Great Women In My Life Part Two

I can see her now. It's nineteen seventy and she's quickly getting out of her mint green Volkswagen bug. Frequently she would be hollering at us kids. She had spirit and lots of it. She is my Mom. Katreen or better known by all as simply Kay.

She died last June after an extended illness. She was from the mountains of North Carolina. Appalachia. Her father died when she was a toddler. The family lived on the food they grew in their garden or they did not eat. Her mother died on my Mom's fourteenth birthday. Then she came to live with my Aunt Vera and Uncle Lester. Mountain people are fiercely loyal and stubborn. They hold grudges and never forget anything. They are excellent country cooks. Mother held true to all of that. She blew into a room like a mountain breeze.

She made some bad decisions. Decisions I know she regretted. She did not regret having her children. She loved all of us desperately. She loved the children she adopted as her own and treated them no differently. When her son, my only brother, was killed by a drunk driver at age forty-two it nearly destroyed her. She was not the same after his death. Dear Lord who would be?

We had our differences. I joked that she had a tenth degree black belt in passive aggressiveness. Truly she had mastered this skill. Especially after she became ill. I suppose it was her way of getting things done. Some how she managed to know what was happening even from her sickbed. I never doubted her intelligence.

When I work in my flower garden I think of Mama. She could grow anything anywhere. She always had a garden. She would enjoy my salvia, roses, and succulents. I believe I inherited my love and need for digging in the earth from her. Our relationship was complex and became more so in the last few years. That does not diminish the love I have for my Mama. This would be the first Mother's Day without her. Last Mother's Day was the final visit I had with her. I miss her. Now everyone go hug your mother!



grace surrounds us

Olive Out