) The woman ended up in the hospital, had 3 or 4 strokes and was in really bad shape. You know what my mom did? She borrowed the money from check and go (a couple of them), took the blame for everything, and helped this woman get better. My mom wouldnt even accept the money back when the woman tried to repay her. My mom and her are now best friends. I have several stories like this. She may get a bit mad, but her thing is, people make mistakes. They shouldnt be punished for them forever. Whatever happened, happened and its now a new day.
To me, my mom is amazing.
One of my favorite memories with her is when i was about 10 (?), she woke me in the middle of the night. It had begun to snow and she wanted my siblings and me to watch it with her. The first snow fall is always her favorite part of winter. I remember thinking the night was magical! We got dressed, grabbed our coats and gloves and went outside. It was freezing, but i never laughed so hard! I live in Michigan and the snow falls down hard, we had inches within hours. We made snow angels, snow balls, caught snow flakes on our tongues, etc. It was so fun! I remember us having to be quiet, so we didnt wake my dad or the neighborhood, which made us laugh harder and louder! When we finally went inside, she made us homemade hot chocolate, and we stayed up the rest of the night watching movies. Did i mention this was a school night? My dad was so mad when he got up the next day. He hated us kids missing school. My mom laughed, told him that she wanted to have fun for a day and we were going to. She took us to breakfast and when we came back, we all crawled into bed with her and slept! She made us lunch, we played games, watched movies and we made dinner and desert together, boy!, were we all messy! But i loved every moment of it! Its one of my favorite memories. Its special. Whenever i think back on this day, i cant help but smile. Whenever im with her, i laugh and when im not laughing, i have a goofy smile. Im a mamas girl. Every moment, every memory, every..everything is special. Shes my best friend, my hero, what i aspire to be. In my eyes, shes amazing. I love her more than anything.
shadowluvs2read(at)gmail(dot)com
I lost my mother a year ago. She was a literature professor and had such a beautiful speaking voice that she read poetry professionally. I grew up in one of the first organic farms in Pennsylvania, and we always had a few of my mother’s college students clustered around the table, involved in a long conversation about theosophy or Yeats. She was one of the first women to go to Trinity College in Dublin, and she traveled extensively all her life.
We had several years of fighting the terrible battle against Alzheimer’s. I can’t describe how awful it was to watch her brilliance fade away. The very end was incredibly peaceful, though : I’ll never forget the moon outside the window (the nurses broke a rule and left it open) and her calm face as she sailed away.
My mom and I have always been close, but when I had my own child, that was when i saw something shift within my mom and align herself with me, because now, we had just one more thing in common to our already strong bond- we both were mothers who fiercely loved their little girl.
I used to get in trouble because of my cat all the time. Not just one cat, either, but several cats had the habit of getting me in trouble. My mom was generally one of the calmest people I’ve ever known. One Thanksgiving, maybe when I was 10 or 11, my mom started shrieking. When we ran into the kitchen to see what was wrong, she was purple and still shrieking so she was nearly unintelligible. We didn’t know why she was so upset, but it became clear she thought it was our fault. I didn’t know what had happened, so I figured it must be my little brother’s fault.
She finally calmed down enough to accuse us of eating her pumpkin pies. Each pie had a hole in the middle. I was horrified. I would have never done such a thing. My brother claimed he didn’t do it, either. She didn’t believe us. After being yelled at for close to half an hour, I was sobbing and so upset that she could believe I would do such a thing, and my brother was, too. I still believed he did it. He believed I did it. Since nobody would ‘fess up, she decided to punish both of us until somebody confessed. She set us to stripping the wax from the bathroom floors, her favorite punishment for us. I was still sobbing. I was furious I was missing the Thanksgiving parade on TV, one of my favorite parts of the holiday. I had never seen her this mad, and I was so angry that my brother wouldn’t admit to doing it.
The upstairs bathroom of the tri-level house was a straight shot into the kitchen. Mom was still pacing the house, crying. My dad had no idea what to do or think and just stood there. I looked up to see the cat jump on the counter and start eating out of one of the pies. “Mom!” I stood and pointed into the kitchen. She gave me a dubious glare, but looked in the door. She just stood there a minute, the color draining out of her face. Ignoring the cat, she turned and ran up the stairs and scooped me up, bawling, “I’m so sorry!” She called my brother up and did the same, apologizing for almost an hour. I think she spent several weeks trying to make it up to us, but especially that day. I never saw my mom that angry since, and she listened to my side of the story a lot more carefully from that point forward. I don’t know that she always believed me, but she did try to give me a chance before reacting.
