Mom.

Some of you only read this blog because you know Taylor, some of you read this blog cause you want to hear about our adventures in England, and some of you read this blog cause you know both of us but you haven't known me very long. Whatever the case, a thing about me is that September 19th is a significant day for me.

September 19th, 2003 is the exact date that my mom died in a car accident.

For those of you who don't like math, that's 8 years. For 8 years now, I have been dealing with something I thought I wouldn't have to deal with until I was really old. But, such is life. I'm not perfect, but I never turned to a life of crime or drugs to deal with the loss of my mother, so I think I did okay. I'm not crazy, and not always bitter. I don't even pity myself really. I know there are people with worse problems, and I also know that I am not the only person who's mom has died earlier than they would have liked.

Every year, until actually, this year, I have dreaded September, and particularly this day. But this year has been different. I have finally been able to accept that September is not bad luck, and September did not kill my mom. It's just a month, and even though it forces me to remember something painful, SO WHAT. It happened. I can't change it and I am tired of trudging though September crying and wishing it was over. So, I've decided that I am not going to anymore. I am choosing to be happy. And this year, instead of sadness, we are going to do happiness. We are going to be happy that we got to know her at all. So, I wrote an "essay" about my mom so that those who didn't know her, can get a little taste of what they missed, and those who did, can remember things about her and be happy:

I’ve often found that when a person dies, people feel the need to talk about what a great person they were, and focus only on the positive. Because, after all, death always makes people have brief revelations about what is really important in life. While I think this is all fine and dandy and good and great, I’ve noticed that sometimes, a certain dead person’s greatness is exaggerated. Someone who never laughed at anything suddenly had a great sense of humor or the guy who only cared about money and working died and became the kind of guy who knew what was really important and had his priorities in order.





I know, people start to cringe when I talk about death and dead people like it’s no big deal. But, I swear I have a point. That point being, my mom is exempt from all of these cliches about dead people. I am not saying this because I am bias, but my mom, was truly a bad ass. Pardon my French, but out of all adjectives in the English language, that just seems like the most reasonable and fitting way to describe her.

My mom could make anything, out of anything. You could give her a pile of wire hangers, and in three days she would have constructed a bed frame. Once, in 7th grade, the night before Halloween, I told her I didn’t know what I wanted to be, but I knew I wanted it to involve *Nsync. So, she took an old pair of jeans and an old white T-shirt and went to work. When I woke up in the morning she had transformed my old clothes into a glittery, barf-inducing, tribute to *Nsync, complete with glitter, jewels, pictures, and fabric paint. So, off to school I went as an “*Nsync Freak” to damage my fragile middle school reputation forever. I like to imagine that if she were still alive today, many of my Halloween costumes as an adult would include paper maché models of over sized genitals.

I don’t like to condone violence, but sometimes I have fantasies about fighting people. I attribute this to some of the stories my mom told me about getting revenge on girls who suck. Once, she told me a story of a girl who had somehow wronged her (the details have slipped my mind) at a house party in the mid to late eighties. So, very calmly, my mother went upstairs filled a giant bowl up with ice and water, carried it back downstairs, walked up behind the unsuspecting woman, and dumped the the contents on the bowl of woman’s very teased hair.
Another time, she was at a party with some friends and my aunt, Holly. Again, the details have slipped my mind, but for some reason another girl decided to jump my mom, who was unsuspecting. She attacked my mom, and after everyone pulled her off, my mom was fired up, she was ready to fight back, but everyone made her leave the party, before things escalated. They drove off and stopped at local gas station. My mom’s adrenaline was still pumping, and  as they filled up, low and behold, the attacker girl from the party pulled up (not knowing they were there). Before anyone could stop her, my mom got out of the car and went and beat the living crap out of this girl in the gas station parking lot. When she felt she was finshed she hopped in the car and they sped away. I love stories of justice, they get me pumped, and so ever since I heard this story, I wanted to fight someone myself. Preferably the woman from the gas station.

