I'm Older Than My Mother...

...was when she died. Today is my mother's birthday. She's long gone now - she died when she was 54 years old. I'm now 56. I think about that now and then. My mother worked at her death but I understand that now. I haven't said much good about her in my blogs, although there were many good things about her. She was shy and quiet and unassuming. She had the prettiest ice blue eyes I've ever seen and she was a beautiful woman. She had a career in nursing, when she could work.

I now know that my mother must have suffered from clinical depression but was never treated. Things were different back then. She cried a lot, sat in the dark waiting for my father to come home (most nights he didn't until the wee hours of the morning), drank too much beer during the day, and I can't recall her ever coming to my rescue when my father came after me. She was also the brunt of his abusive ways. But, she was my mother. I have good things in me that I'm sure I inherited from her. She gave me life.

I hope she's found peace in heaven and realizes that when I speak of her in negative ways, it is reporting the facts as I remember them, but always remembering that she had a debilitating illness that was never properly treated. I recall these experiences as things that happened to me, as an understanding of who I am and where I came from. And, how far I've come.

She was born on Friday the 13th and always joked that the day was "good luck" in her case. She's with her mother and father now and I believe that's the happiest she could have ever been. She's in the most loving and caring of hands now and it's where she belongs.