I spent months planning my wedding, which was held at my family farm. My mom sat through every thing with me, and helped make all the table centres, set up the tent, etc. She was there from the beginning stages right until the moment I was ready to walk through the French Doors to the patio where the ceremony was about to take place.
At which point she said:
“You don’t have to do this, I can make them all go away if that’s what you want.”
I knew, right then, that I was making a huge mistake, and what I wanted more than anything else was for my mom to make it all better, and to make everyone go away and take their presents with them. There was a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that had been building up to that moment of dread, and I think my mom could see it all over my face. Instead, I looked at my mom and said:
“No, It’s okay, I think I can make this work.”
When it turned out that I couldn’t (18 months later) my mother never said I told you so, and she never questioned my judgement. She didn’t chastise me for being stubborn, or trying to make something work that I knew was doomed. She explained to me instead that we all make mistakes, and we all learn from them, even if the experiences are difficult and painful.
My Mother was always a bit of a mystery to me. She could seem to tell what you were thinking, especially when you had fallen in love with some boy in school. Mother could tell we were trying to sneak out of the house without doing our chores. When she died I was talking about a relative about how old mother was when she died. She had left a surprise, she had lied about her age to us all of our lives. Why? Because she married a younger man. I did to. So I found we had something in common which was her secret from me, but she always supported my marriage. I guess because she felt I was doing something she did herself.
My mother is 36 years old woman, but as I see, she is still young and full of kindness and joy. She got pregnant when she was only 17 years old. She was almost graduating and it was really big shock for her. She wanted to go to university and study, her daddy really supported her. But, yeah, there was me. It was very hard time for her, because a lot of people blamed her. But her family was really kind and helped her with her pregnancy and high school too. Her boyfriend stayed and married her. My mother was so strong and graduated even she was pregnant. She knew that she couldn’t go to study because of baby. So she decided to go to work and earn money for her husband and baby. I don’t know but I think it had to be really painfull and hard time for her to decide not to go study, but work. I admire her for her decision, I see, she was only 18 years old girl and she changed her whole life.
She married boy who she was pregnant with. She didn’t really know him but she did it for baby, for me. She worked so hard and with support from her mother and dad she got money and her own flat. After three years of marriage, my mother knew that my father has always drunk and spent his money on alcohol. She was pretty young, with little child and job in textile sphere. She decided to divorce and stay with me on her own. We moved to grandma’s house. Even my mother had really hard job, she looked after me on her best. My father was really alcoholic. He hasn’t given my mother any money so she had to work hardly. She changed her best time of life – she worked only. After that, she finally found right man and she is with him till now.
I admire my mother as well as possible. She is strong and kind person who is looking for “good” in people and she can really forgive. She isnt afraid of making hard decisions and she really cares about others. She is my best friend and kindest person I have ever met.
I’m not entering the contest, but I wanted to share about my mom anyway. One of my most vivid memories was when I was a small kid and I was sick with fever. My mom held my face in her hands and said if only she could take or bear the fever for me so I won’t have to be the one who’d be sick. And I remember I didn’t even feel sick that time. I was too young and didn’t understand, but my mother just held me and wished it was her and not me. Moms are funny, yeah?
Imma read your book soon! I just have a few on my list that I have to get out of the way first.
Leah @ NP
My mother…well actually i got no words to say for my mother.I love her so much.She is my whole world and i would never had become what i am without her.
My mother’s life as mine was never easy.We had always difficulties.We were a poor family and as you understand we didn’t have the money but for the basic stuff.But something i will always remember is that my mother was always trying so always i had the things i needed, clothes,shoes,food,toys,fees for my studies etc, and always at the same cost.She never looked after herself it wasn’t important for her.Her most important thing was her children and their happines was her joy and that is all she ever wanted.
So one thing i always will remember most fondly of my mother was her love, and her sacrifices.I always loved her though without those sacrifices ,i didn’t needed them,but one thing i would try is that in some way i could finally repay through my studies and my job.The chance for my turn to give something for my mother in return.I know my mother doesn’t need that.But i need it.For this woman i know i would do anything possible,i love her so much.She never lived the life she dreamed and maybe i can make her dreams come true through her love and through her sacrifices for me!
