Dear Mom
I know you are asleep right now, (1:Kings 2:10) and that you don’t hear me, but I am glad to be with you In spirit so to speak, through my lovely daughter Candace to represent me.
It was so heartwarming to hear that she and Lisa sang to you the day before you passed from this world. They made you smile, and you tried to sing along as you watched them from the window. They couldn’t come in to see you because of the COVID 19 restrictions. Nor could I come now for the same reason, with the laws around out of province visits being what they are, and my own compromised respiratory system; along with being a bit crippled up from my horse accident. The latter wouldn’t surprise you, as both you and Sheilagh had once said that those horses would be the death of me and it nearly came true.
In regards to my respiratory problems, I appear to have inherited your asthma and myriad of allergies and I finally can sympathize with you how dangerous and debilitating it can be. As a young child I can remember bringing you bouquets of dandy lions, crocuses and buffalo beans and you thanked me graciously, but then sneezed your head off. You were allergic to pet hair too but I just didn’t get it.
Hence, I one time smuggled home a mother cat and kittens and hid them in my big toy box and snuck table scraps and milk to them. Your allergies went through the roof and you couldn’t figure out why. I also had jars of frogs that woke Dad with their croaking serenade at night and he would release my captives into the night so he could get back to sleep. Then there was the bald pink baby mice incident, whereby I brought a family of sibling rodents home, once again in a pickle jar, and you and Dad had a fit.
Raising ten kids was a huge challenge and I know that having an extra six miscarriages was awfully hard on your body, Mom, and that you were in labor for three days with me and nearly died. That was probably the start of trouble between us, although certainly not a conscious thing, just as a result of having so much trauma. I was a blue baby, starved of oxygen and thought to have suffered some kind of brain injury as a result, and it did affect my ability in school but back then they didn’t know what to do about ADHD, therefore I got bullied a lot.
To say that I was a problem child was probably an understatement as I was very angry, and socially inept. I tended to deal with things with my left hook. Many a kid that crossed me ended up with a bloody nose.
However, Mother bear you became on occasions when I needed help, like the time when a boy hung a licking on me and you went charging after my tormentor and took a strip off him verbally. He stood there quaking in his sneakers and apologized to us and then left me alone after that.
Margie and I being so close in age got into mischief together frequently, like crying wolf about a tornado headed straight for your prized new ranch style house on the farm. We laughed when you ran down stairs with a pillow against your chest and hid under the stair case and instructing us to do the same.
You sure got mad when you heard us giggling upstairs, and said that you hoped the tornado would get us and we wouldn’t have the last laugh, if we cried wolf again.
We also threw a party in that new house while you and Dad were gone for a weekend. Dad found out and was livid, but you intervened on our behalf, saying that no real harm was done, and that we wouldn’t do it again. “Your blankety blank right about that, they won’t”, Dad said as he glared at us with those piercing Hagel eyes. We got the hint.
Raising me was no cake walk I know and I the subsequent decades of tribulations which I caused you and others, I deeply regret.
However I am just so grateful that for the past 15 years or so, that our mother and daughter bond was restored and reconciled to a large extent. We made peace with each other and forgave one another after a lifetime of a stormy relationship.
Even our religious beliefs now would clash, but one thing that we did agree on is Jesus, and he is the reason it became possible to mend that bridge. If I hadn’t re-committed my life to Him, it would not have happened. My life was a train wreck and I continue to live with its many consequences, as do my children.
You were a good Grandmother to my children though and tried to help me raise them when I became a single parent. You also were there when I arrived home from the hospital, after giving birth once again, and you helped by rocking my fussy newborns to sleep, so I could rest.
I also cherish my latter memories of sitting with you in the nursing home and singing Irish tunes and other songs of your day. You would start the chorus line and I would finish it, much to the amazement of Len who witnessed it. We then would crack up laughing at our joyful caterwauling and start in with another tune. Len had an epiphany and later said that that was where I got my singing from, as I tend to sing a lot out of the blue and it is usually the lines from 70’s Rock songs, from my own era. Once in a while a song starts out with Ku Ku Ku Katy My Beautiful Darlin’, You’re the only ga ga ga girl that I adore…
So my beautiful Momma Rest in Peace, and when Christ returns on a cloud, with a shout and a blast of the trumpet you will rise from the grave and join him, Thessalonians 4:16 -King James Version (KJV)
Isaiah 26:19 English Standard Version (ESV)
19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.
One day soon, you Momma will sing and dance an Irish jig, with Dad once again by your side.
Love you, always and forever in my heart, Your youngest brat, Doreen.
