Things I Miss About My Mom

Have You Ever Heard of Fat Coyotes?

You know your mom is a little bit wacky when she responds to being called a crazy cat lady with, “I’m not crazy. I’m eccentric.” You say tomato, I say tomahto…

Like all mothers and daughters, we had our moments. Moments of head butting, prickliness and downright disagreeing. There were things she did that drove me crazy, and I know she’d say the same about me. (Although I don’t believe you can drive someone eccentric, so I rest my case about the crazy cat lady moniker). But she was mine and I was hers and damn I miss her.

I miss her voice with her subtle N’awlins drawl and the way she’d greet me with “Hi babe” every time we talked. Which was every day.

I miss her clapping and singing her made up “Night Night” song when it was time for her cats to leave her bedroom so she could go to sleep.

I miss the way she would drop her voice an octave and speak under her breath when she was gossiping about someone. Or giving her unsolicited opinions about what she found tacky or trashy or not up to par. Which was kinda a lot. Although I tried to squash these tendencies of hers, she would not be tamed. When my kids were little, she would drive them places if I had an appointment or work. Once when dropping them at a friend’s house, she spouted her opinions about how ugly their friend’s house was. Apparently my kids told their friend what their grandmother had said. The friend told her mom. The mom made sure to mention to me what my mom had said about her house. I. Died.

I miss the neighborhood raccoons and possums and stray cats and birds my mom would feed on her back porch and the ducks who would swim in her pool. Although I did not love having to assume the daily feeding of that wild menagerie (plus her indoor cats) the last couple years of her life, I do miss her love and devotion to animals. For years she used to feed the coyotes in the nearby woods every day, rationalizing that if she kept them well fed, they wouldn’t eat neighborhood pets. Those were probably the only overweight coyotes to ever exist, but she finally had to give up her efforts when angry neighbors kept confiscating the food she left and leaving her nasty and threatening notes. They didn’t seem to share her philosophy of Save a pet: Feed a coyote.

I miss the stash of M&Ms and Hershey’s chocolate bars she always had in her bedroom armoire (even though many were from Halloweens way prior) plus the plethora of expired canned goods and condiments in the kitchen. My mom kept a running mental food inventory of what was in her house, so any time I tried to sneak-toss expired goods, she would sniff it out like a bomb dog at the airport. Partly a result of her eating disorder fuckery, partly a result of her low level hoarding tendencies, her stockpiling resulted in multiple games of Who’s older? Me or this food item?

I miss her drawers spilling over with socks and scarves and sweaters she would never wear but couldn’t part with. And her closet overflowing with the same 3/4 length sleeve t-shirt in 19 different colors, shoes too worn out to wear but not worn out enough to be tossed, blazers from the 80s, and barely worn fur coats from the 70s. Fur coats that she was opposed to in principle but couldn’t seem to part with. Bank statements and tax returns from decades prior and enough office supplies to outfit a small corporation.

I miss her love of a grocery run, her toilet paper/paper towel backstock that filled two closets, her lightbulb stash that stuffed an entire cabinet, and her duplicate cleaning supplies that lived in all four of the bathrooms in her house. (Did I mention she had the slightest hint of a hoarding issue?)

In 2020, she fell and broke her femur. She was in the hospital, then a rehab facility, for weeks. During that time, her house flooded and was robbed. Most of her things had been moved out and placed in storage during the flood repairs. But you know what the thieves did get? Hundreds of rolls of paper towels and toilet paper. I’m sure that haul was gold on the Covid black market. Know what the thieves didn’t take? Her fur coats.

I miss the drone of her TV that was never turned off because she didn’t like a quiet house and couldn’t sleep without the noise. The “duh duh” sound that starts every episode of Law & Order will always remind me of her. If Law & Order wasn’t playing, it was the Hallmark Channel, a cheesy Lifetime movie or her beloved Dallas Cowboys. I miss her enthusiasm and love for the Cowboys (and football in general) and her joy on game days.