P.S: sorry for my bad english.I hope all of you who would read the post manage to understand it
My mom is one of my best friends. This has led to moments that were totally awesome and others where I wish she was just be my mom. When we get together, the world disappears and we chatter on for hours. My poor stepfather loses his wife for awhile when I stop by.
Its hard to pick out one cherished moment … there are so many. And most of them filled with so much laughter that we both cried. We have similar interests and a similar sense of humor. But, being pressed for a treasured moment, it would have to be this:
One Christmas, when I was little, one of the ball ornaments fell and shattered on the floor. As I was cleaning them up, a shard lodged itself in the meaty part of the palm of my hand … not sideways like a sliver, but straight in. It hurt a lot. Mom was there and held my hand, looking at it to see how she could remove the shard. Frankly, I don\’t remember much else. I just remember that as she held my hand I felt taken care of and loved. And that\’s what moms are for, right?
My mom became a mom at seventeen. She and my dad and me lived in a little house that belonged to my grandmother, and they worked hard, and we were all as happy as three kids can be, except that I was sick for a very long time.
Once, around Christmas, it was snowing, and I couldn’t go outside, which was hell itself for a six-year-old. I spent days in front of the window that faced the back yard, feeling the cold through the glass, even through the old yellow curtains.
I hadn’t noticed that my parents had gone outside until I saw them, bundled up in layers of coats and scarves, leaving deep tracks in the snow. They waved to me then began piling snow, packing it together, rolling it into balls.
When they were finished, the snowman was as tall as my dad and had eyes and a carrot nose and a pipe and a scarf. It was perfect.
My parents must have been so cold by then, but my dad was still gathering snow while my mom put finishing touches on the snowman.
My mom has always been short-tempered, so when the snowball smacked her in the back of the head and her body went stiff, I got nervous, even though I was still watching from the warm living room and would have plenty of time to hide if things got bad.
But she knelt down and started packing the snow into a ball of her own.
I’m pretty sure, looking back, that she missed, but what sticks with me, even more than the memory of the snowman they made just for me, was how long they played out there when it was finished. They had moved away from the window, off to where I sometimes couldn’t see them around the trees. But I saw the snowballs flying. I saw them drop down and make angels. I saw them kiss through their scarves.
Their marriage didn’t last. No one was surprised. But they tried, for me.
Later, they came inside, and I had laughed so hard that I had to take another breathing treatment. Mom watched over me, her hands on my forehead so cold that I pushed them away.
I grew up in a household of opposing forces; my father, dark, cold, hard, overly stern and mean for no other reason than he simply could be, and my mother, creative, nurturing, supportive, idealistic, social, and willing to share all she had with a perfect stranger. I remember her always being up before any of us and going to bed later, seven days a week. The garden was always watered and she spent hours in the kitchen cooking. She wouldn’t even sit down to breakfast until it was close to noon.
Before I was born, my mother had left her mark on the world as an author. As a child, she raised my imagination on a steady diet of TransFormers, Aesop’s Fables, Grimm Fairy Tales, GI Joe, and the like. When I was about six, she let me read a novelette she’d written entitled “Tomar”. This short story rocked me to my core; it was the first story I’d ever read in which the good guy LOST. That just wasn’t done and I spent many days conversing about it with my mother. I didn’t know what she was doing at the time.
By the time I reached my teen years, I was angry and depressed; my father’s continuous stream of “Grow Up” “Stop Playing Those d#mn video games” and “You’ll Never Be Anything” had been reinforced by kids at school. Had it been the modern era, I might’ve done something horrible. There was always my mom, though, quietly urging me on, sequestering me in the back bedroom and making sure I was undisturbed for the hours I would put in on WordPerfect.
One day, when I was almost sixteen, we took a “family” trip to the local Safeway. I don’t remember what for. I just remember it was the night everything changed.
My mom had made it a point to stay on top of everything my sister and I were into. She could name every Autobot and Decepticon. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when she started following the games industry.
My father and sister went their own way. My mother led me down the magazine aisle–I figured she was going for one of her Cosmo’s or something–and pulled an issue called “Gamepro”. She turned and handed it to me.
