My Mom

The woman, the myth, the legend.

My mother is someone I've almost always looked up to in one way or another. She's a strong individual, with a mindset to get most anything done.

Born in 1969, she was raised in the 70's and 80's during the free love time, and the time of hard rock and cocaine, she was raised by a single mother in an incredibly small town in Michigan, where you knew not only your neighbors but the entire town, whether it be from meeting at the grocery store and chatting or at the local bar (that's still open, last I had checked into it)

She didn't have an easy life as much as I didn't. Her dad was (is?) a drug addict who was in and out of her life REGULARLY until she was well into adulthood. My grandma was constantly working to make ends meet and keep food on the table to support herself and my mom; Mom was a latchkey kid¹ Relying on her own key to the house and the fact that my great aunt and uncle lived right across the street from her when she landed in what we consider her hometown.

But that would be negating an entire period of her life before the small town. When my grandma and grandpa were still "together" in a sense, and when they were moving her from town to town, ending up in what I've always considered some of the most random places.. Places like Frankenmuth, known for the Christmas and Yule festivities it puts on each year, and an absolutely adorable, albeit overpriced, ornament shop where you can get custom ones made for family.

From some of the memories she's told me over the years, he was the best inattentive father she could've gotten. When he was there, he was clean, and he did his best to be present. He did have a few wives through the years of my moms youth, I can't say for sure but I do believe Connie (who ironically came after my mom was well into adulthood) was her favorite. I will say that even though I never met Millie or the others, despite mine and Connie's butting heads over the years, she was my favorite too. She helped keep my grandpa grounded and more humane when she was alive.

During my early childhood, my mom was present. She was also being treated horrifyingly by my father, so the fact that she was able at all to be around and comprehend what was happening around her is amazing and inspirational. She got me into dance lessons when I was under two, I still can't figure out how or where my mom was able to get around the money for it when I was that little; it wasn't until I had been dancing for nearly half a decade before she started working at the cafe below the studio, also owned by the studio owners, to help pay for classes. Another few years before she started teaching dance lessons of her own to recoup the costs of all my lessons.

When I was a kid I remember the first job she got in my childhood was the cafe. It was a fun hangout spot in our town that had been opened by Millianne and Becky (the sisters who owned the dance studio) when they started to realize the parents of the dancers didn't really have anywhere to go during lessons, and neither did the teens/tweens in our town after school. With options seriously limited (even our bowling alley wasn't open for regular intervals) and the skating rink really only being somewhere to go on Friday's and Saturday's, the Cafe became a hotspot for quite a few years before business dwindled down and died out. She worked there until it was time to close off and on, but also worked at a gas station in town, and by the end of my childhood began her work at nursing homes and fell in love.

Nursing homes is where my mom flourished; it's partially what had led her to dedicating her life to Occupational Therapy. Watching her work with the residents in the homes has always been so intruiging.... I get to see the same care and attention she's always given to me, the motherly, tenderly love... and I watch her give it to them. Where it may fill some with resentment, it's always filled me with pride. These people also get to enjoy my mother's love. Bask in the warmth of her care and comfort; They too, are just as lucky as I am.

My mom's story is not my own though, and it does not end here. so while I may fill out the blanks here and make a weird journal for my children to find, something documenting not only my life but also the rest of their families, I will end her's here for now.