On time, love, regret, and the quiet wisdom that comes with letting go

My mom turned eighty this month, and she agreed to sit and talk with me, much like we do every day. I asked her questions, and some of her answers surprised me. Other answers I expected, and a few made her cry.

When I asked her what surprised her most about being eighty, she didn’t hesitate.

“I’m still alive.”

She laughed a little when she said it, but she meant it. She never thought that she would last this long. And now…she told me that time feels shorter like the end is coming closer.

Childhood Without Softness

I asked my mom about her earliest memory, and her answer shocked me. “Monkeys,” she said.

Her dad had monkeys, and one of them had reached through a fence to her. At four years old, she only wanted to hold its hand. Instead, the monkey grabbed her hand and bit her. In retaliation, her father smacked the monkey. She remembers vividly that the monkey died from the blow.

That stark first memory illustrates a childhood marked by poverty, abandonment, and very little comfort. Over the years, she’s told us stories of her father disappearing one day when she was eight years old. The only things he’d left behind were some wrapped Christmas presents in an unused bathtub and a homemaker wife who had never worked before.

My mom said her childhood home was chaotic. Five kids in a tiny house. After her father disappeared, her mom did odd jobs to support the family, including ironing for other families, baking cakes, or cleaning. Money was scarce, and Christmas a sad affair with a single present from the church marked “boy” or “girl.”

I asked who made her feel safest when she was young. The answer?

“Nobody.”

Not her parents or siblings or friends. No one made her feel safe throughout her childhood. She mentioned her grandfather used to give her candy when she was very little, but even that felt distant, more like a snapshot than a place to shelter.

Still, she did have some good memories. She loved skating, riding bikes, and playing in the cabbage patch across the street from her house. Later, when workers came to clear the cabbage patch to build homes, they would leave behind Coke bottlers. She and her siblings would collect the bottles for two cents each and use the money for candy or Kool-Aid.

Like other girls her age, my mom always wanted to be a homemaker. A wife and mother. That was expected in the fifties, she said, and girls didn’t spend much time imagining adulthood like they do today. It wasn’t something you planned for, but where you were ultimately going to arrive.

Work, Love, and the Weight of Responsibility

Motherhood, for her, was about protection. Her mother didn’t have a solid vocation, and the constant financial insecurity wasn’t something she wanted for her own children.

Pregnant at 17, she ran away from home with her first boyfriend, hiding until the baby was born so that nobody could take it from her. She lied about her age and worked as a change girl in Las Vegas, until the weight of the coins about her hips endangered her pregnancy.

Her first husband could be violent.

That was the beginning of her working constantly. She wanted to give her children everything they needed and wanted so they would be happy and safe. But like every parent knows who has tried to correct the mistakes from their childhood, this created new problems.

“I worked too much,” she said. “And I forgot about the love and the time.”

She cried when she admitted this, along with her next confession.

When I asked when she felt most confident about herself, she paused a moment.

“After I divorced my last husband,” she said. “I didn’t need men anymore.”

She said this with some bitterness. My mom had married and divorced five times, perhaps seeking the love she missed out on in her childhood. After her fifth divorce, she no longer sought love from men but focused on living a peaceful life. She wished she had come to the realization sooner that she didn’t need a man to be complete.

Later, when I asked what she regretted most in life, though, it wasn’t the five marriages. She circled back to working too much. She had wanted her children to have more than she did and had believed work was the way to make that happen.

Now, she wishes she had been more present for her kids.

Loss, Grief, and God

Some losses stayed with her more than others. She had lost two brothers, her parents, and her oldest son.

One loss that has stayed close to her heart remains her best friend, Susie. They had made amends before Susie passed away, but years had passed where they hadn’t been as close.

“I wish I could have been closer to her in the end,” she said, crying.

When I asked what she had learned about grief, she said, “Nothing.”

It wasn’t defiance. It was honesty.

Her faith changed over the years, too. She told me she was angry at God for a long time after my brother Kenny died. Eventually, she said, she came to believe it was God’s will to take him home. Not because the loss made sense, but because she felt God’s presence in the decisions that were made at the time.

Her perception of faith hasn’t changed through the decades. She said it mostly looks the same to her. No dramatic revelations. Just endurance and working hard.

What motherhood taught her about love, though, was clear.

“It’s unconditional,” she said. “And you never stop loving your kids, even when they make mistakes or you do as a mother.”

What Matters Now

These days what matters more than she expected is time.

“Time with family,” she said. “Over money. Over work.”

An ordinary day now, she said, looks like taking lots of naps and playing with her grandson. Peace looks like sitting on the patio watching her chickens or seeing her hummingbirds come and go.

She hopes her children and grandchildren will be okay after she’s gone. She wants them to get along and remember that she loved them.

She hopes they remember that she was kind. That she cared. And that she did the best she could.

Preparing to Leave Without Leaving a Burden

My mom’s dark sense of humor showed up when she talked about leaving. She has already bought her burial plot, a casket just like her mom’s, and a blank headstone for her kids to fill in.

She grinned with pride when she admitted that she’d even bought the pajamas she wants to be buried in.

Burying her mother was such a painful experience that she didn’t want us to have to make those same decisions while grieving. She remembered how awful it was to walk through rooms of caskets, worrying about the cost of the funeral while mourning her mother.

This is how my mother’s love has always shown up in my life. Practical. Unsentimental. Protective, though, I haven’t always realized it until later.

A Fixed Memory

After we finished talking, I had my own sense of regret. I regret the years I hadn’t been close to my mom, and the missed opportunities to hear more of her stories. But I’m also relieved that we’ve had the last several years to reconcile and grow closer. I think I’m a better mother for it.

My mom has worked hard all her life, and she has loved fiercely. She wishes she had worried less about bills and spent more time at home. She found peace late in her life, and she is still reveling in it.

This is how I want to remember her many, many years from now. Sitting on the patio with her dog, Brownie, on one side and a cup of coffee on the other, a cloud of cigarette smoke encircling her. Staring off into the background and laughing at the chickens or staying completely still so as not to scare away the hummingbirds visiting her feeders.

Content and at peace.