“You see?” She said softly, as she always had, “You CAN do it.”
My jaw was on the floor as I leafed through the magazine; page after glossy, colorful page, was the writing of people who were just like me, but they had made it. They were making a living playing video games.
My father’s words fell on deaf ears after that. My mother put me on a path that eventually took me to Sony Computer Entertainment America and before that, the Metreon Shopping Center.
I dedicated my first book to her. She still keeps the same schedule, although my father has become more appreciative.
Today, I’m collaborating with her on a sequel to her novelette “Tomar”.
If it wasn’t for my mother, I wouldn’t be alive today, much less successful. She’s an influence on everything I do, from the way I write to the way I treat people and approach life.
That’s my mom.
Thanks for reading.
I have a million stories of how my mother was my hero, the person in my life who gave me my moral code and strong connection to family and the important things in life. She didn’t disappoint me many times, though I disappointed her more times that I care to remember.
Only once did her weakness actually hurt me. There were seven children in my family and we were very poor. My father had bad health, a terrible temper intensified by his love of Canadian whiskey, and he often let the temper manifest on his children, physically. My mother did her best to come between him and the seven of us when she was around, but finances made her have to work nights, so she wasn’t around most of the time he was. We, the children, all felt the need to protect our mother from things that went on when she was gone, because she worked so hard, and tried her best. So we kept our secrets from her, or so I thought.
Finally, my younger sister went to Mom with details of Dad’s abuse. I remember being in the basement, folding clean laundry with her, when she asked me directly about it. Without concern about what it did to my sister, to have had the courage to come forward, breaking the code of the siblings, I just did what i was supposed to do. I lied.
Mom was relieved, but went on to add that he’d done the same to my older sister. She said that she’d told him that if it ever happened again, she’d leave and report him.
The feelings of betrayal… that she’d not leave before it happened to the rest of us, and that she accepted the lie, were overwhelming. As an adult, I see now she just didn’t want to believe it, though she must have known then. She was trying to do her best, to get by. But at a tremendous price to her daughters. I still struggle with the question of whether it was strength on her part, or weakness.
He died not long after that, and we got to know our mother as the wonderful individual she was able to be without his heavy hand hovering over our family. She left us in 2004, and I miss her every day.
My parents divorced when I was four, leaving my mom to raise me and my older brother. My father did not want to be very involved in our care so she did not take any support money from him. She worked full time and went to school full time to get her Bachelor’s Degree. Even with her degree, she had a hard time finding a job because as soon as they found out she was a single mom with two children, they were not interested. She did end up with a job at a great company but they required a lot of hours. She worked many long days and was sad not to be able to spend as much time with us as we were growing up as she wanted. She worked so hard so that she could provide everything for us and I know sometimes she regretted not being home more. I am very lucky that now she lives close to me and we get to talk and visit often. As an adult, I understand the difficult decision she had and the choices she made. I am thankful that she cared so much for my brother and I that she was willing to sacrifice her personal time. I make sure to tell her every time I talk to her how much I love and appreciate her!
My mother took in foster children from the year I was born right up until the year I moved out and it certainly taught me a lot. I never quite understood why people praised her for being a foster mom, the severity of each unique situation when she was called was lost on me for confidentiality reasons. I never quite had the feeling of praise for her as I always felt I was lacking until I realized, in one horrible moment, how far her care went for these kids.
We were preparing for church when the phone rang. She was changing the diaper of one of my passing-through brothers or sisters and while she held the phone to her ear with her shoulder and used her hands to pin the cloth together she did something she doesn’t often do. She stopped. Froze. Like a moment in time I’ll never see again she captured my innocence, attention and breath.
The call was from someone telling her of an accident. The driver didn’t make it, as far as I remember he died on impact. He was much too young, not innocent but had too much potential left unrecognized that it seemed my mother did see. A foster child taken from our home long before but was still in our lives until that moment.
I was only a child, didn’t feel connected or involved enough to attend the funeral but the rest of my family did. I stayed home, staring out the window and, if memory serves me correctly, staring at each falling snowflake wondering if it would be the last.
Mortality taught by the actions of my mother that no funeral could ever explain. Frozen for just a brief moment for her and her life but every lasting in mine. My mother was human and she feared the death of others.
