Blog 70: She's Sexy and She Knows It

My mom was all giddy when I spoke to her on the phone the other day.   I knew the reason why as soon as her caregiver told me they hired another person, and it’s a man.  That explained her giddiness.  Ever since Mom became ill with Alzheimer’s she has taken a renewed interest in men.  I remember how she fell head over heels for a young caregiver in his twenties at the assisted living facility she was in a year and a half ago.  It’s almost like she is a young schoolgirl in love again.  She misunderstands the care and attention she receives from them as if they have romantic feelings for her.  It’s not every man, only the ones who are very sweet and caring towards her and engage in playful conversation.   You can’t blame her for that, isn’t that what most women like? Alzheimer’s hasn’t changed that part about her.  

My mom was once a very sexy woman with a gorgeous body and beautiful face.  Men adored her.   That, I know.  I think she knew she was sexy when we were young girls, though she never acted that way.  She was very modest.  She didn’t fall for men as easily as they fell for her.  I do remember watching her get all dolled up when she went on dates after my parents divorced around 1969.  I just sat on her bed and watched her put on all that stuff before she even put her dress on…bra, panties, garter belt, stockings, slip, perfume, powder, make-up, and rollers in her hair.  I thought, geez, I don’t ever want to grow up if I have to put all that stuff on!  I only wish I had pictures of her then.  She was not one to take pictures, so all of that is only a memory I have.  It is no longer a memory of hers, so I am keeping it safe for both of us.

Here's a picture of my mom and dad.  I'm not sure of the year but I think it was after my birth in 1956.  My mom went on to have four more daughters but she never lost her beautiful figure.  I showed her this picture three months ago and she said her name and my dad's name, and acted as if it wasn't even her.

Just moments before talking on the phone with my mom, I could hear her yelling at the top of her lungs as this new man was walking her down the hallway to change her diaper.   I hate using that word and much prefer to use the term undergarment, but the reality is she can no longer use the toilet, and so she goes in her diaper and has to be changed like a baby.  And sadly, my mom doesn’t see that as a total embarrassment as she would have just a couple of years ago.  What choice does she have anyway?  She doesn’t even know herself anymore.  She used to always say she had a shy bladder and she never wanted anyone to be around when she used the restroom, let alone a man.  Life is different for her now. 

I chatted with this new caregiver and got his name before he gave my mom the phone.  He speaks good English, so I am happy that I will be able to talk to him more easily about my mom.  I told him I will be visiting my mom next week and I look forward to meeting him.    Soon I will get to see my mom again.  Excitement and apprehension is what I always feel before I see her.  I know, I know, my mom may not recognize me when she sees me.

Mom took the phone and we had our usual, yet very unusual, conversation.  However, she was laughing more, right from the get-go.  She was giddy, maybe love struck again?  Does she feel sexy?  And you know what?  I hope she does.  I am certain she had already forgotten about getting her diaper changed just moments earlier.  As I said in a previous post, Mom doesn’t make much sense anymore.  Her voice is exactly the same and I so love to hear her voice.  Most of the time I just talk and ask her if she is still there and she responds with a ‘yeah’.   I sang ‘You are My Sunshine’ like I always do and she made some la, la, la sounds.   I told her that her granddaughter, my daughter, is getting married next year.  I’ve told her that many times before but of course she doesn’t remember.  It’s really heartbreaking that she won’t be able to attend the wedding, though I try not to think about that.  Mom asked me if she has a baby yet.  I was surprised to hear her say something that actually made sense.  She used to tease my daughter and her boyfriend about when they are going to have a baby.  Then I asked her if she could name her daughters because she seemed to be just a little more ‘with it’ than usual.  Of course she couldn’t, and all she said was, “There’s a lot of them in the garage.” 

It was good to hear my mom laugh and be happy, even though it’s sad that she is not the same.  I guess if she’s going to have Alzheimer’s and dementia, she might as well enjoy herself and be happy in this mixed up world of hers, because it's better than being miserable.  I certainly don’t want her to be as sad as I am that she is drifting away and losing herself and all of the memories of her daughters and everything else about her life.  If she feels sexy, then I can smile, because that will make her happy.    

Blog 58: My Dad

I haven’t said much about my dad on this blog but I wanted to make this post about him because he was a very special person in my life.  He was my dad, and I loved him very much.

