It will have been five years ago on the 18th of this month that my Mom passed. She lived a long life having been born in 1929. I always knew about the stock market crashing, although I didn’t always understand what that meant, because Mom always said the market crashed the year she was born. She was one of ten children but I only knew a few of her siblings. Her oldest sister gave birth the same day my mother was born! Yes, my grandmother became a grandmother and a mother on the same day!

It’s a funny thing , the lives of your parents. You are there for a good portion of that but most of us know so little about them. When we grow up, get older, start having independent lives of our own, we begin to speculate about all of that. As children we may have asked questions but, at least in my experience, always received a sanitized version of events. I was raised in a time when children were not exposed to adult themes, not subjected to the traumas of grownups. Occasionally I would hear a rumor, or some gossip concerning my parents, what my mother may, or may not have done.

It’s a strange thing when you realize your Mom was just a regular person like everyone else. Oh, we hear the stories, the tales they told about growing up. But in the case of my mother those stories were few and far between. I never realized how little I knew about her until she was gone. My mother wasn’t one to share a lot of that, she kept her secrets! I think it was her defense system, she didn’t allow herself to visit that past very often. She was the youngest of ten, I suspect that played into that.

Over her lifetime she lost four husbands. The first one she divorced. I never heard much about that growing up, never really thought about it much to be honest about that. My brothers had a different last name and that never bothered me at all. She was married to my father for 38 years, he passed away in 1990. She would meet and marry two others, all would pass before her. She spent her last years living with my brother in Georgia.

Now, looking back and remembering all the years, I knew her for 68 years, longer than any of her husbands, I realize I know so little about her, as a person. She was and is, Mom. I do think that is at it should be. Children should never know the intimate details of their parents lives. Parents should be like heroes, people to look up to, to admire and attempt to emulate. Yes, we all know our parents aren’t perfect, aren’t really heroes, but they are our parents. Moms’ especially should enjoy that status. Moms’ display quiet strength and resolve. They teach empathy, compassion and understanding. They teach love.

That’s me at seven. My sister Millie, brother Harold, Mom and brother Dan. Only myself and brother Dan remain. The love remains too.