Becky Says...

March 2005

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Mama Blues - March 9

It usually doesn't hit until the tenth. But this year I have my case of the Mama Blues a day early, to commemorate the last time, nine years ago, that I heard her voice. The need for breathing help after her third stroke kept her silenced the last six weeks she was alive.

For a lot of reasons, I miss her terribly this year. I have had a lot of reason to think of her over the past months, and I'm sure that's feeding into the blues. I'm also sure, from having lived through this anniversary time in other years, that some years it hits harder than others, no matter what else may be going on.

Those of you who are longtime readers already know this: boiled down to simple elements, my mother and I had a very complicated, very-good-and-very bad relationship. But in case I haven't made it plain, the years after she quit drinking were good years for us, in terms of knowing each other. And it's the Mother who was also my close friend that I miss most.

All during the day today, I've had a line from a song running through my head: "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home." I first learned that one when I was thirteen, in voice lessons. The song itself I loved; the knowledge that I would someday be a motherless child I desperately hated.

And now I am that grown-up, motherless child, a long way from home. On days like this one, when I miss Mother terribly, I remember a lot of our times together, the good ones and the bad. And I'm grateful.

I'm grateful for the things I learned from her, both the things she meant to teach me and the things I learned to avoid by seeing how they hurt her. I am grateful for the years we had together. I am grateful that I could be both her child and her friend.

And I'm grateful that although I may be motherless, I have loving, supportive friends who, especially on days like this one, remind me that I am not alone.

Text © copyright 2000-2005 Becky