This is how a mother loves.

I don't possess my mothers abilities in the least of ways. I wish I did. When I was young looking back, "be careful" was really the same as I love you but have fun. I was a tom boy who loved to skateboard, bike ride, climb trees, play every game known to kids, pretend me and my friends were the Swiss Family Robinsons in my back yard play house from Gimballs at the mall. Growing up and boy did I want to as soon as I noticed boys was not too easy a time for us all. My girl friends and I would take atleast an hour to get ready to go roller skating, ice skating or watch the boys play baseball just to be out and ready for anything! Several occasions I lied awefully bad about bad pizza or kanishes when in fact I stoled my moms j&b scotch. To say I was a handfull to todays standards would be putting it lightly. My mother was going to instill some culture and poise in me whether I liked it or not. I was in public schools for 7-8 yrs, I can't really count kindergarten because all I remember was my mom and dad taking me to the beach alot instead of going to school. Eighth and Nineth grade I spent at Knox Preperatory School in Long Island or on the Island as it's called. Even though I hated it due to mostly having to adapt to the preppie way of life, I have very good memories of those 2 years. In the last quarter of school of the second year my dad suffered a major heart attack and a mild one, I remember the day was like a Wednesday and I had just came from a game I played (tennis, soccer, softball or basketball?) and my mom's car was parked in the parking lot at Knox. Mind you, you only got picked up every other weekend and had afternoon visits with family alternate weekends. Mom told me dad's back went out and when I got to the hospital dad was sitting up in a hospital bed with all kinds of tubes and cords, plugs and monitors attached to him. He got up and gave me a hug (sitting) and I remember saying what about your back? Dad's doctor mentioned to mom that if we could find a way to move to Florida and retire that dad would prob. live alot longer. Off that summer we went, Mom pushing dad to get well, having him eat right, walking to the end of our property (to the mailbox) and back, then to the end of the block, and she packed and planned a trip to go look at houses in Florida with a realtor and did everything come to think of it. We flew together as a family to Florida to find a house and moved there in the summer. Moving van took our belongings and we took the 2 dogs a basset hound and her mixed puppy/adult in a Chevy Chevette gunmetal grey with red seats and no ac (from what I remember). My dad could only drive a little, my mom drove mostly and my dad even made me drive, no drivers license and 15 yrs old. Luckly those lessons in the mall parking lot paid off big time, believe me your fist time driving in traffic is a bit scarey if your doing it on I-95! Moved in made friends, had a few boyfriends, got pregnant, then married.

Getting back to my mom, she always gave me hope. Hope in marriage, health, love, sickness, my children, job and even when I didn't have much. Her ability to forgive and not forget is unsurpassable bar none. She is biased very to me. She is also biased to the good that can and is inside everyone, even if they aren't showing it at that time. How does she know these things, why when I get mad about something she gives off this feeling that she's ignoring me when in fact she's just really making light of it knowing it will pass and not even matter? How she does this I hope I figure out, I think I have to ask her this later. Maybe it's her faith in God, she prays every night to her dear heavenly Father for anyone and everyone she cares about. She worries still at 81 years young about everyone she cares about, even her husband that he'll be nice to me? Who does these things?

In a week from this Monday she's having 3 cm removed from her shin due to malignant melanoma under anesthesia. I am scared as hell about this skin cancer and losing her to it. I am being selfish I know, I don't want her to suffer and lose that gleam in her eye and will to be alive as she lives each day. You should hear her laugh out loud when she's watching her favorite shows, shows she's seen a thousand times. She sings with commercials, "There ain't no bugs on me!", sang by some adorable lab.

I believe in heaven her mother is looking down at her and saying what a chip off the old block. Maybe her dad too. Lastly, her dad when on Sundays the family would go to church have a good friend or golf buddy that was like an usher or something would come up and shake her dad's hand and he'd have a golf ball or a buzzer in it! In church even!

Well lunch is home today, she has to go to Walgreens (she has a list I'm sure) and pick up her glasses at the eye glass place. I wish I could just stop crying, but like Jan (one of our helpers) says she used to promise herself not to cry in front of her mom she gave herself to cry like a baby once she got far enough away from her to make sure she couldn't hear her.

my mom (picture is of Angelina 3 yrs 3/4 old!)

Moms aren't supposed to get sick, the last time she did was a cough/cold thing going around. My mom doesn't have diabetes, her bp is OK (with meds) she's almost 82. I read something yesterday which put it in words how I feel. I read that when you take care of your parents or do some things for them, you begin to take a look at your own mortality. My dad had 2 heart attacks before I turned 15 years old, it wasn't easy for him. When this happens you have to slowly reabuild yourself and push every day to exercise, eat right and be careful not to over do it. When I was in my 20's my mom had a lumpectomy with radiation. I took her to her appointments, visited her at the hospital, and she was the strongest person with breast cancer in all the world. Never once did I think she'd die from it, or maybe don't remember. A little while ago she told me that was the scariest thing she ever went through. My mother has been taken for curt, mean, brash, rude, cold, harsh, hard for her words to others or about from time to time. She was raised privilidged and born in 1925 in Wheeling, West Virginia. She had 2 older siblings Hugh and Margorie. She often says how she missed talking to him about anything little or small. She remembers one conversation with him as he was referring to having his leg amputated due to a bypass surgery that didn't heal, he said "Well now that I only have 1 leg, I only have to worry about cutting the toenails on 5 toes instead of 10!".

Being born through a depression makes one appreciate every little thing. My mother was not wasteful, she loved spending money on her family but lived a modest life. When she was young she remembers there being an "X" infront of her house on the pavement by the street. Her parents told her that was from the beggars that knew they could go to their home for food. She and her sister volunteered at the local Red Cross with their mother for many years. Due to the usual flooding in Ohio she always had lots to do. Her sister and mother later on were very important community figures volunteering for the Citizens of the Blind and the Cancer Society. To this day every month, she donates to her charities: The Red Cross, Human Society, Cancer Society, National Wildlife, from feeding children, Veterans of Foreign Wars, to the National Republican Party, Border Control, to keeping English as our first language. I am sure I missed a few.

Her brother Hughie went on to the steel business following in his fathers footsteps. He met Martha his wfe throughout his life and had 4 childre; Heather, Briar, Malcolm & Timmy. My mother loves to tell a story about Heather then about 3 or 4 yrs old, "Heather and I were riding in the car from Wheeling back home, Heather fell asleep in the car and after about an hour she woke up and asked me", "Auntie Charlotte, I had the greatest sleep, did you?" Throughout the years she kept the rest of us up to date what each of the four were doing and who married a republican or a democrat. Very important in this family those things are. She could really talk up a storm she called it about those things with Hughie.

She loved horseback riding, even though her mother insisted that she should give it up due to her falling. She went to high school in Wheeling, W.VA. and 2 years at Knox in Cooperstown, NY and later graduated from Katie Gibbs in NY.