I don’t remember Dad being around much when we were little.   He worked for the government and was retired from the Army.   He was gone in the evenings a lot, and when he was home, he didn’t play with us, as far as I can remember. 

One early memory I have is when I was about six years old.  I went to my friend’s house a couple of houses away to ask her if she could come out and play.  Her dad came to the door and started yelling at me for no reason at all.  I quickly turned around and started running down the sidewalk as he came chasing after me.  My dad was in our front yard and he ran to my rescue.  He got up in the guy’s face and yelled at him, and I peed my pants before I reached the safety of my mom’s arms.  She whisked me into the house and changed my clothes.  I never did learn what that was all about.  My parents didn’t know why that man did that either.

Some of the other memories I have of my dad, when he and my mom were married, are not very good.  He was often grouchy.  Dad was very strict with us girls and we were afraid of getting spanked by him.  The thing is, we were pretty well-behaved kids, we were just kids, and sometimes we would do something he didn’t like and then we’d get it.  Many times if one sister got in trouble, we all got spankings.  We’d have to line up, oldest to youngest, or the other way around, and lay over Dad’s knee for a few swats to the rear end.   I don’t know which was worse, watching all of my sisters scream and cry before me, or being the first, when his hand was the strongest.  I do remember one or two times that he would start laughing…laughing at our kicking legs, our scared faces, us holding our rear ends in preparation for or after the spanking, or laughing at the fact that he couldn’t believe he was doing that, who knows.   

We always sat at the table for meals and we had to eat everything on our plates.  If I didn’t like something, Dad would cut a hunk of fat and put it on my plate and tell me to eat that instead.  There were times I sat at the table for hours, my sisters too.  I learned a few tricks of hiding my vegetables under the chicken skin or under my plate.  If Dad was engrossed in a television program he didn’t inspect my plate and I could get away with it.   I think sometimes my mom would grab the plate and let me get up.   

Dad wasn’t one of those dads that would hold us in his lap and make us feel safe, loved and protected.  None of us would say that we were Daddy’s girl.  I do have one or two pictures of me in Dad’s lap when I was a baby but I don’t remember that.  He did look lovingly at me in those photos and that makes me feel good.  I look at my son and my son-in-law and I see how wonderful they are with their kids, so engaging and playful, and so loving and protective, and how much my grandchildren love to sit on their daddy’s laps. 

The only time I recall sitting in my dad’s lap was after he slapped me across the face and left his hand print because I didn’t know how to light the stove to heat up my sister’s bottle when mom wasn’t home.  Renee was a little baby and she was crying loudly for her bottle.  I was eight years old and didn’t know how to strike a match and start the gas on the stove to light it.   I was scared to death of it, but I tried because I was more scared of my dad.   Dad came in the house from working in the garden and yelled at me because I couldn’t get the job done and his hand came across my face like a lightening bolt.  I remember he held me in the chair after he calmed down and realized what he had done and rubbed my face and kissed my hair and said he was so sorry.  I think he cried but I can’t remember because I was in shock.  My face stung, my eyes stung from crying, and my heart hurt, badly.  It didn’t feel good to be in his lap.  I can never recall that memory without crying.  It was one of the most hurtful times of my childhood.   I wore his handprint on my cheek for the next several days.  That’s why I was afraid of my dad. 

Mom and Dad divorced when I was around eleven or twelve years old.  Mom never talked badly about him, she just said they divorced because he liked to bowl too much.   There was a woman in Dad’s life soon after and we found out years later that she was the reason for the divorce.  Even though Dad wasn’t around much and he was strict, I didn’t want him to leave.  I went through a couple of tough years and my mom even brought me in for counseling.  I used to pretend to my friends that my dad still lived with us.  I used to beg Mom to ask him to come back.  But Dad wasn’t coming back.  While he was on his third tour of duty in Vietnam, he married a Vietnamese woman.  He went on to have two more children, a girl, and finally, a boy.  They were raised differently.  He mellowed out and didn’t spank them.  In fact, he was very lenient with them.  I think he wanted to make up for the way he was with his first five daughters.  