I don’t want to paint the image of my mother’s memory as purely vengeful and violent though. More people loved (and still love) her than didn’t. She was beautiful without trying, funny without trying, witty, and easy going. It wasn’t hard to imagine that she induced feeling of jealousy from other women, and even some insecure guys. She worked hard to take care of us, it wasn’t uncommon for her to have two jobs to keep us afloat. She had a night job cleaning the doctor’s clinics around the county. Sometimes, she would let me go with her and I bring my rollerskates and I would skate up and down the halls while she blasted her Greatest Hits: QUEEN ablum over the loud speaker. One time, while she was by herself, she decided that she should try the old, “sit on the copier and scan my butt cheeks” trick. So she hoisted herself onto the copier and pushed the button, and to her horror the glass suddenly cracked and she ended up cutting her one of her butt cheeks. I crossed this task off my bucket list so as not to follow in her footsteps. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE WORRIED, she did confess to the doctor that she broke his copier, she just did not say “how”.





Sometimes, naturally, my mom totally embarrassed me. One day in particular, I was walking to meet her at work after school in 6th grade. Normally I took the bus home, so this was not my regular routine. As I was walking there were some boys from school following me. throughout my school years, I was fortunate enough to deal with minimal bullying but for whatever reason these boys were throwing rocks at me (SO CLICHE). They weren’t necessarily trying to hit me with rocks but more just trying to tease me. One of the rocks ended up hitting me right in the forehead. It hurt SO bad. But I didn’t want them to see me cry so I think I turned and yelled something obscene at them and they stopped as I turned the corner. When I finally met my mom at the post office, I was crying and had a giant bump where the rock hit me. After she was able to calm me down, she made me tell her what happened. SHE WAS FURIOUS! “NO ONE IS GOING TO HURT MY DAUGHTER AND GET AWAY WITH IT!” I did not want to disclose names because I feared for their safety. But she finally got me to give her one name, and show her where he lived. I begged her not to do anything, but she assured me that she was just going to talk to his mom and make him apologize. When we pulled up to his house I was sick to my stomach, this was too much humiliation for one day. She let me stay in the car as she walked up the front door. To my relief, no one answered. When she got back in the car, she didn’t immediately drive away. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Let’s go mom...” I said. “I’m gonna leave his mom a note. That little dickhead is not going to get away with this..” As she wrote the note, I knew I was going to get crap for it at school.  But I also knew there was no stopping her, they had thrown rocks at the wrong woman’s daughter and there’s was nothing that could be done to save them now. I don’t remember exactly what the note said, but the next day at school the boys made fun of me and my “goose egg” as my mom called it in the note. However, I did find out that the one boys mom called the other boys moms and they all got grounded. And they all ended up apologizing without prompting my from their mother. Even though it was briefly humiliating, they never bothered me again.

I think most people who loved my mom have FUN memories with her. Most of the stories people tell me are about how much fun they had with her. This was not any different for me. Besides when she would make me do the dishes, or when I was being a brat and getting grounded (give me a break, I was going through puberty.) One memory in particular was when we were alone for the weekend. It was a rainy Saturday morning and I was about 8. My mom put on some music and I started helping her clean the house a little bit. It wasn’t long before Depeche Mode started playing and mom rushed to pause it. “WAIT! Come with me.” She said. I was confused but I followed her to her room where she put a flannel shirt on over her shirt and handed me one to do the same. I asked her what we were doing but she just said “You’ll see”  we walked back into the kitchen where she showed me some dance moves and then pressed play. We danced like idiots in the kitchen to Depeche Mode in flannel shirts for about 30 minutes. And so that’s what I think of when ever I hear this song:




Unfortunately, I only got to have my mom around for 15 years of my life. But I am so grateful for the time I did get with her, and I am so grateful that she is the kind of person that everyone loved. She is the kind of person that no one just forgot about. I am so proud to have her DNA, and I take my job of carrying out her legacy very seriously.