I have no memories of my mother.
Grandmother told me that she was a good person and I’m just like a photograph from her.
I had an other opinion, I was said to granny that I am a film about my mother, meaning, I am a living, my mother was dead.
Mother died when I was about 4 years old. And I had missed her very much.
It was just an average day. Something caught on fire in the kitchen, flames flaring from the stove. My mother rushed in to quickly grab the pan off the stove, dousing it in the sink. Her hands were burned and began to blister horribly. My brother, then 8, ran to the neighbor’s house to get help. I was 10, and with her watching over me I turned everything off. She didn’t even sit down until she was sure nothing else would happen.
It was not the first time my mother weathered the flames, not figuratively or literally. When I was 2 it had been me on fire that she had put out with her bare hands. I have the physical scars on my back, though none of the memories.
My mother was widowed after seven years of marriage, and I remember her grief, being left with three children to raise. I was also seven, being one of the contributing factors to her marriage, but there had been love as well. She had dropped out of high school to marry my father and to have me. Whenever I asked her to tell me the story she always made it clear to me that my path should be different because I was different.
I watched my mother face the flames of life. Many times she has been burned and left scarred. Relationships have broken her heart. She became a mother a fourth time to my youngest sister at a time when she had been lecturing me about the risks of unprotected sex.
Yet, I have never thought my mother a hypocrite. She has always been human, making her own choices, and taking responsibility for what comes. She drives me to do the same.
The one thing that I admire about my amazing mom is that she has always stayed strong for me and all of our family, even though she has had to deal with so, so much.
She gave birth to me, aged 18. I was her first child and also 25 weeks early. I was whisked away so quickly, apparently they didn’t even let her see me. It was just a quick cry of ‘It’s a girl!’ and then nothing. I was in hospital for 101 days in all and every night the doctors told my mom to say goodbye because there was a big chance I wouldn’t be there in the morning. She even had to deal with nurses telling her that she should turn my life support machienes off and that I would have no quality of life as I would be left disabled. And even back then, so young, she wouldn’t give up on her child.
Then she, along with me had to deal with everything to do with me being disabled (I’m not as bad as the nurses said; but I’m still quite bad), and she is ever so supportive and has done everything in her power to make my life as easy as she can. Even when she had to make huge sacrifices, she was extremely strong, even things weren’t the easiest.
Then I was badly bullied when I was 11 and went through some extremely terrible times due to my mental state, and was diagnosed with School Phobia.
I can honestly say that a was a wreck at that time, a REAL wreck. I made myself sick, I hurt myself, I screamed, kicked and cried. I could tell that I was putting my mom through hell – but I was broken and couldn’t stop myself.
But even so, even then, when I was rock bottom and dragging her down with me – she pulled me back up by doing the best thing for me, even though you could tell that it hurt her, and for that I thank her so much. I’m okay now because she was strong for me.
She really has been through everything, had everything thrown at her, more things than I’ve mentioned here – and at every bump in the road, even though at some points it was terribly hard for her, she’s been as strong as a brick wall for us all. She really has embraced her motherhood with both arms and is the best, the most wonderful woman, I couldn’t begin to explain how much she means to me and the rest of my family. She’s been my anchor, my guide, my everything at some points, and I honestly wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t who she was. I know that I haven’t made her life the easiest, but I hope I give her back as much as she’s given me, and make her proud.
I love you mom. I know I don’t say it enough, but I do. Thanks for being so strong and for everything you’ve done for us all. I know I’m a teenager and I’m not the easiest to live with, but I love you even when it seems like I don’t. I just hope that I can be as good and as strong and as loving and as phenominal a mother as you are to me. You’re so strong, mom and I adore you for this and everything else. I love you. Thank you so much, mom. I love you so much. <3 xoxoxo
PS. Excuse the spelling, I was very emotional writing this so it might be a bit off, sorry.
My mom was a singel mother of three very bad girls lol but she always did whatever she had too to make sure we had what ever we needed. Weather she was working two jobs and going to school. She always had a homecooked meal on the table every night no matter how tired she was. She’s the kind of mom that would let us learn from are mustakes and she never juged us when we did something wrong. And as good of a mom she is shes even a better grandmother
All I can say, is oh boy, the judges are going to have a difficult time here! Lots of beautiful and touching stories about mothers!!
