mom!

mother's day is always a hard one for me. even though she's been gone for a long time, i miss her every. single. day. she was such an amazing women & i am happy to have had her for the short amount that i did.

one of my favorite memories of my mom was in the early 1980s. now, we lived in a well, no easy way to say it, a shanty style apartment. it wasn't fabulous but she made it home.  it was located at the end of the cemetery.  it was a muggy summer in rural pennsylvania & my mother lay in our "front yard", if you could call it that. really it was a small patch of grass next to the parked cars.  she was in her bikini on one of those little lounge chairs you buy for the beach. slathered in a mixture of baby oil & mecuricome. for those of you too young to remember, mecuricome was a dark red antiseptic that contained mercury. it came in a tiny bottle & you would dab it on cuts etc.  she would pour the whole bottle into the baby oil, shake it & apply liberally. she was aiming for the "cher" tan....

she loved to read & her summer "novel" was mommie dearest.  i brought her out an iced tea & sat with her for a few minutes and she turned to me & said "from now on i want you to call me mommie dearest"!  i laughed and told her she was cuckoo.  later that year i either read the book or saw the movie, i can't remember which, but i recall thinking, why in the everloving world would she want me to call her mommie dearest?  i never did figure it out.  

i love you mom.