Today I wish I could talk with my mother. I want to tell her how overwhelmed I am with all my new health conditions, my new restrictions.
I had the damaging autoimmune disease, Juvenile Rheumatoid, from the age of twelve. It seems like yesterday that I was sixteen and overheard my doctor tell my mother that I would be dead or in a wheelchair by the time I was twenty-one years old. I didn’t tell my mother that I’d overheard that conversation, but from that moment forward I made all my own decisions, including all the life-changing ones. I’m sure I was a real handful for my parents! Still they were always supportive. When I visited them in the years to come, Mother always said at some point, “I know what you’ve done!” That statement was meant to convey that her daughter was someone akin to Wonder Woman. I want to hear her say that again today!
I “knew” my mother better than most people “knew” her. When I’d remark on Mom’s wit to her friends, many of them would just stare at me–they just knew Mom to be a serious grade-school teacher. I saw and enjoyed the fact that she would talk seriously for a while, then with a totally dead-pan face, drop a concluding dry witticism. I’d always snort and giggle, and her face would light up for me. Today I need to stop being so overwhelmed and frustrated. Today I need my Mom’s totally unpredictable witticism, so I can snort and giggle again.
I know exactly what you mean…As close as one may get to dear friends, very little can compete with that mother/daughter bond that can seem telepathic at times—like she would somehow know that she had better give you a call today!..Blessings…
I think as an only with a very ill mom it is maybe natural that i was closer growing up to my mom than my dad. When I was diagnosed at 17 mom was devastated and found it difficult to go on. My dad told her with some sternness that they had to stand up and keep going so I could see it was possible.
My mom sucked it up and we got though it . I never forgot the look on her face however. It is true i was scared, but when I saw my moms tears, it showed me all I needed to know about diabetes.meant. It is a sobering memory.
Well anyway, the thing is, I wish I could talk to my mom or dad today. I think if I could I would ask each to tell me a funny story. Laughing would be the best.
Come to think of it, at certain times, I feel the same way about my dad. He was the only one I could talk to without reserve when I divorced my daughter’s dad. Mom was too scared. And every year, it is dad I talk to as I plant our tomatoes!..
Trudy, I appreciate you and Judith so much. You have no idea what your support for my writing has meant to me over the last few years. Thank you to both of you for what you have done in my behalf.
Love you, Rick. Your writing, like Trudy’s, has been an inspiration for years…
And on the subject of the original post—my daughter called today—we talk regularly, but this one was off “schedule”—and last night I had been weeping a lot over losing my sister and how to plan maximum number of trips to the Midwest to see her when we are on a very limited income…
She couldn’t have known that, but she knew somehow that I needed to hear her voice…It is a two-way street…Love grows…
Judith_in_Portland. Yes, the mother-daughter bond is truly special. I do regret that our daughter lives so far from us, though I can’t complain that she lives in the great Northwest, where I was born. We both have bells go off in our head on Sunday evenings; it’s just a question of which of us calls first!
