Life with My Mother  Memories and Learning Lessons ….(1954 - 1975)

Eternal memories between a daughter and her mother

Life with My Mother - Memories and Learning Lessons ….(1954 - 1975)

As trees bloomed in the spring of 1954, my mother and father 
welcomed me into their family of already five …. now six
Two brothers and one sister…
The perfect family…
Remember Father Knows Best, and Leave it to Beaver?

As of this writing, I visualize Mom in her house dress… 
Always looking beautiful for Dad at the end of a hard day…

I remember her weekly household schedule….
Make bread on Monday
Make pies on Tuesday
Get fresh milk and eggs on Wednesday, and tend the garden
Wash cloths and household items in the wringer washer on Thursday…
….hang to dry, sprinkle each piece with water, roll each piece up 
….like jellyrolls to stay damp
Iron on Friday
Personal day Saturday ….morning nine a.m… Mary’s beauty shop ….
… Never knew what color she would come home with…
…Saturday night date night with Dad… Kids not invited
Sunday …. maybe church, but for sure football on Sundays with 
…. forever friends …. Margaret and Jack.

The weeks repeated year after year …. consistently.  
Mom was in charge of everything socially pertaining to her husband…
Her children were her ward, but Dad was in charge of discipline.  
I learned early you didn’t want to “rile” his feathers …. it was not pretty…. But no family, now or the is perfect …. Right?

Mom paid the bills; Dad made the money.  
Being a local Marcus Welby doc in the day… days were long… 
…dinners were late…. and house calls in the middle of the night were common… Many Thanksgiving dinners were delayed due to medical emergencies… Dad was always “on call”…

The decade is 1960…  My Mother supported Dad unconditionally…
Mom never argued with him….
Words like “I love you” were never said in my perfect family …. 
…I wonder if they said, “I love you to one another?” 
…I never remember seeing or hearing them tell me or my siblings...
…“I love you”….
I learned in 1975 how important those three words “I love you” were in a family.

1962…Biggest brother goes to college
1965 …Big sister goes to Junior College way far away
1967 ….Other brother is so naughty he is sent to military school in New Mexico for four years… there he learns discipline but still hates his …little sister…. so does the big brother and the sister…Sibling jealousy was the norm in my perfect family. 

Mom kept her weekly routine
Life became easier since her ward was growing up.
She was still “Mommy”
…caring for my big brother at college when he had a ruptured appendix…
…writing my other brother and sister every week while they were away…
…making sure meals were prepared perfectly…
…being a perfect hostess when entertaining
…ensuring our stray puppy, Mouse, was nestled in his bed with a heating pad on during cold winter months.

1967 … Bra …Mom just didn’t get it
At 13 I was a very “petite" girl
All my peers were going through puberty…
… finally I found the courage…. 
“Mom, when am I going to get a bra?”
“Well”, she said, “You mean a brassier?
Your bosoms aren’t big enough yet.” 
I thought, “Bosoms, who says that word?”
I mustered up “please” … 
….I could have crawled under the car seat…
… and the shopping trip to get a “brassier” was a comedy show …
I wonder when my Mom got her first bra?  Did she have to ask too?  Maybe?  
Note to self …. 
Never do that to my daughter!

1968…Mom stopped using the wringer washer and clothesline…
She and I did all laundry at the local laundromat…
 …ten cents to wash…20 cents to dry….every week… I liked putting the coins in the machines and folding warm clothes. 
 
1968…I decided to start calling “Mommy”,  “Mom”.   
She didn’t flinch …. I thought that was very cool … so that day “Mommy” became my “Mom” … Mom felt so much more grownup to me.

1968… Sex …never discussed with Mom … had a movie at school one day and came home, found a brown shopping bag with Kotex and a sanitary belt inside…. OK …. I was too embarrassed to say anything.

Trust … my mom and dad trusted me to a fault
I learned from my siblings’ shenanigans what I could get away with and what I couldn’t …
Their “trust” meant so much to me….

Subservient… yep… my mom was that!  
You could put her in the Guinness Book of Records for being the “Perfect Wife” raising the “Perfect Family”

Road Trips with My Mom …. my best memories!  
She was free, happy, daring … drove in fog, snow, rain…. 
She would “share” with me things I never knew…. 
We’d stop at good restaurants, and she’d let me try new foods…
I was her co-pilot and map reader…

1972 … I noticed as I was nearing graduation Mom was not as steady as she used to be… she was crying … a lot….

1972 …my high school graduation day…her baby was leaving the nest … Each of her children had already flown… 
I see her sad … 
I want to console her…
I want her to open up to me… 
But she never did.  
What I didn’t know…she was losing her “purpose in her life”…..  
I get that now.

1973…While I was at college Mom had a nervous breakdown…
Hospitalized…. outpatient….My boyfriend and I went to visit her…. 
Mom asked us to take her out for a ride, she needed a break….
Mom loved martinis…next stop … Top of the Holiday Inn in Denver
After one martini, we asked Mom , “We’d like to move in together, would that be OK with you?” 
Her unexpected response, “That’s perfect …. If I had lived with your dad before I married him, we would never have gotten married!”  


1975….she was 57 ….
My mother died by her own hand.
After much contemplation and forgiveness I know…
My Mother’s spirit resides deep inside me… 
I feel her… 
I love her…
When eternity touches me…
I know I will see her again…. 
I have so much to ask her…..

‘lil dot - 07/08/2023

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

This poem took me back...thinking about our house and how it was some combination of "Leave it to Beaver' with June in her perfect dress and apron doing housework...my mom similar...appearances and perceptions were so important then.
And in our house, Father always did know best...
and this poem gets so sad...when we lose purpose...others can't always see that. Maybe we are too close to them...Sylvia's mother knew that Sylvia was manic depressive but she can't understand her because they are too much alike...
And I am sure her spirit does reside with you...
I think my mother's spirit resides with me.
This poem I relate to a lot...I was born in 1950...Our generation was different wasn't it?
This is a great poem, a great journey and I cannot understand why there is not one review...
j.