Dad used to pick us up and take us to church on Sundays and then bring us over to our grandmother's house.  He'd sit and watch football and have us all take turns combing his hair.  We'd sometimes play croquet in the backyard and go to Sandy's for lunch.   We didn't really enjoy being there.  His mom, our grandmother, was strict.  She was the opposite of our mom's mom (Grandma), who was very loving and kind.  Though I did love my grandmother, too.   I accepted her the way she was.  

My sister Lynda and I went to live with our dad in Germany, when we were in high school.   My mom thought it’d be a good experience for us and we were only there for a year.  It was then that he had his first daughter with his Vietnamese wife.  Dad was strict with us over there, too.  But the day we left Germany, when it was time to board our flight, Dad grabbed each of us and embraced us in a big bear hug and cried like a baby.  I didn't think he was so sad to see us go, until that happened.  I remember boarding the plane and feeling so sad for Dad.  That was the first time I saw my dad cry.  It was to be the first of many tears.  

After that, as the years went on we didn’t really spend much time together, and he seemed to change in those years.  Dad transformed into a different person, with a soft heart and a gentleness about him.  I think of that song, “The Cat’s In The Cradle,” because that’s kind of the way it was.  He wasn’t around for us when we were growing up and he had time for us now, but we were busy with our families, our kids, and had moved on in our lives without him being a big part of it.

Dad would call and we’d get together on occasion.  We would go bowling and out for pizza, or play croquet in our Grandmother’s backyard.  Sometimes we’d all get together at one of our homes.  He loved fireworks on the 4h of July and would have big cookouts at his house.  I always think of him on the 4^th of July.  My sisters and I would joke with him about how he made us eat everything, and we would all laugh about it.   We always talked about our childhood, but always in a light kind of way.  He often cried.  He regretted so much about how he was back then, and the divorce from our mom, that it got to the point where I couldn’t stand to see the pain in his face.  I told Dad that I forgave him and I reassured him that I love him so very much.  It just killed me to see him cry because I know that as bad as I felt about that slap across the face, he felt a million times worse, and I didn’t want him to live the rest of his life with that kind of suffering and regret. I’m so glad I told him I forgave him, and even though I don’t know how much better it made him feel, it really helped me to let go of a lot of the pain I had been carrying.

We had a much better relationship as I got older, and he got older.  I know there were many years of my young adult life that I felt a little jealous of my half sister and brother.  Dad was more loving to them, more involved with them, at least it seemed that way.   They got birthday and Christmas presents and we didn’t.   They weren’t afraid of him like we were.  They had the best years with him. 

Dad would call my sisters and me and want us to go to the family reunions.  He loved those reunions and he would say he wants to show off his daughters.  There were many times I didn’t go because I got busy with my kids, and life in general.  But the times I did go, I really enjoyed it.   Dad made it so obvious to us, and to our relatives, that he was proud of his daughters.  Dad was so happy at the reunions.  He was really a family oriented person, I just didn’t realize it when I was little.  I think the stresses of marrying so young, having five children in a relatively short period of time, was just something he wasn’t ready for and didn't take responsibility for.

My dad was an adventurous person.  He loved traveling and collecting things in his travels.  He read books and was knowledgeable about world affairs and subjects that interested him.  The Cubs and the Bears were his favorite teams.  Someone beating him in trivia?  Forget it.  He was a people person, and loved being with and talking to others.  He was always up for something to do, even when he became ill, he was always willing to get into the car and go somewhere.  He embraced life...he loved life!

Around 2000, we realized something was wrong with our dad.  It turns out he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Lewy Body Disease.  What in the world was Lewy Body, we thought, and how in the world did he get it?  Back then, even some of the health care professionals didn’t know what it was.  It was certainly something new to me.  My sister Lynda and I would go with our half sister to all of Dad’s neurological appointments.  Dad was getting worse.  It broke my heart!  Just when we were getting close and mending our past hurts, he was slipping away from us.  I spent as much time with him as I could.  Lynda did, too.  My other sisters didn’t seem to be as close to him then, but they really didn’t have many memories since Dad moved out when they were so young. 

I made sure my dad knew how much I loved him, and I forgave him.  I wanted him to forgive me too, for not being a bigger part of his life when I was a young adult.  I was hurting so bad to see him suffer.  Was this something that could have been prevented?  Why did he get this disease?  I didn’t understand.  I only saw a good man in front of me.  My dad, my wonderful, amazing, loving dad, was all I saw.  My only dad I would ever have. 

