Birthdays you don't forget

Today would have been my mother's 97th birthday. That is - if she was still alive, she'd be turning 97 today. But that wasn't meant to happen. My mom died in September of 1980 just two weeks before her 66th birthday. That was 31 years ago this month.

My mom may not have been the perfect mother. As a youngster she told me how when she was pregnant with me it sure messed up her body. I think she may have been at least partially agoraphobic - anytime she left the house for an extended time she would get sick - light headed - as she called it, and she'd have to sit down or rest a while before going on, or going back to the house. So when I was still very young, 4 or 5, she avoided going just about any place.

She was part of the Wednesday quilt group at Shaw Avenue Methodist Church. She took me along up until I started kindergarten. But every Wednesday on the walk to the church, we'd have to sit down on someone's front steps every 3 or 4 blocks because she got light headed. Once at the church, she was fine with the other ladies. But the return walk home was the same as going - stopping every 3 or 4 blocks.

When I was 4, she took me to a matinee of the Ice Capades at the Arena. We'd have to rest on the walk to the bus stop, but we took a city bus up Southwest Boulevard to Hampton, and then Hampton to Oakland and a short walk to the Arena. The Ice Capades was fun. She even let me buy a color Ice Capades program book. But the trip home took a long time and she was light headed on the bus when we got off at Southwest Boulevard and Kingshighway. I ended up forgetting that Ice Capades program book on the bus - something I didn't realize until we got home.

Mom really didn't like to go anywhere - so she mostly stayed at home all day drinking Pepsi and watching soap operas on CBS until late afternoon. Guiding Light, Search for Tomorrow, As the World Turns, The Edge of Night. They were part of her day every day Monday through Friday. Although as she got older she'd doze off and on while the soaps were on.

The summer I turned 5, she was hit on the back of head by a fly ball from another field at one of my older brother's ballgames. She had her first epileptic seizure a few years later. It was a Monday night, Run For Your Life with Ben Gazarra was on TV, and dad was at his carpenters' union meeting. Her having that seizure scared me to death. So I just left her alone on the couch - dad got home about 20 minutes later and called our family doctor. It was 1965 and doctors still made house calls back then.

She was hospitalized to get her seizures under control. But was never quite the same after that summer. She stayed at home more often and dozed on the couch off and on all day.

But I think she tried to be a good mom. As good as a mom could be, I guess, when I came along as a "surprise" when she was 42 in 1956.

She broke her hip at church when going for the Wednesday quilt group -  that was while I was still in grade school. She had a key to the church and was usually the first to arrive. They found her laying at the bottom of a short staircase when the rest of the ladies arrived.

Mentally, she never was the same after breaking her hip. And she'd break it again while I was in high school.
Recovery took a long time - many months - and after a short stay in the hospital, she was in a nursing home for about 6 months. She had difficulty getting around and wouldn't call a nurse when she needed to go to the bathroom. They'f find her soiled and then have to clean her up. By that point she also didn't talk much.

But she did recover well enough to return home, and after I went away to college in 1976, her and dad retired down to Table Rock Lake at Lampe, Missouri. She broke her hip again in 1980 and never left the hospital that summer. She passed away September 12, 1980 at the age of 65.

It looked something like this.

That was the year I bought the first vehicle I had ever custom ordered - a two tone red 1981 F-150 extended cab Ford pickup from Carroll Motors in Mexico. That truck had a base price of around $5000, but by the time I added everything I thought I needed, it ended up costing over $8000. I received the truck just a few days before mom died. My uncles gave me a hard time at mom's funeral for having a shiny new red pickup.

She may not have been the perfect mother - but she was the only mom I ever knew. And she would have turned 97 today. Happy birthday, mom.

So it goes.