The Mother

     Honest blogging right here, but I'm not writing it for sympathy or understanding or out of malice. So don't shoot me. And don't get me wrong, I am not bashing my mother. It's just because the generation I came up in was "different" from today and some of our parents didn't show affection or say I love you like we hear often today.  Perhaps they weren't taught......just didn't know how. I don't know.

     Mother grew up poor, and so she worked hard to have things. Her dad, "Pop" to us, was a hard, quiet man and her mother died when I was 5 so I didn't know her and never was told anything about her, another trait of their generation - we don't talk about things, period. 

     I have no recollection of being hugged or kissed or told I was loved. I realize now that I have a lot of that in me too, and I have to work hard to show love. I feel like I don't do it well.  It was all about work, mother and Daddy both worked and my brothers and I pretty much played and raised ourselves. 

     I don't understand what made Mother so aloof and distant, will never know those answers. But I know she did the best she knew how and I survived childhood. I'm sure my rebellious teen years were  hard for her to deal with .

     So, when we say "Happy Mothers Day", it is a weird alien thing to me. I'm sure I made the cards for her that teachers helped us make, but  I don't remember those things being on the refrigerator or displayed.

     Was I abused? Was I neglected? I don't think so. I spent a lot of time with a dear aunt who I always thought should have been my mother. 

     When Mother got Alzheimer's we tried to move her in with us but she would never settle here and eventually she had to be in a nursing home. Brothers were out of state so I went every day and became her guardian and tried to show her love.
     So what I want you to know if you stuck it out and read this, tell your people you love them, even if you stammer. Give hugs, even if that's hard. Just love. Just love.