For as long as I could remember my mother and I did not get along. She even went so far as to tell me that she hated me. I returned the favor by saying it back to her. It was not until I was sitting next to her at my fathers her husbands death bed that the truth of her hate came out. While I was a child my mother and father separated for a short period, I chose to go with my father. For over 20 plus years my mother and I did not get along. It was then at that moment that our love grew. She realized that she was wrong to feel and carry that anger with her all those years for the choice I made as a child. My mother and I became very close afterwards. I saw her almost everyday after that. She talked about her growing up and shared things with me that should have been shared over my growing years. For the longest time after having my own children I would think “what would mom do” and I would do the opposite. I wanted to raise my children with love. I did not know that I had that growing up from my mother, deep down she really loved me and was hurt that I did not choose her. 6 years after my father passed away my mother kept a dark secret from everyone ( she had breast cancer again, and kept it to herself she took it to her grave). She became very ill and I was there to take care of her as much as possible. I would spend my days with her and cook her meals, and help her with her daily life. We had a falling out again because of my choices as a child and a young adult. It lasted only a short 2 months. Then things were back to normal again. But she hired someone to take care of her. She did this so not to burden her children. I remember my mother and i have conversations about anything, she was the mother I always wanted her to be. When it came time for to be in the ICU and for her children to honor her decisions to be taken off life support. I was there fighting with her so that my siblings would honor her choice as she grew to honor mine. I remember just sitting there and holding her hand and listening to her breath. I was there when she took her last breath and it hurt because she and i had the mother daughter connection that always should have been. She passed on my and my twins birthday. She held out just so that she could say happy birthday and mean it. I loved her so much and when i think of her now, i think of the mother that was loving, caring and wanted to spend time with me.
My mother died at the age of 80. While water-skiing.
It happened in July, 1999 and I still miss her every day.
Reblogged this on Naimeless.
My mother was an amazing woman in her own right.She shaped lifelong friendships as a leader and supporter of many community organizations. Interviewed for the Daily Press in Newport News VA, she was quoted as saying “If I say yes, I’ll do something. I’ll do it. The trouble is that I hardly ever say no. I get involved in so many things.”
My mother was President of the Women’s Club of Newport News, The Virginia Federation of Women’s Clubs and General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) along with her involvement with the Newport News Bar Auxiliary, National Society for Crippled Children and Adults, Muscular Dystrophy Society, Virginia Easter Seal Society and Operation Smile. Peninsula Multiple Sclerosis named her “Volunteer of the Year” in 1963 and later she was named “Woman of the Year” in 1969 by the Junior Woman’s Club of Newport News. Her extensive community involvement, spanning over 30 years, was officially recognized by Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf, who proclaimed Aug. 10, 1989, to be “Paula Cutler Day.”
She was proud of her role in initiating a local meals-on-wheels program, Santa House at the Women’s Club of Newport News, and GFWC’s sponsorship with the State Fair. She was especially proud of her participation in establishing a pilot program to test all schoolchildren in Hampton and Newport News for hearing problems. She was a founding member of the Beverly Hills Garden Club.
Her legacy will live on with Operation Smile’s Annual Paula Cutler Award. When she was the GFWC Virginia State President (1988-1990), she introduced Operation Smile to the General
Federation of Women’s Clubs when, in 1988, she selected Operation Smile as her special state project. It was her ‘baby’. When the GFWC had raised one million dollars, The Paula Cutler Award was born. I was proud to present the first award in Chicago at the GFWC convention in 2008, over 4 years after her death.
Again, in May of 2011, I was present at The100th Anniversary of the Newport News Women’s Club, where my mother was one of two women who were honored.
As teenagers, my friends were hesitant to spend the night, as they knew my mother would drop us off at a nursing home to volunteer for the day. I respect that, and my mother, so much more today. When in the hospital, fighting cancer, the mailman came up to her room. After being on the same route for 20 plus years, he wanted to meet the woman who received hundreds of cards daily.
She was a wife, a mother, and a gift to volunteerism.
I think one of the things that has surprised me most about my mother is her amazing gift of crochet afghans. It’s something that she could easily sell. But, rather than sell them, she gives them away to family members, friends, colleagues. She gives them, by the stack, to Project Linus, an organization that provides blankets for children in need. (The name comes from Linus from the Charles Schlutz Peanuts cartoons.)
