Memories...
Tomorrow will be the 25th Anniversary of my Mom's death. She died of a blood clot in the lungs, a complication of end-stage breast cancer.
Susanne Sturges was born in Montclair, NJ, on 1 March 1923. She would be 84 years old this year, had alcoholism, depression, and cancer not taken her from us. Her mother, Regina, lived to be 97, so I have every expectation that mom would have lived long enough to see this new year.
Mostly, this week, I see her holding babies and her joy in them. She would sit with her arms resting on her thighs, holding the baby's feet against her stomach, cradling the little body in her arms, nearly face to face. They would talk, and smile, and coo at one another. She loved everyone's babies, not just her own. She once said she'd rather go through labor than go to the dentist. (Of course, she had all her children in the era of twilight sleep, meaning she didn't remember any of the real experience of childbirth. In these days when natural childbirth is more prevalent, I have no idea what her opinion on that statement would be. ;-) )
She was artistic, in the Grandma Moses style, doing most of her drawing and painting on ceramics, occasionally on paper. She loved history, literature, philosophy, religion, and I attribute the strength of love for knowledge in all her children to her insatiable curiosity and excitement about new things. She encouraged my writing, sewing, and would have been hip deep in the SCA (the Greensboro, NC group formed the year before her death).
She only met Jen, the first of her grandchildren, and was thrilled that she had lived long enough to see at least one. Jen played beside Mom's hospital bed on a rug I brought in, and during the last two weeks of Mom's life we spent time there every day, talking about everything, sometimes I was reading and she was talking to Jen or reading to her.
I get angry sometimes at my mother for dying before she could see my children, and her other grandchildren, grow up. She sabotaged her last course of chemo treatments by getting blind drunk the day or two after each treatment. I know she believed she would look down from Heaven and see what we were doing; I'm not sure my belief in that is as strong as hers.
She and my grandmother were totally at odds with one another and, at the same time, deeply fond of one another. I imagine Mom and I would have had a very similar relationship over the last 25 years.
I miss you, Mom. You would love my life and my work and my kids.
Susanne Sturges was born in Montclair, NJ, on 1 March 1923. She would be 84 years old this year, had alcoholism, depression, and cancer not taken her from us. Her mother, Regina, lived to be 97, so I have every expectation that mom would have lived long enough to see this new year.
Mostly, this week, I see her holding babies and her joy in them. She would sit with her arms resting on her thighs, holding the baby's feet against her stomach, cradling the little body in her arms, nearly face to face. They would talk, and smile, and coo at one another. She loved everyone's babies, not just her own. She once said she'd rather go through labor than go to the dentist. (Of course, she had all her children in the era of twilight sleep, meaning she didn't remember any of the real experience of childbirth. In these days when natural childbirth is more prevalent, I have no idea what her opinion on that statement would be. ;-) )
She was artistic, in the Grandma Moses style, doing most of her drawing and painting on ceramics, occasionally on paper. She loved history, literature, philosophy, religion, and I attribute the strength of love for knowledge in all her children to her insatiable curiosity and excitement about new things. She encouraged my writing, sewing, and would have been hip deep in the SCA (the Greensboro, NC group formed the year before her death).
She only met Jen, the first of her grandchildren, and was thrilled that she had lived long enough to see at least one. Jen played beside Mom's hospital bed on a rug I brought in, and during the last two weeks of Mom's life we spent time there every day, talking about everything, sometimes I was reading and she was talking to Jen or reading to her.
I get angry sometimes at my mother for dying before she could see my children, and her other grandchildren, grow up. She sabotaged her last course of chemo treatments by getting blind drunk the day or two after each treatment. I know she believed she would look down from Heaven and see what we were doing; I'm not sure my belief in that is as strong as hers.
She and my grandmother were totally at odds with one another and, at the same time, deeply fond of one another. I imagine Mom and I would have had a very similar relationship over the last 25 years.
I miss you, Mom. You would love my life and my work and my kids.