“A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.”
Today is Mother’s Day. It is the day I honor my mother and my memories of her. Every year I post basically this same entry with only a few little changes.
My mother was amazing. She was generous, fun to be with and was the perfect martyr when she needed to be, a skill I think most mothers have. It was her tone of voice so filled with pain that caused our guilt to well to the surface. “I’ll do it myself,” she’d say. We’d scurry to do whatever she wanted.
My sisters and I laugh often about the curses she inflicted on us: the love of everything Christmas and never thinking you have enough presents for everyone, giving Easter baskets overflowing with candy and fun toys and surprising people with a gift just because.
My mother had a generosity of spirit. She was funny and smart and the belle of every ball. She always had music going in the kitchen as she worked so she could sing along. She played Frank and Tony and Johnny and from her I learned the old songs. My mother drew all the relatives to her, and her house was filled. My cousins visited often. She was their favorite aunty. My mother loved to play Big Boggle, and we’d sit for hours at the kitchen table and play so many games we’d lose track of the time. Christmas was always amazing, and she passed this love to all of us. We traveled together, she and I, and my mother was game for anything. I remember Italy and my mother and me after dinner at the hotel bar where she’d enjoy her cognac. She never had it any other time, but we’re on vacation she said and anything goes. I talked to her just about every day, as did my sisters. I loved it when she came to visit. We’d shop, have dinner out then play games at night. I always waited on her when she was here. I figured it was the least I could do.
My mother loved extreme weather shows, TV judges and crime. She never missed Judge Judy. She also liked quiz shows and she and I used to play Jeopardy together on the phone at night. She always had a crossword puzzle book with a pen inside on the table beside her chair, and I used to try to fill in some of the blanks. On the dining room table was often a jig saw puzzle, and we all stopped to add pieces on the way to the kitchen. My mother loved a good time.
She did get feisty, and I remember flying slippers aimed at my head when I was a kid. She expertly used mother’s guilt on us, her poor victims. We sometimes drove her crazy, and she let us know, none too quietly. We never argued over politics. She kept her opinions close. We sometimes argued over other things, but the arguments never lasted long.
Even after all this time, I still think to reach for the phone to call my mother when I see something interesting or have a question I know only she can answer. When I woke up this morning, my first thought was of her, and how much she is missed. No one ever told me how hard it would be.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: generosity of spirit, Mother's Day, mother's guilt, my mother, the belle of the ball, traveling
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
May 10, 2015 at 1:13 pm
We don’t have Mother’s day here until the last Sunday in this month.
My mother tried to pick up martyrdom for a while but she was never really successful with it so she gave up 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
May 10, 2015 at 3:11 pm
Christer,
My mother could have taught your mother all the tricks of the manipulative mother trade.
Enjoy your day!
May 10, 2015 at 2:19 pm
Beautifully done Kat
May 10, 2015 at 3:11 pm
Thank you, My Dear Hedley. It is the least I can do for my mother!
May 10, 2015 at 2:48 pm
Mother’s Day here too but I don’t care. I’m a lucky orphan now 🙂
Happy Daughter-of-a-great-mother’s Day!
May 10, 2015 at 3:13 pm
Birgit,
I too am an orphan, but i still hold on to the day for my mother. I am going to dinner at my friends’ house. He, Tony, is making dinner for Clare, his wife, and me. He said the pets insisted.
May 10, 2015 at 3:01 pm
My mother has been gone 54 years and I always remember her on Mother’s Day. Now I honor my wife who is the mother of my two beautiful children. Tonight we are taking my wife, mother in law, her paramour and my kids out to dinner. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers in the world.
May 10, 2015 at 3:14 pm
Bob,
It is so easy to remember our wonderful mothers. Mine has been gone almost ten years.
I hope all have a most wonderful dinner!
May 10, 2015 at 3:11 pm
Beautifully put, Kat. She was something, wasn’t she?
Happy Mother’s Day. May all your thoughts about her be happy ones. She did good.
Waving…
Coleen
May 10, 2015 at 3:15 pm
Coleen,
She definitely was!
Thanks, Coleen. I have wonderful memories of her and can see here sitting here with me playing Boggle!
Waving Back!!
May 10, 2015 at 4:30 pm
judge judy and ncis for my mom. loud. when I miss her the most I remind myself how sick she was and what a struggle life had turned into for her, no matter what we tried to do to ease it…
May 10, 2015 at 4:40 pm
greg,
My mother liked both as well, especially Judge Judy. We had a bed put in the living room and we’d take turns taking care of her and sleeping on the couch beside her bed to watch her. Even now I can’t write about this without tears.
May 10, 2015 at 7:54 pm
Such a beautiful post, Kat. I cried. I lost my mom on my 25th birthday, but I was with her when she died. My life was never the same. She had a hard life, but she was funny, caring, rebellious, and compassionate. I remember her liking the show Upstairs, Downstairs, and when Watergate exploded on the new, she couldn’t pull herself away from it. I believe it was summer.
She loved to swim, was a statistician and loved me better than my sister– just kidding ( sort of ) in her later years.
Take Care,
Lori and the Crew
May 10, 2015 at 10:04 pm
Lori,
Our mothers helped make us who we are, what we love and what we believe in and fight for. My mother was managing woman who gave me full rein to make my own decisions. For that I will forever be grateful.