My Mom--Let's Get a Little Personal

Thirteen things about my mom.
1. A while ago,my mother and I were looking at some pictures of her when she was a little girl. I would love to post some of them, but she won't allow it. She looked a lot like the picutes I've seen of Anne Frank on the covers of her published diary. Although my mom didn't have to endure all Anne had to endure, she still had a pretty hard life.

2. Mom grew up in the South and everyone in the family has a nickname. Her nickname is Nanno, her dad's was Bud (like my son), her uncle's is Ninny, and she has a cousin who's Bubba--Just to name a few.

3. I'm not sure how old she was when her parents divorced, but I assume she was between 4 and 9. My grandfather was an alcoholic. My grandmother contracted tuberculosis and was sent to live in a sanitarium where she could only talk to my mom and her older sister through an open window as they stood outside. She died at the age of 33 when mom was 10 years old.

4. Because her father was alcoholic, mom and her sister went to live with her aunt, Granny. Granny was married, but separated from her husband (Ninny), so she was basically a single mom of her own two boys and now to her nieces. Mom didn't have much (if any) contact with her father (Granny didn't allow it) until our family visited him when I was a young girl. They were able to built a bit of a relationship until he died a few years later.

5. I've been told stories of how crazy and abusive things were at Granny's house.

6. It was a happy day when mom left to go across the country for college. Sometime within her freshman year, my mom met my dad, fell in love, started failing, and then quit college. She was going to study law.

7. Mom and Dad were married when she was 19 and became pregnant with a honeymoon wedding night baby. They had six children (seven pregnancies) within 15 years.

8. Even though Mom improved upon the environment in which she grew up, she was a little stressed out and depressed and sick and tired, but her home was always spotless.

9. She always found joy serving at church in various ways. She loved going out to visit the other women from church, and always came back so happy and refreshed. This is something I've picked up from her.

10. Shortly after I moved out to go to college, mom started getting some help psychologically. She was prescribed some medication that lifted her spirits a bit.

11. Around that same time, Mom was diagnosed with Hepatitis C--which would explain the sick and tiredness. She did a year-long series of shots of chemo that made her lose several pounds.

12. She's just been diagnosed with diabetes.

13. I love my mom. She has helped me through my darkness of depression in various ways: showing me by example that it's okay to get professional help, taking care of my children or my house when I just couldn't, and listening to my ramblings with empathy. I hope I can be at least half the mom she is.

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