Let Me Tell You About My Mom....
So I have this blog here... Which started to be about dealing with my Mom having cancer, and has become a place to process my grief after her death.
And it occurs to me, that although every page here seems to be about my Mom, you get no real feel for what kind of a woman she is/was.
To give you an idea of the essence of my Mom: I would come to her with normal daughter-type problems, venting about such and such or so and so who frustrated me that day. Invariably her reply was, "Val. When are you gonna learn to tell them to FU*K off?"
The woman loved trivial pursuit. I mean loved it. Not only did she clean house on the normal old trivia questions, but the woman knew her sports--I mean she knew miniscule little facts that most guys couldn't scare up. And so, she was unbeatable at Trivial Pursuit.
When I was young--I'd say younger than ten, Mom taught me the phrase, "Male Dominant Stupid Gene." She taught the phrase so well that I used it confidently. I'm almost positive that my Dad's family was convinced I was going to grow to become a Femi-nazi.
Mom worked at Maytag Refrigeration for many years. When the plant closed she worked a job that required her to travel from one side of the plant to the other very frequently. To ease the strain of all that cement-pounding, she used a tricycle. No, I'm serious--a tricycle. It was a grown-up's tricycle, but a tricycle nonetheless.
So this no-nonsense woman who I'm sure would still love for me to learn to tell people to "Fu*K off," was also so nurturing, that probably 20 people other than me called her, "Mom." Folks at work, friends of mine, lots and lots of people claimed her as a person who nurtured them, cared for them, looked out for them. That makes me proud.
But despite that, I'm the only one who can truly say now and forever, "That's MY MOM."
And it occurs to me, that although every page here seems to be about my Mom, you get no real feel for what kind of a woman she is/was.
To give you an idea of the essence of my Mom: I would come to her with normal daughter-type problems, venting about such and such or so and so who frustrated me that day. Invariably her reply was, "Val. When are you gonna learn to tell them to FU*K off?"
The woman loved trivial pursuit. I mean loved it. Not only did she clean house on the normal old trivia questions, but the woman knew her sports--I mean she knew miniscule little facts that most guys couldn't scare up. And so, she was unbeatable at Trivial Pursuit.
When I was young--I'd say younger than ten, Mom taught me the phrase, "Male Dominant Stupid Gene." She taught the phrase so well that I used it confidently. I'm almost positive that my Dad's family was convinced I was going to grow to become a Femi-nazi.
Mom worked at Maytag Refrigeration for many years. When the plant closed she worked a job that required her to travel from one side of the plant to the other very frequently. To ease the strain of all that cement-pounding, she used a tricycle. No, I'm serious--a tricycle. It was a grown-up's tricycle, but a tricycle nonetheless.
So this no-nonsense woman who I'm sure would still love for me to learn to tell people to "Fu*K off," was also so nurturing, that probably 20 people other than me called her, "Mom." Folks at work, friends of mine, lots and lots of people claimed her as a person who nurtured them, cared for them, looked out for them. That makes me proud.
But despite that, I'm the only one who can truly say now and forever, "That's MY MOM."
posted by Val @ 11:19 PM
1 Comments:
At 8:26 AM,
Lynda said…
Thank you for sharing about your mom. Thank you also for visiting my blog dedicated to my sister. (This is my other blog account though.)
If you would like me to, I can put your mom's name in my sidebar. I am going to link this to Laurianne's Hope also.
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