Dad went to a nursing home towards the end.  I put up a small Christmas tree for him.  He still knew me, but he became so weak with pneumonia at the very end that he just layed in his bed with a stare.  I whispered in his ear and I said, “Dad, it’s ok to go.  Don’t be scared.  Go on to Heaven, Dad.  We’ll be together again someday.”  In the middle of that night he was transported to the hospital and the next day he died.  That was December 12, 2005.  All of my dad’s kids were there except for Renee, who lived out of state, Dad’s brothers and his wife, and his ex-wife (my mom), were there when Dad took his final breath.   My brother said a prayer and a preacher came in and prayed, and the nurse administered morphine and pulled the oxygen mask.  Then he was gone. 

I sat with Dad after he passed and talked to him, but I don’t remember the words I spoke.  We would all go to the hallway and sit on the floor and then return to his room one by one to say what we wanted to say.  It was so hard to have him gone, even though his suffering was now over.  There was no more opportunity to learn more from him, to make up for lost time, to hear his voice and his laugh…and to go to family reunions with him.

I know my dad is in Heaven.  He turned his life over to Christ years before he became ill.  He was a changed man, and I’m proud to call him my dad.   I loved him with all the love a daughter can have for her dad, and I miss him so much.  

Blog 54: Fix You

Dear Mom, 

I had to leave you.  I had to go back home.  This time it was harder than ever to say goodbye.  I know that I won’t be able to talk to you on the phone, and I have no idea how long it will be before I am able to hear your beautiful voice again.  The nursing home can't take calls for you and even if they did, you really don’t know what to do with the phone anymore.  I will have to rely on family members to call me when they are visiting you, and most of them don’t live that close to you, so I will just have to wait for that phone call, and hope it comes. 

That phone call won’t come from Renee, Mom.  I guess we will never see eye to eye, and I know if you knew what she was doing to our family you would certainly be very disappointed in her.  When I texted her to ask how you are doing, she ignored me.  Then the next day I asked again.  She texted back and said she has everything under control and to stop asking.  She said 'we are done'. You are my mom and I want to know how you are doing.  She is my link to you since she lives near you and sees you the most.   I suppose it's going to be days or weeks before I will hear anything.  I can't call you when I want.  I just have to be quiet and let Renee contact me when or if she wants to.  When she hurts me like that,  it affects my whole day.  I can't stop crying...I can’t do anything!  I am lost.  I know, Mom, that you know I am trying, and I am the only one who is.   It's just so hard to talk to her.  You know how she is, Mom.  You especially know, because she always gave you a hard time.  

Mom, when I was with you, I felt bad that you were so scared when the nurse and I tried to change you.  You looked at me with such fear as you dug your fingers into my arms, squeezing me til my arms hurt, begging and pleading with me to help you.  You don’t understand that what I was doing was helping you.   Your granddaughter and her boyfriend were waiting outside of your room while you shouted at me to help you.  That must have been hard for them to hear, and my heart ached for you because you wouldn’t want them to see you like this, you wouldn’t want to live like this.

You told me you don’t want to be mean to me.  You aren’t being mean to me, Mom.  You are scared and you are fighting because you don’t want to live like this.  You want to be left alone and do things on your own, even though we know you would never survive if that happened.  You always were a fighter and I’m glad to see you fighting still, as hard as it is to see it.  When you stop fighting is when I’ll really worry. 

When I was visiting you Mom, you were suffering with a urinary tract infection.  The nurses told me that they need a urine specimen to treat it.  They were not diligent in taking care of this the whole two weeks I was there.  Renee was too busy with work to follow through.  I finally, nicely but firmly, spoke to the third nurse about it before I left, and told her that I know UTI’s can cause delusions and a lot more confusion for dementia sufferers, and they need to do something to get a urine sample and start the antibiotics.  She said they were going to put a catheter in while you were sleeping.  If they did, I’m sure you were very scared.  I’m sorry, Mom.  If they finally treated your infection, maybe then you won’t be ‘seeing’ mice crawling around in your room, cows stepping on everyone’s feet, your great grandson Kevin in a coffin, kids on railroad tracks, and thinking the waste-basket is the toilet.   I remember when Dad had a UTI and he was seeing things crawling on his walls.  When the infection was treated, he was a new man.  I’m sorry, Mom.   It’s not your fault, I wish I could fix you.

