“She’ll take you in, feed your friends. Her open arms are welcoming. She’ll rub your back all night when you’re crying, she’ll listen to you tell your story. Hold your fear and all your worries, help you find the truth when they’re all lying. Even when it’s hopeless, she keeps trying. She’s your mother, you love her. There won’t be another place like her again that you call home. She stands here to help you, there’s nothing she won’t do. As long as she’s alive, you’re not alone, you’ve got each other. That’s your mother.”
On this Mother’s Day, as I stroll thru social media and see so many wishes from my friends to the mothers in all their lives, I can’t help but to think about my own mother, who sadly passed away 15 months ago on February, 16th in 2020 (yep, just another dark moment from the darkest year of many of our lives). She had suffered from Alzheimer’s for a number of years, and had either refused to take the medicine prescribed for her to slow the progress of the disease, or maybe just simply kept forgetting to take it? The last six months of her life was a struggle for her, not being able to remember close friends or relatives, family members who she had known all her life, or even her own granddaughters’ names. To be totally honest, I’m not even sure she knew my name sometimes in those closing weeks of her life?
My mother’s name was Beverly June (or Junie as she went by growing up), and she was born and raised in Hammond, Indiana, which is just about 25 miles outside of Chicago. Her youth was centered around her parents and her brothers, along with a love for music and dancing. And like many young females her age during the late 1950’s, she became infatuated with early rock ‘n’ roll and Elvis Presley in particular, which continued up until her very last breath (in fact I’m surprised that Graceland never slapped a restraining order on her?). You know, I never really got the full story on why my grandparents suddenly decided to up and move the family to Arkansas, but I’m sure my mother wanting to cut class early and jump on a train to downtown Chicago often, so that she could possibly be seen dancing on the local television show ‘Chicago Bandstand’, probably helped them in making that decision somewhat easier?
My mother was was never highly educated, in fact she never even graduated high school, dropping out after the 11th grade. So because of that and other choices that she may have made, she was never able to obtain great wealth and attain some lofty goals in her life that she may have set for herself, like others typically do. Despite all this, my mother tried to never show disappointment. And I’m sure raising me, she had ample opportunity to do just that. But whatever goals in life that she may have once had, and fell short of, it was her family that was her greatest pride. To the end, the love for her father, my grandfather, was always evident. A gentle giant of a man, I’ve always heard that he rarely had the heart to discipline her. No, that responsibility usually fell on my grandmother (and I remember being on the wrong end of that punishment a few times myself). Like anyone else, she faced struggles throughout her life, relationships and marriages that failed, jobs that were maybe less fulfilling than what she desired, and the general letdowns in one’s life that we all experience from time to time, but she always persevered and carried on. The only setback that my mother was never able to truly get over, was the death of her daughter (my sister) Sherry from leukemia. That crushed her spirit, and I know there was never a day that went by in the last 47 years of her life, that she never thought of Sherry – and what could have been had she survived and become an adult, with a career and a family herself. So I hope she was proud of me and the man that I’ve become? I know that she was proud of her two granddaughters, just like I am. And though none of us know exactly all the details on what lies beyond our very last breath on earth, and what that final journey is really like, it gives me great comfort in the hope that she’s now surrounded by everyone she truly loved during her short time on this earth here – her parents, her brothers, and of course her beautiful daughter, who like my mother is now healthy and feels no pain.