SOLSC15 Day 2: Mom

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Recently, I auditioned for a show, Listen to Your Mother, in Portland.  Tough competition. Of the thirty plus who tried out, only ten were selected.  That’s okay. (will write more about the audition sometime this month). It was a great experience because it started me thinking about writing more about my mom.  So this month Mondays are “Mom Mondays.”

I love this photo of Mom and I.  I am probably about two or three. Love that we are both wearing blue.
There’s a lot I don’t know about Mom.  Growing up, Dad’s life was an open book.  He loved to regale story after story about his youth.  Not mom.  Here’s what I feel like I know about her youth:

In high school, a very young Frank Sinatra gave an assembly for the students.  She and her friends laughed hysterically at the young skinny singer.

She led a boycott about baseball in high school as well. After her father told her not to do such a thing.  And she and her sister ended up in a photo on the front pages of the newspaper.

She and her sister liked to throw snowballs at people from their bedroom window. On night the person they hit was their father.

She was called by her brothers, “Junebug.” (being born in June and named June).

She was engaged to someone who died in battle during WWII.  And according to Dad, he was her second choice.

Mom worked hard.  Dad always said that for her, the patients came first (she was a nurse), the family second and herself third.  The one little treat she afforded herself was weekly visits to the hair salon.

Since Mom worked nights (parents did that so that childcare would be covered), I grew up closer to Dad.  It wasn’t until my divorce to my first husband that I felt a strong bond with Mom.

I think a qualification for becoming a nurse is that one must possess a wicked sense of humor.  Mom had this.  Her’s included gallows humor.  I am thankful to have this trait.

She loved planning surprises.  Once she showed up at her brother’s family reunion as a surprise.

She’s been gone sixteen years.  I can’t believe it’s been that long.  I miss her so much.   I wonder as I watch friends and their eighty something parents, what she would have been like at age 88.

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