I hope you are eating your food, Mom.  You hardly ate when I was there, other than that time I sat with you for an hour and used every trick I knew to get you to open your mouth and take a bite.  I told you Kevin said he wants you to eat, and that look of love on your face for Kevin, got you to open up and let me put a small spoonful in your mouth.  You managed to eat one-quarter of your lunch.  Other times you wouldn’t eat, no matter what.  Maybe the UTI was causing you to lose your appetite, too.  I hope you are eating more now, because it is a scary sign when you stop eating.

Are you ready to go, Mom?  Do you see what we can’t see and know more than what we think you do?  Has the veil been lifted?  You have been talking so much about your mom and dad and other people who have passed on.  Are you seeing them now?  Are they bringing you comfort?  Are they calling you to come be with them in Heaven?  Rose, your granddaughter thinks so.  She thinks you are hanging on now because God knows we aren’t ready to let you go.  You were so loving to me when I was there visiting you.  More loving than you've ever been since you became sick with Alzheimer's.  You told me over and over again how much you love me.  Were you preparing me, Mom?  God will know when the time is right and He will take you home then.  He will fix you!

There’s a song called ‘Fix You’ that makes me think of you, Mom, and our family, and the struggles we have gone through.  I am going to have someone help me make a video about our family, and I am going to use this song.  Until then, I found this video on YouTube that I liked.  This is for you, Mom.

I love you and miss you so much,

Lizzie  XOXO

Blog 5: Our Family Is Growing

We are five, five sisters, but we all had our differences in our personalities.  I was the oldest, the strongest, the nurturer, who got her feelings hurt easily but usually was able to cover it up.  Lynda was the emotional one, who couldn’t hide her feelings, and very loving.  Kathy was the quiet one, avoided confrontation, but stubborn in her own way.  Annie was the biggest animal lover, also a nurturer, and with her being the fourth child, was used to being told what to do.  Renee was small for her age, and because of being the youngest, felt that she needed to do more to be seen and heard.  We loved each other unconditionally and accepted our differences, and never gave it much thought.

I was the first to marry, and one by one my other sisters followed suit.  What’s weird is, my mom had a mother’s ring that we had bought her for Mother’s Day, and when I got married my birthstone in her ring fell out, and when my sister Lynda got married shortly after, her birthstone fell out of Mom’s ring.  We thought that was an odd thing to happen twice and always wondered if it was some sort of sign. 

My sister Lynda had the first baby, a boy.  I had three children, a boy and two girls…my pride and joy. J  My sister Kathy had a daughter, Annie had one boy and three girls, and Renee had two girls.  The kids are all amazing extensions of us, extensions of their wonderful Nana.  Our family grew, and life was so much fun having all these little ones in it.

     

The age difference from the youngest to the oldest of our children is eighteen years.  Since mine, Lynda’s, and Kathy’s kids are close in age, two girls and two boys, Mom would occasionally take the four of them to spend the night at her house.   They loved going to Nana’s house where they could play with their cousins and have fun.  Mom would get involved and play with them, and take them to McDonalds and to the dollar store to pick out ‘three things’, and then they’d watch movies at night.  Other weekends my youngest daughter and Annie’s oldest daughter, who are the same age, would go to Nana’s house to spend the night together.  They got the same treatment.  It was so much fun for our kids.  My mom loved it, and I loved watching the sweet bond that developed between my mom and my kids.  It was also nice getting a little break when Mom had the kids.    

Mom was a wonderful Nana.  Besides having them over for sleepovers, she would buy her grandchildren toys, coloring books, crayons and puzzles. She would also buy clothes and buy patterns to make them cute little outfits, Halloween costumes, and stuffed animals.  She crocheted blankets for them and did patchwork quilts, too.   She did so much for our kids, just like she did for us girls. 

