Twenty-five years.
A quarter century.
It was twenty-five years ago today, May 12, 1996, that I last saw our Mother alive. It was Mother's Day, and Mom had terminal lung cancer. We didn't know how much longer she had to live, so each day we had with her was precious.
Mom had undergone chemo, but for some reason -- I don't remember why -- radiation was not considered. Mom had lost a little hair, but she hadn't lost much weight. She looked tired, drawn, but didn't seem to be putting on a brave face with us. She seemed delighted to have her children around her.
Mom was to me my rock. She gave me life, protected me from Himself, encouraged me, taught me about life and living and was always in my corner. Sure, we had disagreements, spats even, but in the end she was the one person on whom I know I could count. I wasn't married and was just beginning what would turn out to be a disastrous and unfortunate serious relationship, so she was to me my girl. I acquired the strong genes of her family and looked like one of them, thankfully.
My love of language, literature and education came from Mom. She taught me how to throw a baseball and how to bake and cook. She supported me in athletic endeavors even though she didn't understand a curveball from a free throw. Her enthusiasm for anything her first child did was always on display. Despite this, Mom was no Stage Mother. If I stepped out of line I heard about it.
As I got older and things worsened with Himself, Mom and I would talk about it confidentially, always careful to do so out of earshot so as to not anger him. We had to stay apart from one another for several years to make her life easier; any time I came around the house, he would get in fights with her about my alleged misbehavior. I didn't misbehave; he just hated me and took it out on the both of us.
Mom smoked like a chimney for over forty years. We tried to get her to stop but it wasn't until she had acupuncture that she was able to quit. By then it was too late -- three years after she quit she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Six years after she quit she died.
Among the saddest things about losing our Mom was the fact that she and Karen never got to know one another. She wouldn't have been happy with the circumstances of our romance -- both of us left bad marriages and divorced before living in sin and then remarrying -- but she would have had a blast with Karen. I would have been their unwilling foil for most of their hijinks, but I know they would have loved each other's company. Karen and I talk of it often. Besides never becoming a father with Karen, this is my greatest regret.
I am now sixty-years-old. My Mother has missed forty-one percent of my time on earth. I think of all the things we could have done together if she'd only been around for half that time. I see other people who smoked like fiends who got to live into their eighties and nineties; Mom died at age sixty-four., just four years older than I am now.
Her loss pains me every day. I think of her often and talk with her as if she were still with me. I'm proud to be her son and glad that she was my Mother. I appreciate more than ever all that she did for me and think of her every Mother's Day.
I know she's waiting for me and in some ways I can't wait to be reunited. I want her to know Karen and watch them laugh themselves silly at my foibles. She loved me like no other until I met Karen. With any luck Sherman and Custer have made her acquaintance and are keeping her company until I join them all.
I love you Mom. I miss you and can't wait to see you again.
Thank you for giving my life, teaching me to live and keeping me alive.
(c) 2021 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