She does amazing work, her brown hands moving through the fiber and the automatic way it comes to her. She rarely looks down. It’s ingrained into her hands and her body and the rhythms of her day. It’s become a place where we have learned more about each other, talking fiber and technique and her joking with me that knitting (my fiber craft of choice) is too slow for her, she needs to be able to do work faster. After more than 50 years of crocheting, I can understand how it’s more memory than anything else for her.
One of the proudest moment of being her daughter, and seeing her as more than just my mom? When I gave her the first knitting afghan that I’d ever made. To be able to give back to her something she’d so freely given, as part of herself, not as my mother but as a crocheter? That was a wonderful feeling.
My mother married at 15 and had three children before she was nineteen. I had a happy early childhood but then my parents marriage went sour. My mother never really got a chance to be a kid so after they split she went a little crazy. She fell in with the wrong crowd and ended up in jail when I was 17. I did not think I would ever forgive her because she left us that way. She used her time in there though to become a better person. She turned into a better person for it. Now she is still on the right track, married to a wonderful man that got her involved church, and is a better mother now than she ever was. I know that people make mistakes but when it is your mother, the one that you believe can do no wrong, it is doubly hard to accept and forgive. She did her penance though and I am proud to call her mother.
My mom is the best cause she never questions my decisions, she is always there for me no matter what good or bad. Trust me the last 24 years have been rough but she has been there when I’ve needed her. Her b-day is tomorrow, so Happy Birthday mom I love you. and guess what I will be there to surprise you next month, it’s been 7 years since I’ve seen her. I don’t fly but I will for the first time next month.
I remember at 16, Mom and I had a HUGE argument right before time for me to get on the bus to go to school. I mean, I was crying, huge. I got on the bus, went to school and did horrible all day. When I got home, there was a note on the bar telling me I was grounded and to go to my room. I stomped up the stairs to my room. On my bed, there was an envelope with my name on it. I opened it up, and there was a Hallmark card. A field of Daisies with cursive writing that said, “I’m Sorry.” Inside was a short note from Mom telling me how she was sorry for the argument this morning and for sending me off to school crying and upset. It said I was technically grounded and had to stay in my room the next 3 days as was customary when grounded, but that unlike other times, this time I was allowed to use my headphones to listen to music, read, or whatever. Just so my brothers thought I was well and truly grounded.
It’s the only time in my life my Mom ever said I’m sorry. To this day, it still means a lot. Thirty years later, and it’s one of the things I remember most. I know I’m one of the lucky ones, my Mom is still alive. She’s almost 70, and I know I need to take advantage of every day we have together.
This past May, she let me know she made a lot of mistakes when I was growing up, and if it were possible, she’d change those things she could. That means a lot, because my life was very difficult growing up due to abuse, both physical, mental, emotional and sexual. Mom mainly the mental/emotional. She had a chance to stop several instances but didn’t. Knowing she would change those means more than I can say. As I semi-jokingly said to my husband, “Mom’s grown up a lot the last 12 years since we last talked.” Mom wasn’t perfect by any means, and neither was I. Being able to talk to her adult to adult this may was special.
All I can say about my mother is that she is brave. She’s brave because she gave birth to ten of us and never ran from the house screaming….ever. And if she did, she must’ve done it when we weren’t looking. We tried our best to make sure she thought she was living in an insane asylum, but she stuck around.
All I can say about my mother is that she’s the smartest person I know. She could’ve been anything, and decided to stay home and home school all of us. She never got to go to law school like she wanted, but she did stay up late at night and learn all of the lessons she needed to teach us the next day. At 53, she went back and got her masters in library science.
All I can say about my mother is, now that I have children, she takes time out of her day to help babysit and rock my babies to sleep. Now that her kids are grown, she could be out enjoying her free time and not have time for us, but she was the one cleaning my house and staying up with my twins when they were born. Her days are usually filled with taking care of other people.
So, there’s not much to say about her. If I could think of something, I’d mention it. Oh..well…there was the time we caught her wearing “mom jeans” and bought her some “cool” ones for Christmas because she hadn’t realized how important it is to put time into the things that matter.
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May i ask if the winners have been announced? Thank you! I hope everyone is having a great week!