Take a good look at this photo....how old do you think this woman is???? Most people tell me 65 or 70.....she is 58 years old in this photo. This is my Mom, Loie. This photo was taken about a year before she died. The little guy in her lap is my 29 year old son. Life was good...I had a wonderful husband and had a sweet baby boy, my parents first grandchild. It came to be the only one they ever got to know .
I have thought and thought about how to write this post. It is very important to me that the people who read this blog understand who I am now because of what happened 28 years ago.
I was 27 years old and my entire world came apart....my Dad was already in the hospital, he had complication from his diabetes. I came down to Arizona for Bryan's first birthday party. My husband and I lived out of state. I walked in the door and a 70 year old woman was standing where my Mom should have been! To make a long, painful story short for right now, 7 weeks later she was dead of a cancer no one knew she had ( but her) . I had my brother take her to the hospital the next morning and from that day on, she never left it. She died on October 3, 1981. On that day, I lost both of my folks. My Dad was never the same after her death. He died 14 months later, he was only just 60 years old. People would say to me, how bad she looked right before she died.....she just looked like my Mom. Between my brother's birth and mine, she had had a full term pregnancy ( due in a week) and had tripped over a pop bottle case on the floor of a store and went into labor. The baby was delivered deceased the next morning. It was a little girl. She fell into a deep depression. A few years later after my birth, still depressed and ill, they misdiagnosed her with a disease that they treated with pure Cortisone, which left her frail and much worse off physically. The depression never really went away.
My mom was one of those women who never complained, and was never the most important one, my Dad loved her no doubt, but he didn't know how to cherish her, it was just how it was. And sadly, she accepted it. I am convinced had she gotten pissed off once in awhile and yelled, had been able to stand up for herself every so often, she might have lived longer.
I have figured out that she was actually sick with the cancer when I was pregnant with Bryan but she was bound and determined to be here when he was born....NO ONE knew she was ill, NO ONE. How incredibly scared she had to have been. Another real regret.
More than anything, I wish I could just have one more day with her, now, with me this age, and with my life lessons that are behind me. I often think of what I would say to her.....first of all I would tell her how I am sorry for not being a better daughter. I would tell her that I miss her every single day, and that I hope she is proud of the woman I have become. And then I would tell her goodbye...for now. (That was another huge mistake I made, but that is another post another day. ) It is very hard to become a grown woman without your Mom, there were so very many places in my life I could have turned to her for help, with my kids, my husband, my life in general, some advice or just a laugh. I never got to have that Mother/Daughter relationship women have with their mothers when daughters finally become grown. There is a void I have never been able to fill, and believe me I have tried all kinds of wrong ways to fill it! But I can live with it now....all these years later. It isn't easy, but it is doable most days. And when I do see her again and I know I will someday, I will hug her gently and I will tell her these things and so much more. I love you Mom! Your daughter, Sandy
