I'll be around here somewhere

It's been more than five years since my mom died. Maybe because it's just past Memorial Day or because I washed walls or because I saw this old lady with a Dowager's hump and a jacket like my mom's coming out of Walgreens that I have been thinking of her and feeling sad. Maybe it's just a mom attack that leaves me missing her so much but yet feeling she is “around here somewhere” as she used to say. “I'll talk to you tomorrow,” I always said, to which she replied “I'll be around her somewhere”.

I never know when one of these attacks will strike or how long it will last. I used to get them on my way to work, and would have to compose myself before I went in - after crying all the way down Foothill drive - silently crying of course, as my mom taught me so well to do. Silent crying still involves tears and red puffy eyes which has never been a good look for me. There's just no loud wracking sobs that actually would be better for a person than the bottled up energy that might get added to my already high blood pressure. Sometimes mom attacks leave as quickly as they come but other times they last a few days. Mom attacks sneak up on you like a bad muscle cramp – coming and leaving suddenly or lingering on as a dull ache for a few days.

When my mom visited me, she often helped me wash walls and I still do it like she taught me...using a sponge and then another rag to rinse. The task went much faster with my mom helping me. I always wondered why she liked to wash walls because she wasn't much of a housekeeper. I feel bad that I was ashamed to bring friends over and that I was secretly angry at her for not making me do more chores like all of my friends did every Saturday morning. Now I think she had the right idea when she said people came to see you and not your house. Maybe now with so much focus on material things and bigger and better everything, people really do come to see your house. I don't want these people as my friends. Despite saying this, I have a secret anxiety attack before people come over. I am grateful to my mom for not making me get hung up on having material things and matching couches and chairs with coordinating curtains and walls. However I could use a little more design sense. For that I will depend on the suggestions of my daughter who seems to have gotten some recessive creative gene which must have come from Bruce's side of the family. All of my kids are creative and clever of course.

My mom was always willing to do things with and for her friends rather than stay at home and do housework. I think she had her priorities right I see now, that it was depressing for her to be home sometimes. She really didn't have much of a relationship with my dad. He certainly was not the soul mate that movies are made of even though in their own way, they loved each other. I once asked her why she stayed with him after he cheated on her with her best friend. "It's for better or for worse" she said. I think she had a lot of pain that she hid from us and treated with alcohol. That trait, is one I hope none of my kids have inherited. I wish I knew what went on in her head, what she thought about, and what she wished for. I did ask her once and she said she wished she would have gone to Venice, and she had always wanted to be a hairdresser. There are many things I won't ever know about her just as my own kids won't know parts of me that I keep hidden – some even from myself. I don't even know why she chose to name me “Donna”.

My mom was one tough lady and she worked hard at several jobs, after my dad got in an accident because he couldn't work. She provided for us and made sure we had food and clothing and I never knew I was poor till I grew up. I don't think I was harmed because I didn't go to Disneyland or on any vacations. We had love and that was enough.

I am grateful that my mom taught me how to like, respect and care for older people and do what I can to make their lives easier. Sometimes it makes me mad though. I care too much when I can't do anything to change things or to save people from themselves. I sometimes overrate how important I might be to other people and then it makes me sad to realize how unimportant I am.

I am grateful my mom taught me how to be a good mother and a good grandmother. I feel bad that she didn't see as much of her grandkids as she would have liked but she understood and let me live my own life. There were reasons, based on my mother's own choices too. She loved her grandkids and loved being a grandma. I feel her presence every time I am around my own grandchildren and I know she would have loved to see them. She was so open and accepting of everyone and all of my sister's friends loved hanging out at our house.

I was angry with my mom and her drinking and that I could never get her to quit smoking. She finally gave it up when the cute baby faced neurologist with the unisex name of Chris, told her to quit. Chris turned out to be a man but I had a hard time determining this from his picture "Your mom is a train wreck" he told me on the phone after her first stroke. In the medical business a "train wreck" is someone with lots of stuff wrong with them and not something a person, even a nurse, should be told about their own mother. Despite this she lived for two more good years and did not smoke. Now I realize how hard bad habits are to give up...I have some of my own.

I think now that she was lonely. When she got older many of the friends she cared for and did things with had died. I called her every day, sometimes twice and my sister visited her every day. I wonder what she thought about sitting in her chair watching soap operas and games shows and looking out the window? Maybe we can never share certain parts of ourselves because no one could understand. Or maybe it is just hard to not appear tough and we must not let people see what is beneath the surface because we don't want to see it either.

I remember when my mom retired early from one of her jobs. She was sad about leaving and I am not sure what happened but it may not have been her choice. She never said for sure. I wished I could have talked to her when I left my job in a way that was not at all what I had hoped for at the end of my career. I feel we both viewed ourselves so differently than others did. Maybe we were both judgmental at times, not willing to be changed into a certain mold, and just cared too damn much about things that didn't matter to others? I don't know.

The other day I made “Go to School Cookies, a recipe my mom used to make for us. They are fussy to make but so is anything made from scratch. My mom baked often and with no counter space. The cookies didn't taste as good as my mom's but maybe it is because what we remember about the past usually tastes better in our memories than it does in the present. Maybe that is why we should have no regrets about anything in the past and realize we did the best we could for those we loved and those we lost. We can't change it anymore than we can prevent thinking about it. My mom did the best she knew how for us and it was good. And I do believe she is still around here somewhere.

My Mom's "Go To School" cookies