Momma Stories

Mary Alice wanted us to blog stories/advice from our mothers in honor of Mother's Day. So, in honor of my mother, I'll leave you with some memorable stories of my mom, Karen Lou.

Story #1 - Oh What a Beautiful Morning!
Mom was a morning person, while the rest of us, my dad included were all late risers. Mom was somewhat envious of the rest of us being able to sleep past the butt crack of dawn 6 a.m. She would wait until she thought it was a reasonable time to start waking us up and would burst into our rooms singing, "Oh what a beautiful morning," or "Let the sunshine in, face it with a grin," as she yanked gently pulled open our curtains.

Some mornings when I think she was truly fed up by our lazy ways, she would come into the room and say, "When you're dead, you can sleep for eternity." When I bring this up to my mom now, she laughs. She has told me that she is sorry that she was so morbid at times.

Story #2 - Getting the Milk for Free
I lived in sin prior to marrying my husband. Ours was a very quick courtship, engaged after four months and married a year after meeting each other. Looking back, I'm quite sure my parents were worried about my rash decision. However, I have never doubted for a moment that I was meant to be with my husband.

My husband lived in a studio apartment when I was dating him. I was also living in a studio, but spent very little time in my own place. My rent, car payment and car insurance took up a lot of my paycheck. I was already engaged to my husband when he asked me to move in with him.

When I called home to tell my mom the news, she was not pleased. That's when she uttered that famous old cliche about milk and cows. We ended up getting into a huge argument and a few months later, husband and I eloped.

Years later, the joke in my family is that if I ever left my husband, my parents would divorce me. As a parent myself I can understand and empathize with their concern.

Story #3 - Dad is coming home
I am a Navy brat. When I was born, my dad was out to sea. For much of my childhood, dad was gone out on a ship, on 9 to 10 month tours of duty. This effectively meant that my mom was a single parent to four children, one of which was a special needs child.

My parents faced many obstacles when they were growing up. Family was everything to them, even though growing up, they didn't have the best role models. My mom had a picture in her head of what a perfect family should look like, thus she often stressed about things that she now realizes in the grand scheme of things, really aren't that important.

Prior to my dad returning home, my mom would spend that last month preparing our home for his arrival. This meant a lot of deep cleaning and for us kids, it meant seeing our normally loving mom become almost unrecognizable. Again looking back, my mom wanted everything to be perfect for her husband and it was also a way for her to keep busy so that those last 30 days would go by a bit faster. (We would count the days on the calendar by saying 20 days and a wake-up, 10 days and a wake-up.)

On one of my dad's last tours of duty, the night before he was to get home, the house was perfection personified. As we got ready for bed, my mom came into our rooms and informed us that we would not be sleeping inside the bed, rather we would be sleeping on top of them. She didn't want the beds ruined prior to my dad getting home.

When I've talked to my mom about this now, she has told me that she realizes how silly it all was. Afterall, the last thing on my dad's mind after being gone from his wife for 9 or 10 months, was unkempt beds.

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My mom and I are very close. She was very young when she got married and readily admits to making a lot of mistakes along the way. However, I have never doubted for a moment that she always tried to do what was best for us and that she has always loved us with all her heart.