Trying to keep it real...

So, I was re-reading my posts trying to gather some kind of inspiration around where to go next in my story and it hit me. I’ve painted quite the pretty picture of the perfect mother who got it all right with the short time she had. Well folks, my mother was many things – loyal, loving, honourable, fabulous…I could go on and on – but perfect was certainly not one of them.

My mother was your typical last minute Christmas shopper. She thrived on procrastination and accomplished much of her best work the last few hours before a deadline. She died right before Christmas and the hardest part of that first holiday morning without her came when we realized that for the first time, most of her shopping was done. She was ahead of the game. And it was awful and bittersweet sitting there crying and going through the Christmas morning motions. Opening presents that she had hand-picked for each of us. Opening presents that we had hand-picked for her. And while this probably can’t really be classified as something that makes her less perfect sounding, it sure felt dreadful.

One of my favourites (if you can classify a mother’s mistake as a favourite) was when I was a teenager. There was nothing mom liked better than to come home from work and have a slice of bread with peanut butter on it (sometimes she switched it up and had Cheese Whiz on it but usually it was good ole PB). This simple little slice was like her drug of choice, a pick-me-up that she needed after a hard days work before she had to put on her mom hat again and start supper and boy did she look forward to it. On this particular day, my brother and I decided to have this same treat as a snack after school. So we did. Except…we sort of finished the peanut butter and maybe we put the empty jar back in the cupboard…

Shockingly, this didn’t get a warm reception that day when my mom came home from work. There was lots of yelling, Mike and I started fighting while we denied the entire thing and then it happened. She didn’t just ground us – she kicked us out of the house. For eating the last of the peanut butter. Seriously! I was old enough to understand that she didn’t mean it but stubborn enough to try and make her suffer for it. I marched (or maybe stomped my feet up the stairs) to my room and started packing. I called my best friend and arranged to stay at her house for the night. I was all set. Then I noticed that my brother was sitting on the corner of my bed very close to tears wondering what we were going to do and while I was yelling at him that I was moving out and I didn’t care what he did, I changed my mind. I was the older one. It was my job to take care of him. So I sucked it up, marched back downstairs and asked my mom if we really had to move out. Of course the answer was no and we were all relieved and happy again.

There is one mistake she made that took a very long time to forgive her for. A mistake that we didn’t even realize she had made until about a year after she was gone and one we struggled to cope with for years afterwards.

This mistake was a secret that my mom kept for over 30 years…