Mom eventually remarried about nineteen years after she and Dad divorced.  For years I would pray every night that Mom would find a man to marry.  I remembered what she told me when I was a child, that she wanted a man to love her. I felt guilty for being mean to some of the men she dated when we were kids because I didn't want anyone to take the place of my dad. Well, she finally found a great guy and they were married.  She retired from her work, and he retired shortly after, and they lived on a nice pension.  Everything was grand for a good while after that.

Our extended family would get together for everyone’s birthdays, holidays, picnics, lunches, and whatever else we came up with in between.  Our husbands would say the Carver girls will find a reason to get together if there isn’t a reason to.  For birthdays, we generally went to each other’s houses.  My sisters and I bought presents for each other and we bought presents for each other’s kids. 

Mom always got a ton of presents, and over many years, her house became more full…full of knick-knacks filling every shelf , full of clothes stuffed in the closets and dressers, full of framed family photos and wall hanging with special poems, and full of fancy dinnerware, cookie jars, and other kitchen items.  Occasionally, we pooled our money and bought her something big, like a computer and printer.

Mom loved getting on her computer.  She would do research on topics of interest, send out emails, and she even got herself a digital camera and would upload and print out pictures.

Even though we had our own families, we still spent a lot of time with Mom.  Her husband Bob, just put up with all those kids and grandkids.  He had five kids of his own, too, but they didn't come around much.  I would go to their house probably three times a week just to hang out.  My other sisters did, too.  Renee didn’t live in town but she would try to come home about two to three times a year.  We would also travel to see Renee whenever we could.  Sometimes we would meet half way, and we would stay in a hotel and have a slumber party…just Mom and us girls.  Or we’d stay in a hotel in Chicago and go shopping.  We always did stuff together.  Those were good times and I miss all of that very much. 

Please stay tuned, everything starts to change…   

Blog 4: Memories on Cassette, Growing Up and Leaving the Nest

Our dad went to Germany to work and my sister Lynda and I went to live with him for a year.  We went to an American high school.  I was a senior and graduated there and Lynda was a sophomore.  It was the most amazing experience to live and travel in Europe, and it was something my mom understood as a great opportunity, even though she worried about us being so far from home and from her.  I am so grateful we got to do that, and I was able to share that time with my dad and my sister. 

My mom mailed a video camera to me because she couldn’t afford to fly to Germany for my graduation, and this way she would be able to see it.  My friends were amazed that my mom bought me a video camera for graduation.      

While we were in Germany my mom and sisters would record themselves talking on cassette tapes and then after each of them talked on it, Mom would mail them to us.  Lynda and I would listen to the tapes and laugh and cry, and sometimes rewind and listen again.  We would set aside time to record ourselves talking on the tape and then mail it back.  We did this on several cassette tapes over the entire time we were there.  Mom recorded my sister’s chorus and band programs, and we recorded ours and mailed them back.  Lynda and I described our European adventures on those tapes and we talked about our everyday lives at school and at home.  Mom also tape recorded her and my little sisters opening the Christmas presents we mailed to them. Mom always knew how to make Christmas magical, and her recording them on Christmas made it seem like we were there.  It was almost as good as that. 

I took for granted how special those tape recorded messages were, but I cherish those tapes very much now.  I safely kept them all and got them out a couple of years ago so we could all listen to them, and relive that period of time in our lives.  It brought back many memories.  We all got tears in our eyes as we listened to each other talk.  Our voices were so pure and innocent, and we were so loving in our messages to each other.

When Lynda and I returned to the states, my sisters Kathy and Renee went to Germany for half a school year.  Kathy was in 9^th grade and Renee in 6^th grade.  Annie didn’t go because she was too scared to leave Mom, and even though Mom did all she could to encourage her to go, Annie refused.    

The five Carver girls eventually grew up.  Some went to college, and eventually all got married and had families of their own.  Everyone stayed in our hometown except Renee, who moved to another state after graduating college.  She was the last one to leave the nest because she was the youngest, and she was also the one who was more determined to expand her horizons.

Life was finally a little easier for Mom.  She had the house to herself and she had a whole new world opening up for her.   

