Mom and flowers

I've been thinking a lot about my mother these days, as we have just passed the fourth anniversary of her death at 95.  She had a difficult life.  Born in 1917, she lived through six wars.  Having lost much of her hearing in a childhood fall, she grew up the shy youngest child in a highly dysfunctional family where she was abused by an older brother.  A bright girl, she wanted to go to nursing school, but was rejected because of her hearing loss.  There was no accommodation for disability in those long-ago days, and she was never able to become the competent professional woman she was meant to be.

She raised three children, but that was a struggle too, as the eldest was born with severe cognitive deficits and behavior problems.   Mom spent the rest of her life trying to educate, socialize and protect my older sister.  It took an enormous toll on her, one which warped her relationships with her other daughters.

My mother and I didn't begin to develop a good relationship until she and my father, nearly blind and deaf and suffering from severe dementia, moved here to Seattle to be near the daughters who were now all living here.  After my father's death, I became her companion and helper, and we grew to love and trust each other.  We became friends, which was increasingly important as her lifelong friends began dying in greater numbers.  

In basically good health, she began to fear that she would never die and that she would outlive us.  So she decided she'd had enough, and gave up food and drink until she passed away.  It was a good time for her, I think the happiest, as relatives and friends came to visit and sit and talk with her.  I'd never seen her so alive and talkative before.  She was happy to go in that way, and we supported her.

I miss her.  I miss talking with her and telling her about my highs and lows, and feeling her love for me in a way I never did when I was growing up.  I miss laughing with her.  Even after four years, I find myself wanting to call her and talk about my day.

I don't have many photos of my mother.  Before Blip, I rarely took photos, and I lost most of what I did have in a computer crash several years ago.  But as it is Flower Friday, I'm posting this photo of my mother with a painting of flowers.  She is laughing, and that is the way I like to think of her.