Remembering Mom

Even before I moved here, Granddaughter Jaime was telling me how, once I got here, we would plan a trip to go see her great grandmother - my mother - upstate from here in River Falls.  One thing led to another and another, and we got the call, just before we were finally planning the trip, that Mother had passed away.  We postponed the trip a few days to make it for the Memorial Service to be held in her honor the following Tuesday.  It was Chet and Jaime's wedding in 2004 that had brought us all together the last time.  Chet had gone to school closer to Gran-Gran than to home, and they had made the side trip to see her once, but pretty much the upstate family stayed to itself, the downstate to itself and our relationship  was loosely knit.  Invariably one of us wold call the other sometime during "Birthday Week" -- the days surrounding her birthday and mine in July, 4 days apart (plus 20 years, 4 days.) And once on the phone we had one of those talk-until-your-ears-hurt hours long conversations, covering any and all topics you can imagine.  But we didn't write, seldom sent cards or gifts, yet -- she loved me and I her in our own way.  I always felt "out" of he life, though she told me, in our infrequent conversations, all about the people who were in it and the events going on in her life.  Nevertheless, I never felt a part of her life.  I was part of her "former life," a child of her first marriage -- I think there are 12 years between me and my next younger brother. I didn't fit.  I never felt I'd fit.  But that was my problem -- actually, likely the root of many. 

Before my brother's wedding in April, 1990-something, I hadn't seen Mom since 1980, when the going plan was that we would be moving out of the country. Taran and I made the trip to see her from our Ohio home.  She remembered that trip -- we had a great time.  She gave Taran a new mint-in-the-box talking Flip Wilson doll and asked me often over the years if he still had it (He didn't.  He didn't even remember it -- and I understand it commands a high price these days to collectors -- but he did move out of the country for a number of years so I assured her he did.) I remember she made my favorite fried chicken (no one makes it like she did!) and we laughed a lot.  Only the twins were left at home, and somewhere I have photos of them they will never forgive me for taking. 


I knew Mom wasn't well.  What I wasn't prepared for was the phone call I'd made to her the week before she died. She was so angry!  Not with me, not with any of the kids around her or those who cared for her daily - but with God himself.  She had been getting progressively worse over several years - heart failure and Myasthenia Gravis -- and , she told me, several weeks before her doctor had told her she had about 2 weeks, on the outside.  She'd gone about her business, making sure everything was taken care of
and she was ready, she told me.  She was ready and she was still here!  She was furious at that!  Another reminder that a person can love someone (God) and still be angry with him.  Before we could get up there, she was gone.  


No one will call me Princess anymore.  I am glad she was able to know at least some of what I call "my" family downstate from where she lived.  I am also grae