Blog 2: The Story Continues

Mom was a wonderful mom. She loved us so much.  We were her world, and she was ours.  She made every Christmas magical.  No matter how tight money was, we had more Christmas presents under the tree than anyone I knew.  My younger sisters would wake up first and get everyone up.  We would play Christmas music and open our presents before the sun rose in the morning.  I have some tape recorded memories of some of those Christmases, with our young voices oohing and aahing over our new gifts.   I remember one Christmas someone came to our door with a bag full of presents for me and my sisters.  I never knew who they were, but I assume we were probably on the list at our church or something.  Little did they know, we already got everything we wanted from our mom!   Mom made our birthdays special, too.  We got to have birthday parties with friends spending the night, and Mom would put up with a bunch of screaming, giggly girls running through the house.  With five daughters, there were lots of birthday parties. 

We didn’t have a lot of money, but we sure had a lot of love.  Mom kissed us goodbye every morning before school, if she didn’t have to leave for work before we woke up.  There were many mornings she put a roast in the crock pot before she left for work and we would come home from school and smell that wonderful pot roast.  We learned to fix our own lunches and if there wasn’t enough food to pack, she would leave money for us to stop at the corner store to pick up some snacks to put in our lunch sacks.  We walked to school, no matter the weather.  We just learned to dress prepared.  One particular day it was so cold and rain and sleet was coming down.  A lady pulled up in a station wagon and told us to get in and she would drive us to school.  She had a couple of kids in the car and she said she knew our mom.  I politely told her no, even though my sisters were begging to get in the car. Mom always said not to go with strangers, and to me, she was a stranger because I didn't know who she was. 

Since I was older, I saw and felt some things that my other sisters didn’t recognize.  I saw that mom was struggling.  I didn’t understand what was wrong then, but of course as I got older I understood more.  She was unhappy a lot, and I believe she was depressed.  She had to go to the hospital a couple of times and our grandmother had to come stay with us.  Our grandparents, Mom’s parents, came to check on us, but they lived on a farm and had to tend to it.  I remember her telling me that she needed a man to love her.  I'm sure it was really hard for her because there weren't many men out there who would want to date a woman with five kids.  I would say, “But you have us.  You have five daughters who love you very much.  Aren’t we enough?”  She would assure me that she loved us very much and she feels so loved by us, but a man’s love is different.  "You will understand when you are older", is what she would tell me.   We had that discussion more than once, because she knew I didn't like it when she went on the few dates she had. 

Saturdays were house cleaning days when we were kids.  If Mom had to work, which she often did, I would delegate responsibilities for the housework.  I usually mowed the grass, trimmed the bushes, and did all of the yard work myself.  Somebody had to do it, and I actually did not mind, unless the darn lawnmower didn't start.  Grandpa would always come to the rescue though.  Each sister would pick a room they wanted to clean and everyone was responsible for their own bedrooms, which were shared.  Nobody wanted to clean the bathroom, but we made sure everyone got their turn.  Sometimes it would turn into a fight, but most of the time we were OK with the room we got.  Mom would come home from work and we would greet her at the door.  We couldn’t wait to see the expression on her face as soon as she came inside the house.   We were so proud of our work and we wanted Mom to pick out the room she thought was the cleanest.  She would walk around from room to room, with five girls following her, smiling at her comments of how beautiful the house looks and how we did such a great job cleaning.  Mom would often say she can’t decide which room looks the best, they all look so nice.  We kind of expected her to say that each time, but we would still hold out that she might pick our room.  

Every summer Mom took us girls to Great America in St. Louis.  We would stay in a motel in the area and go to the amusement park during the day and stay until we were dizzy and exhausted.  Then we would go back to the hotel and swim and play in the pool.  Another summer we all took a vacation to Florida.  That was a wonderful experience for all of us.  Mom packed all of our camping gear and bags of food in the trunk and whatever didn’t fit in the trunk, went on the rack above the car.  I remember, along with apples and other packable foods, Mom packed a gazillion canisters of Pringles and pull-top cans of fruit cocktail and diced peaches.  She packed so much of it, we even came home with some.  I couldn’t eat Pringles for years after that.  We stopped at all the tourist traps along the way.  Yeah, we got suckered in.  We only ended up camping the first night, because the experience was not good.  Mom couldn't figure out how to pitch the brand new tent she bought for our trip.  It was about 10:00 at night, and we were all hot and tired.  Luckily a nice camper came over and put it up for us.   The next morning we took it down and never got it out again for the rest of the trip.  None of us cared for sleeping on the hard ground and Mom didn't like the fact that the bathroom was so far away.  That's what really saved us from having to camp again!  She decided we would stay in hotels for the rest of the trip.  We were on the move this whole vacation, driving from one beach to the next, down the gulf side and over to Disneyworld, then down to Miami Beach and part of the Keys.  Then on the way back, Mom drove straight through, all night long.

