I never glimpsed the inner core of my mom, and I don’t have her stories I can read in a book to celebrate her birthday today. I do have her poems, and I’ll make that into a book. But if I could have anything from Mom, it’d be her stories, the heart of her stories from her perspective.

Our relationship was rocky at best. I loved my mom, but I kept my distance because we were so much alike. I hated how sensitive she was and could feel peoples’ feelings. Yes, she was empathetic, and so am I. That means she took in peoples’ feelings and processed them and moved to such an extent that being this sensitive often incapacitated her. Today is her birthday, and she would have been 84. She died ten years ago before I ever started this company. I left Corporate America as well as professional therapy to do this work. Now I can appreciate the emotional upside down world of a writer. I have no doubt Mom would be happy for me, but damn, I’d like her stories. I never asked her what it was like growing up. I heard stories of course, but I never recorded them or got them in a book. A book I could read now because I’m missing her.

What are you going to do? Either one is proactive in these sorts of things, and you see the value in this, or you don’t.

The value beyond getting this keeper book is that it validates the person who is telling the story. Mom wanted to be a journalist, and so she went to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois to become one. But mind you, these were the 1950’s, and she dropped out of school as a junior to marry Dad.  Joyce went to work downtown as a secretary until she had children. Mom had a few miscarriages. The Dr. said she couldn’t have children, so my parents adopted my sister, Linda who has since passed away in January 2016. I came along naturally in 1958. Then a brother was born on my Dad’s birthday and died on my Grandmother’s birthday two 1/2 months later. My parents had two more sons, but they never recovered from Donnie’s death.

I grew up in a family where cigarette smoke was thick. Mom had a scotch every night and Dad had bourbon. Don’t know when one grew into 2 or more drinks, but it did. My parents divorced when I was a freshman in high school. Mom started drinking heavily, and I reminded her so much of Dad that we had many uncomfortable arguments. I went to college and became an Occupational Therapist and closed the door on my past.

Mom moved to Long Beach, Indiana because that’s where she had spent her childhood summers and she was delighted there. There were lots of good memories in Long Beach.

The death happened to Mom on my Uncle’s birthday – February 16, 2008. Joyce had made it through a horrible medical condition and was recovering in a rehab center near my brother’s home in Naperville, Illinois when she contracted Sepsis in that place.

Coincidentally Ame (my middle daughter), and I were scheduled to visit Mom, so we got into O’Hare about 8:00 PM. I remember Ame and I were eating food nearby the restaurant because we were hungry and my brother Curt calling us halfway through our meal asking where we were. He sounded frantic. I guess I would have been too, but I hadn’t quite accepted this was happening. I heard Curt say, “get your butt over here, Mom is dying.” So we did.

Because Mom was infectious, we put on gowns, booties, gloves, and masks and then the nurse slid open Mom’s death door. It was unreal as I faced the last time I would ever see my mom. I went to the left side of her (she was left-handed), and I held her hand. She could muster enough energy to open up her left eye and blink for a few minutes. She knew I was there. She knew Ame was there. I told her how much I loved and appreciated her. Ame did the same thing. The minutes seemed like an eternity. I could feel Mom’s soul leaving her, and it was a strange thing to handle. Curt and Helen came in about 2:00 AM to say their final good-byes. We had told ours, so Ame and I went back to Curt and Helen’s house to go to bed. We had just gotten in bed, and my forehead burst into the sight of a brilliant full moon and stars shimmering all around us. It was then that I told Ame, mom, had died and at the same time, the phone rang and it was Curt telling me Mom had died.

It seems like yesterday, and it’s been a decade already. I miss you, mom. I wish you a Happy Birthday, and I’m sorry I never took the time to listen and record your stories. I’ll love you forever.