My Mother

Reading another good book right now called I Am My Mothers Daughter by Iris Krasnow. Its stories about ones mother and how growing up we wish we had other mothers beside the one we have/had. The author's mother was in her words "tough around the edges". Her mother outlived her family by escaping Warsaw and fleeing to Paris. Her whole family perished in Hitler's Concentration Camps. Growing up her mother wasn't sensitive to her needs as a little girl. Now her mother is going to die soon. She is in a facility with dementia, an amputated leg and very fragile.

Krasnow tells the tales of other women and how they got along with their mothers. I'm only on page 75 out of 216 but it got me thinking about my own mother.

My mother was born in Boston on August 13, 1937. She was the second oldest of four children. Her mother, Julia, whom my daughter is named after was a homemaker. Her husband, Patrick, was an alcoholic. (I'm not sure what he did for a living but I think he worked on the railroads). The oldest of the brood is my uncle Hughie (Hugh). He is currently in the next town from here in a nursing home. My mother had a sister, Eileen, who just died in November from lung cancer. Aunt Eileen has four grown children with a bunch of grandchildren. Her husband, Wilfred (Willie) also died from lung cancer in 2008. My mother's youngest sibling, Patrick (Georgie) died in 2010 from a massive heart attack vacationing with his second wife. His first wife died from Cancer as well. They had three children. Their second oldest. Michael, is my daughters Godfather.

My mother and her family grew up in Charlestown in the projects. Money was tight for them. However my grandfather still had money to spend down at the local drinking hole. Mom tells me he would get violent and my Aunt Eileen told me he threw her down a flight of stairs for angering him.

I'm not sure how my mom met my dad. I think my mom was out with her girlfriends at a restaurant and my Dad came over to talk to my mother or ask my mother out. Long story short they got married. They moved to Woburn. My mother was in her early 20s, my dad a couple years older when they got married. In 1965, my sister, Mary-Eileen was born. My mother combined her name, Mary and her sisters Eileen to get my sisters name. After that came two boys. James and Patrick. Not sure their dates of birth.

Mom had a lot of heartbreak in her lifetime. The first death in the immediate family was my brother, James (Jimmy). Patrick was a baby and was down for a nap. Mary-Eileen and Jimmy were playing across the street with the neighborhood kids. They both came home and gave my mother some flowers they both had picked and my mom was tickling their Lil noses. Mom than began to run a bath and Jimmy wanted to go back out and play. This was Memorial Day weekend so no one was around. Mom told my brother he could if my sister went with him. Mom says she asked my sister where Jimmy was when she heard the screech of brakes. Mom knew it was Jimmy. She ran outside and the neighbors would not let her see her son. My next door neighbor moved him to the side of the road (which you shouldn't do to a trauma patient). My Dad was at the store in Burlington buying lumber and my neighbor had to go get him while my mom, Patrick and my sister went to the hospital. Long story short, he didn't make it. Some kid just got his license and was going way too fast down our street. Which STILL happens to this day. Its a cut through and people speed even when its posted as 35mph. My brother was just four years old.

In the late 70s, Woburn Ma was in a huge lawsuit with WR Grace and Beatrice Foods over contamination of the towns drinking water. We had wells in our section of town that had runoff water that would go into these wells. Woburn is a Tannery town, meaning we would produce leather. The companies would waterproof it using a chemical called TCE. Basically it caused a HUGE Leukemia outbreak in our town. My brother,Patrick, died of leukemia at age 11. He died March 25, 1981. That I remember because on March 21, 1982 I was born.

I had a good childhood. Two big family vacations that I can remember were to Disney World when I was three or four years old and we took a Winnebago across country when I was six. Another tragedy hit our family when I was seven years old. Cancer took my father Oct 6th 1989. That was tough watching your father get sicker and sicker. I remember it all fairly well. Had to go to counseling and kids in my school wouldn't want to come near me thinking their dads could catch what my dad had and die.

My mom is the strongest woman I have EVER met! I can only count a number of times I have seen her cry. We both sat by when her mother took her last breath. She found her boyfriend died in his home. Just a number of things that would make anyone else go completely insane!

Why is my mom not in an insane asylum? She believes in Jesus Christ and is a STRONG Catholic/Christian person! She never blames God for the things in her life. She has her health, four beautiful grandchildren, and her undying faith!

Sure growing up we had our ups and downs. I thought she would have thrown me out of the house for getting pregnant and not having been married. I'm still here. She loves being close to the baby as well. I think it makes her feel young again. I don't know where I would be without my mother.

The author told her mother to FUCK OFF when her mother called her sons little brats. I've said that to my mom and called her a BITCH. Which I got hit in the head for that. I deserved it. She can push my buttons sometimes. However she will always be there for me and for that I am eternally grateful!