I look back on my childhood and have such fond memories of how we all got along.  How Mom loved us so much and wanted what was best for us.  I know there were problems with our relationship with our Dad after the divorce, but I will talk about how that all got resolved later.  This blog is about my mom, and my sisters, and I wanted to share some background information on where we came from as a family, and leading up to where we are now.  Please stay tuned…

Blog 1: The Beginning...

We were a family of five girls, with our lovely mom, who raised us after she and our dad divorced when I was eleven years old.  My sisters were nine, seven, five and two.  Our lives changed the day Dad moved out of the house.  I worried about my mom and how she was going to be able to take care of all of us by herself.  She didn’t have a job, and at my age, I knew we needed money to pay for our food and clothing and other things we would need in life. 

Mom used to tell me that we are going to be happier than we were before.  She said we will be a family of all women, who will stick together and do fun things, with no one telling us what we can and can’t do.  She tried to make it seem like a good thing, even though it was so very hard for me to accept the fact that dad was leaving us all alone.

I first learned of the divorce when we were riding home in a cab and mom told the cab driver she was getting divorced.  I was shocked because I had absolutely no idea.  I remember going into the house after hearing that awful news and I looked at Dad sitting on the couch, reading the newspaper.  He looked up at me, and I went upstairs to my room.  There was a lot of tension, but I don’t remember anything else about that day. 

Mom and Dad rarely fought in front of us.  There were a few times us girls had to sit on the porch while Mom and Dad talked.  But I didn’t think it was because they were fighting.  I didn’t find out until years later the reasons for the divorce.  Mom just always said Dad liked to bowl too much.  Mom was very protective of us and she wanted us to love our Dad, which we did.

Mom often struggled to get Dad to pay child support.  One winter day, my mom piled all of us girls in the car and we drove down to my Grandmother’s house (Dad’s mom) because Dad was there.  I was sitting in the back seat as I watched the whole thing unfold.  Mom got out of the car and Grandmother and Dad came out of the house.  They got into an argument and Mom was telling Dad she didn’t have enough money to even buy milk.  Dad and his mom were yelling at Mom and telling her to get in the car and leave.  They had their hands on her, pushing her towards the car, and Mom was bending over crying.  She had no choice but to get in the car because Dad and Grandmother kept yelling and pushing her away.  She got in the car and cried all the way home.  It was so sad, and I am brought to tears every time I recall this memory.  I am crying so hard now.  My sisters don’t remember this, but it is a memory I will never forget.

Mom eventually found work, and after a couple of years of working in various low paying jobs she finally landed a job at the hospital, doing respiratory therapy. I was so proud of her.  She seemed to really like her job and most of the people she worked with.  The problem is, she had to work double shifts many times and even a few triple shifts, just to make enough money to support our big family.  She sometimes worked the night shift and she would come home and tell us to keep our voices down so she can sleep, and then she would go to her room and shut the door.  It was hard for five girls to stay quiet for as long as we needed to for mom to get enough sleep.  She occasionally had to call out to us to be quiet!  I loved those days when mom worked a single shift during the day.  She was less tired and we got to spend more time with her. 

We lived in a modest two story home, about 1,300 square feet.  This is the home our parents bought together, only three years prior to their divorce.  Mom got to keep the house, but she had to pay the mortgage.  It seemed like such a huge house when I was little.  Our home had three bedrooms and only one bathroom.  One bathroom was no big deal because as far as I knew, everybody’s home had only one bathroom.  A few years later, as the older ones entered our teenage years, Mom put a bedroom and a half  bathroom in the basement. Even though it was nice for emergencies, nobody wanted to use that bathroom downstairs unless it was absolutely necessary.  It was in a dark corner of the basement.  Getting ready for school in the morning required using the bathroom upstairs because it had a bathtub and a big mirror.    

Mom was our rock.  She was the glue that kept our family together.  I can’t believe where our family is now.  The story continues…