A Tribute To My Mom

Someone recently asked me how I was like my mom and so I wrote the following. I realize this is personal but it helps give me a connection in life. It is another tribute to my mom, who made so much of a difference in my life.

My mom was a very warm, compassionate, caring and insightful lady. She was a beautiful lady that never showed her true age (much like I do and her father did). She was more creative than I realized through cooking, baking cakes and just in about everything she did. She was so intelligent and saw things that most others in this world just don’t see. She picked up on things that were going on with me, yet I never spoke about. She’d know what I was thinking and feeling right down to the detail without me saying a word. She just seemed to know things and to know how to navigate through life. I’ve only seen one other person who similar signs of just knowing things (and I don’t mean in a general way but in a very detailed way). And not just knowing but the accuracy of it is beyond my comprehension.

She always wanted to take piano lessons but because her alcoholic father spent their money on his booze with his Masonic Lodge friends, she never got to do that. Yet, she could sit down at my piano and pick out little tunes without knowing where a note was on the piano. I once began to teach her some of the notes on the piano. She was the one responsible for making sure I had the opportunity to take piano lessons when I showed the desire for it.

She was the peace maker in the family much like I tended to be later on until it took its physical role on me. She worked for many years as a nurse in health care especially trying to help the elderly. I worked in a nursing home when I was in high school doing maintenance and loved every moment around the elderly and now I also work in a health care related way.

She was a good communicator both in speaking and in writing, all though she considered herself to be shy and I think she struggled with self confidence. She would often teach Sunday school classes that I was in (not my two brothers for some odd reason) and she would often volunteer to put together Christmas programs for church. She answered the main phone and was a receptionist for a long time in a couple of companies and her voice was always so pleasant. She could be horribly sick that day, but you would never hear it on the phone through her voice. She tended to hide a lot from almost everyone.

Even in the midst of all that she endured and we endured, she tried to show us compassion and love and understanding. She had her faults and her own mind sets but she was more accepting and understanding in the world than most people were. She was a very simple lady, not asking for or desiring much for herself. She however, tried to do as much as she could for her family and especially her children with the limited resources she had. She tried to help me excel in every way that I could and she tried to protect me as much as she could.

My mom was a very strong lady through her personality and through what she would do physically. Although if you saw her or were around her, she would seem very meek, mild and like one of those people who you just enjoy being around. She made friends easily at church and if someone needed something, she found a way to help out.

I remember having so many Sundays where our resources were limited but she’d invite people over for our Sunday meal. She seemed to enjoy that. As a child, I remember her bringing some of the residents home from the nursing home where she worked for Thanksgiving and Christmas so they wouldn’t have to spend it alone. Most of the time, these people played the piano so it was an extra treat for me. And when we took them back to the nursing home, we would drive around town looking at the Christmas light displays.

I’m sure I’m missing half of the stuff about her but she gave so much and if anyone showed me that love did exist in the middle of the horror I lived in, it was my mom. When my mom died, I had not been able to talk to her for the last 10 years and that made it difficult. However, I’ve seen very clear signs that she is around me constantly and supporting me.

There was a park in Miami that I went to shortly after I found out my mom had died in a car accident. It was one of my favorite parks. That day, it was raining but I saw the park bench where I was at, have a gleam of sunlight shine upon it and the rain stopped in that specific moment while the rain continued around it. Another year, I was there walking in the park on the anniversary of her death with Jeff and it was a very hot and still day. The wind was not blowing at all until I was talking about her and then it came up very strongly just in the exact place we were at but in no other area of the park because I checked the trees out for movement. I do feel her around me and have had several people say they see her around me as well.

Oh one other thing that I just remembered was that we both loved animals especially cats.

http://mothersdaymusic.net/