Dear Mom,

This is a revision of an earlier blog I had written about my Mother that I wanted to do for Mother’s Day.

 

Dear Mom,

 

You know all those times when you thought I wasn’t listening to you?

 

Well, I was Mom and besides listening I was paying attention. I was paying attention to everything you did and everything you said. More importantly, what I was really paying attention to was watching a young woman raise two boys and give them a chance to make something out of their lives.

 

What I remember most about you Mom was when my brother and I were young and growing up in Oglesby, Illinois was how you devoted yourself to raising us and providing us with a good home. I know that it wasn’t always easy for you having to work two jobs—Spiller & Spiller during the day and bartending at the Holiday Inn at night—but you did. You had to do what you could on a fixed income and limited child support to give us a good life.

 

After you and my father got divorced and stayed with your parents for awhile it must have been really hard for you. As much as your father and our grandfather didn’t mind you staying there until you could get back on your feet (grandpa always did have a soft spot for you—his baby girl) I suppose you were kind of pressured into moving out on your own.

 

For the record Mom, I never blamed you or my father for getting divorced. Although we never talked about it, you did what you thought was best. I am just so sorry things did not work out better for you. It’s no wonder that one of the things you have always hoped and prayed for me was to find the right woman to marry and settle down with.

 

You made a lot of sacrifices and it certainly wasn’t easy being a single parent in a conservative Midwest town. Back then if you were a single parent or the child/children of a single parent life was a little harsh. Not that you were shunned or ostracized, but in a small town people do talk and rumors and gossip tended to cloud the truth more often than not. Sure I knew some kids at school who only had one parent and some of them had it a lot worse off than my brother and I.

 

A lot had to do with you were Mom and how you made sure to instill many good values in us. I will forever be in your debt for the way you brought my brother and I up and for what you taught us.

 

And you thought I wasn’t listening all those times, Mom.

 

There’s a lot that I don’t know about those tough years after we moved to Oglesby, but what I do know, and what I will never forget is that you were (and still are) a very proud woman and I know it must have been very tough for you to have to work at a factory like Spiller & Spiller.

 

Remember the time my brother and I came to see you at work? I think it was around Christmas in 1970 or 1972. That was quite the journey for us—taking the bus from Oglesby to LaSalle and then walking down Brunner Street to the factory.

 

I remember how shocked I was to see how dirty, drafty, cold, and noisy it was inside and what you had to endure every day you went to work.

 

No wonder you always cared so much about a clean house after seeing the filth and grease you had to work in every day—standing all day in front of that noisy machine—bending tubes of steel into legs for kitchen tables and chairs. No mother should ever have to endure such hardships, but you, like many other single moms had to do to pay the bills and put food on the table.

 

In the morning, you would sit at the kitchen table drinking Coca Cola and smoking Parliaments. From the living room—where my brother and I slept—I could make out your silhouette as you sat there at the kitchen table waiting for your ride to work.

 

What were you thinking all those mornings Mom? Were you thinking about the dreams you had? Were you thinking about why life had turned sour for you?

 

I am sorry Mom that you had to make all those sacrifices.

 

Later, when my brother and I got up, there would be a note on the table with the chores we had to do as well as some milk money. In the refrigerator would be our sack lunches. Tuna or Ham sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper.

 

You always signed the note “Loves Ya.”

 

Our three-room, sixty dollars a month rent house was not much, but you made it our home. I remember very hot and humid summers and very cold winters. There was just one heater in the living room. In the winter, when it got really cold, frost would form on the walls and on the inside of the windows.

 

We didn’t have a car and had to depend on friends and family to help out when we needed to go somewhere. We did have an old Dodge, but one day it stopped running and you couldn’t afford to get it fixed. We used it to store empty soda bottles that one day we took to Lou’s Supermarket to redeem. We would be without a car for almost six years.

 

One thing you weren’t without were some good friends who looked out for you.

 

One summer afternoon one of your friends from work, Esther had stopped over with a six-pack of Old Milwaukee. Esther was a rough woman. Had lived a hard life. She was like a lot of the women you worked with at Spiller & Spiller. No wonder you hated it so much. It wasn’t the life you had envisioned and definitely not the one you had bargained for when you got divorced.

 

Esther had a loud, gruff voice that carried through our neighborhood. It was mostly an Italian neighborhood, as close as one could get to a true ethnic neighborhood in such a small town, but when Esther spoke I could imagine the whole neighborhood hearing her.

 

Esther, who often gave you a ride into work every morning, had a reputation for being a loud talker and a heavy drinker, but she had a good heart and would go out of her way to help a friend in need.

 

You had once told me that Esther’s mother had died when she was younger.

 

“You know kid,” said Esther as she leaned forward—close enough for me to smell the grease she could not wash off her body and out of her clothes, as well as stale cigarette smoke and beer—and popped open another can of Old Milwaukee, “you only have one mom in this world. Don’t you ever forget that.”

 

I never did Esther.

 

Many times when you came home from work (before you started bartending) you were so tired that you went right to bed after dinner. Sometimes you were so tired (and the money a little tight for that week) that you would put in a few “frozen pot pies” in the oven for us.

 

Mom, right now I would give anything to have one of those “pot pies” with you and tall glass of milk.

 

We never complained. Of course my brother and I were too young to understand everything but not once did we complain (at least I don’t remember us complaining).

 

No matter how hard life was for us at times, you always found a way to take away some of that harshness. Two-three times a month, on Saturday you would order some fried chicken from Mel Rose Tap, this tavern just down the alley from where we lived. To this day, whenever I smell chicken being fried up I think back to all those times when you would send me over to Mel Rose Tap to pick up our three orders of chicken.

 

I know it must have hurt you a lot that she could not do more for my brother and I when we were younger. Nonetheless, we had a good home. You were a proud woman, and immaculate dresser and you always kept a clean house. You might have had to work in oil and grease all day but when you came home, your house was going to be clean.

 

Of course, when you have two boys it was a little hard for us to keep the house clean and we were always being scolded for getting dirty. Maybe we might have thought that you were just being a little too strict, but you took pride in a clean house, something that is just as important to you now as it was back then.

 

Even when you are not feeling well and should be more concerned about getting your health back, you still worry about the housework. Maybe that’s a good sign that you are getting better when you can still worry about getting the vacuuming done.

 

Although life was not easy, you did what she could to give my brother and I good home and a chance for us to have a good life. I know it often depressed you a lot that you had to endure many hardships but Mom, you never gave up. That is one of the very important life lessons I learned from you—never to give up no matter how bleak or how bad things get because there is always the chance to turn everything around.

 

And now, that you are battling cancer a second time in your life—this time lung cancer—I am praying that the same wisdom and faith you instilled in me when I was growing up will help you get through these difficult times.

 

We have had our differences over the years since I moved away and in all the years that I have lived away from home but I have never forgotten what you sacrificed and what you endured to give my brother and I the chance for a good life. There have been many times when I probably let you down or disappointed you because I had chosen the path I am on now, but I have never forgotten all those valuable life lessons you taught me.

 

Everything that I am, I owe to you Mom, or to quote Abraham Lincoln, “All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother.” You have always been “Angel” to me Mom; You have always been my “angel mother.”

 

I am sorry that we won’t be together again this Mother’s Day but you are always with me Mom.

 

You are always with me in my heart.

 

God Bless You Mom and watch over you.

 

Love,

 

Your Son,

 

Jeffrey