Mother memory in These titles mean nothing.
- Nov. 19, 2018, 1:28 a.m.
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11/19 - My favorite memory about my mother is…
My mother died a couple weeks after her 48th birthday. She died suddenly of something in her brain - not a stroke, maybe a cerebral hemorrhage, maybe something not totally known.
The May Sunday before the Tuesday she died we had the first family picnic of the year. My parents liked to take a lunch to Yellow River Forest where there were picnic grounds and camp sites. It was never a big deal - sandwiches, potato chips, a bottle of beer for my dad, kool aid for the rest of us, often a chocolate cake.
I should ask my brother what he remembers about those picnics and if he remembers the last one. Maybe I won’t. He was 10 and I was 14. I’m never sure how our mother’s death affected him. I know it made us less sentimental about death.
The thing I remember about that picnic is there were other kids around. A family was camping nearby. After lunch my mother, the former country school teacher, organized a game of softball. She caught.
I’ve often thought she must have been feeling good that day.
Last updated November 19, 2023
Purple Dawn ⋅ November 19, 2018
<3
Deleted user ⋅ November 19, 2018
Sorry you lost your mom
Marg ⋅ November 19, 2018
That's a very young age to lose your mum.
NorthernSeeker ⋅ November 19, 2018
Your mom must have been a pretty good athlete to play the catcher position.
woman in the moon NorthernSeeker ⋅ November 19, 2018
She was an organizer and really good with kids. I've always regretted my kids didn't know her.. and she them. She'd be too old to know my grandkids but she would have been good with them too.
woman in the moon NorthernSeeker ⋅ November 19, 2018
Not just kids but people in general. On Saturday afternoons it took forever to go two blocks (from the S & D to the Equity) because so many people wanted to talk to her.
noko ⋅ November 19, 2018
I can almost hear the sound of the children and see the game in that early spring light. Maybe the rush of the river in the background?
woman in the moon noko ⋅ November 19, 2018 (edited November 19, 2018)
Edited
Yes!!! Paint Creek is pretty big when it goes through Yellow River Forest.... or maybe it was the river itself. That makes more sense.
The chocolate cake was made with sour cream - from the Hereford/Angus/shorthorns my dad milked and a boiled fudge frosting.
My mother had her garden planted and her chicks started and the day she died there was bread rising behind the wood/gas combination stove.
WhatDreamsMayCome ⋅ November 19, 2018
Lovely memory.
thesunnyabyss ⋅ November 19, 2018
<3
Serin ⋅ November 20, 2018
Can't imagine she'd play if she wasn't feeling up to it. It doesn't take much for informal softball.
Purple Dawn ⋅ November 19, 2023
This popped up on the side of your last entry. I clicked again as I had a dream last night of the day my Mom died. Unlike your Mom's death my Mother's was expected, almost wished for by those that loved her. I can't imagine how much different if not harder it would have been for you at such a young age and not expecting it at all. Take care,
woman in the moon Purple Dawn ⋅ November 19, 2023 (edited November 19, 2023)
Edited
Thank you for bringing this all back.
Funny, it wasn't hard for me. I always thought it was hardest for my mother's parents who lost their daugther and their grandchildren's mother. And then almost the same thing happened a couple years later to a son who also had young children. Can you imagine that?
I thought when I spent time with my brother before he died - the road trips to the VA for chemo- we might talk about our mother, but we never did.
I was at the age when you are in rivalry with yours same sex parent and I just felt 'free' after she died. And then of course I felt guilty for not feeling sorry.
I've never come across anyone else who had that experience. Psychiatry, here I come.
Purple Dawn woman in the moon ⋅ November 19, 2023
You aren't alone, lots of people have guilt for that reason after someone passes. For everyone we grieve differently it seems. I empathise most with a parent who has lost a child like your grandparents did. It would be unbearable I fear.