A Dandelion for Mom

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Last week we celebrated Mother’s Day with Lisa and my dad. After I made Crystal a breakfast of bacon and French toast, we picked up Lisa in Zanesville and went on to Columbus. I dropped Lisa and Crystal off at a book store. Dad and I watched the Bulls lose to Cleveland. I picked up the girls and we went to an overcrowded but nice seafood restaurant for dinner. At dinner, at dad’s request, we toasted my mom. I know dad misses her most of all. However, I won’t lie; I think about mom a lot. She probably loved me more than anyone else in my life. Who else would have waited nine hours for my free medical exam for Boy Scout camp? Who else would always make time to play a game with me when I was bored, or listen to whatever concerned me? Who else smiled and complimented my horrible art work, or proudly displayed the dandelion I had picked for her? To me she was everything a great mom should be.

That was what I saw of my mother as a child. She was selfless, supportive, and always a soft place to fall. Growing up, like most children, I was selfish. I felt that life was all about me. Any life my parents had before I came around was just irrelevant. Today, though, I am so glad that we interviewed our parents and documented their lives in our memoir. To some extent whether it is ever published or not “150 Years of Marriage” has already fulfilled a monumental purpose. It helped us see our parents as whole people. We can no longer think of our parents as just filling their parent roles in our lives. Interviewing them revealed just how much each of them had experienced before we ever arrived on the scene. My mom for example, grew up in a very poor family in pre-WW2 Germany. She seldom had enough clothes or food to be comfortable. She was horribly abused as a child, and harassed when she didn’t join the NAZI youth. She lost her brother and father in the war. For a long time she lived in fear and never thought she would have a normal life.

Eventually though, the nightmare ended. The story of how she met and fell in love with dad after the war is well documented in our memoir. Once they were married, all she wanted was to be a mom. However, like so much else in her life, that wasn’t easy. I was her one and only child and a main focus of her life. She and my dad did everything they could to prepare me for life in the world. We stayed close always. It’s just harder on some days than others. We have a picture of mom with her grandkids in our living room. I sometimes kiss it as I go by. There is just no way to repay your parents for all they do. I just try to never forget or let the love die. Mom, I miss you.

Mom and Kids 001

 

Mom with grand-kids and great-grand-kids around 2011.

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