My Mother

My mother died twenty three years ago. I am older now than she was when she died, yet I have been dreaming about her every night lately.


I loved my mother. She was there for me in every way she knew how to be, but I was that child she never knew quite what to do with. Of course I am the oldest child, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I always wanted desperately to be good, to be “perfect,” but my body and soul just have a disposition all their own. Sometimes even I was appalled at the things I said to her. I seemed to be able control myself at school and other places but Mom seemed to bring out that defiant side I couldn’t control. And believe me, there were often instantaneous and painful consequences.

Still, I dream of her now. I guess I will never out grow the need for her love. There was always comfort in the knowledge that she was there for me. Coupled along with the truth that as soon as she came to help all hell would break loose, because we thought and functioned like two people who grew up in opposite alien worlds.

When I was interviewed last month, it was pointed out to me that maybe my mother taught me all those things I didn’t want to be. That sounds very negative, but it really isn’t, because I know it is true in so many ways. I was just born with a different philosophy on life than my mother. The fact that she could be there for me might have taught me a tolerance I would not have had otherwise.

Ours was a strange, often painful, tug of war, but the strangest thing of all is how much we loved each other and I miss her.