Sometimes I miss her so much it hurts…

My Mom and I had a unique relationship. She was strict, according to my friends. I would say she was protective. She was at every event in my life. At every football game when I was a cheerleader. At every concert when I played the flute. At every competition when I was the drum major of our marching band. At every musical when I performed. She encouraged me to do my best at everything …even at things I didn’t want to do. She also taught me to speak my peace but also be diplomatic. When I was leaving college, she had a dream that I would either work for IBM as a sales rep or be a diplomat for the government. Don’t ask me why she saw me in these roles, but that is what she wanted me to achieve.

When I moved back home after college, she fell right back into that protective (strict) role. But as a butterfly that had spread her wings over the past 4 years during college, I was not willing to conform to her rules any more. In order to have the freedom I yearned, I packed up and moved from New Jersey to Texas. According to my father, I broke my Mom’s heart when I left. But she never let that be known to me. We went back to the same relationship we had when I was in college. Marathon Saturday phone calls. This was back before unlimited long distance and much of my budget was spent on my phone bill.

In 1988, my folks did what 90% of NJ retired folks do, they moved to Florida. Though I missed my childhood home, I made many treks to Florida for all major holidays. Then, in the early 1990’s, my Mom started to show signs of dementia. By time I got married in 1994, my Mom had full-blown Alzheimer’s. She asked me who was getting married and accused me of stealing her jewelry…the items she had picked out the day before for me to wear with my gown. It was heart breaking. I was not only losing my Mom, but was losing my best friend. I know that sounds cliché but it was the truth. She was the one person I could tell anything to…well, anything except sex stuff. That was still taboo. In June of 2001, she slipped away and joined her brother in heaven.

So fast forward to 2008, and here I am, a single mom with two children. And no one to be my mom. No one to tell me I’m not screwing up my kids’ lives. No one to tell me how to get my son to behave in school. That’s really what started this post. My son’s teacher sent another note home today asking for suggestions on how to get my son to complete his class assignments. Consistent with last year, one of his co-teachers has no problem with him, while the other co-teacher can’t get him to behave at all. And I’m clueless as to what to do. I’ve rewarded good behavior, punished bad. Taken away toy after toy, privilege after privilege…and to no avail. For the third year in a row, it is the same problem…one teacher can handle him, the other cannot. If it weren’t a pattern, I’d think it was the teacher. However, there has got to be more to it than that.

And all I want to do is pick up the phone and talk it over with my Mom…but she’s not there…after all these years, 16 in all (8 before she died when her mind was basically gone, and the 8 years since she passed), I still want to pick up the phone and ask her advice….and it hurts that I can’t.