My husband was once gifted suite level tickets to a game at AT&T Stadium. (These tickets are Taylor Swift Eras Tour expensive.) He invited my mom to be his plus one but didn’t mention they would be in a suite. When he led my mom to their luxury box (where Taylor would be watching the game if she was there) she almost wept. That was the best surprise we ever pulled off. Although to be honest, she regularly shed more tears than Tammy Faye Baker.

I miss her soft, soft heart and the way she cried at commercials, People Magazine articles and the news. I even miss how she picked up strangers if they were waiting for the bus in the heat or rain and how she took food to homeless people at night when I explicitly told her not to do anything that might get her murdered. You couldn’t stop her from feeding others — animals or people.

She was one of the helpers Mr Rogers talked about, although sometimes her helping went horribly wrong. Once we helped an elderly man find his car in a parking lot. We noticed he was wandering, looking lost, so we drove him around in our car until we found his. My mom went to help him as he was exiting our vehicle and ended up slamming his finger in the car door. We saw in the paper that he died a couple of weeks later. We always wondered if an infected finger was the culprit. (Nearly amputating fingers with cars is apparently an inherited trait. Read Funning with Scissors for the deets on that.)

I miss my mom’s four crotchety old cats who have all gone on to join her in the two years since she died. I wonder if she still sings the “Night Night” song to them up there? And I hope she knows I did my best to find them happy retirement homes. I also hope she’s not upset that Ollie, the one we took in, loved my husband more than he loved her. (Read If My Pets Were People for more about that.)

I miss her singing along to Shania Twain’s “Man, I Feel Like a Woman” even though I do not enjoy Shania Twain or “Man, I Feel Like a Woman.” I miss the way she would dance to a pop song she loved when it came on in the car and how when I was young enough for her to still be driving me, she would do silly finger dances on the steering wheel to make me laugh. Sometimes I only offered an eye roll, but I think she knew I appreciated her finger choreography.

I miss the hot fruit compote my mom made every holiday, which I now make but that never tastes the same.

I miss going out to lunch, running errands, and shopping with her even though she often made me go to Walmart on a Saturday.

I miss how she would light up at any news about my kids. I miss how fiercely and completely she loved them. To Josie and Keaton, she was Ami (pronounced ahh-me), a name bestowed on her by my daughter when she was one. As soon as they could eat solid food, my mom would slip M&Ms (Emmys as she called them) to my babies the same way she fed the coyotes, heartily and against others’ wishes. Josie would ask for Emmys every time she saw my mom (who we had christened Grammy), but it would come out sounding like ahh-me, sort of a hybrid of Emmy and Grammy which now makes me think why didn’t we just call her Oscar or EGOT, but I digress. I loved that Ami also meant friend in French, so Ami it was ever after.

I miss hearing the heavy jangle of her ridiculous key chain. It was a softball-sized key ring full of mystery keys from days gone by. She only used three or four of them but couldn’t get rid of any of the others “just in case.”

I miss her car that always held boxes (yes, plural) of Kleenex, pet food in case she came across any strays, multiple pump bottles of hand sanitizer, and random loose packets of artificial sweetener.

I miss her annual early morning phone call on my birthday and the inevitable “I can’t believe it was (fill in the blank) years ago today…” And I miss the way she had to call me about every single news event to make sure I had heard about it. Of course she had usually heard about newsworthy happenings before me since her TV was never turned off. She was the one to call and tell me to turn on the TV the morning of 9/11.

I miss my mom’s hand wringing and expert level worrying about me and how even in my 50s I had to let her know when the plane landed. Every. Single. Time. (To Josie and Keaton’s chagrin, I follow in her footsteps when it comes to takeoff and landing notifications.)

I miss the shenanigans that would often go down when we were together. Once we were at an early iteration of an Apple Store back when there were multiple tables all around and one table in the middle where they’d check you out. As I’m perusing an assortment of iPods, I hear her from across the store asking me how to get a computer to turn on. I tell her to click anything on the keyboard, but she continues to loudly tell me it won’t turn on. Now she’s caught the attention of multiple shoppers in the store, so I abandon my iPods to help her out. That’s when I realize she is at the table in the middle of the store trying to break into their checkout computer/register. I ushered her out before they could ask us to leave.

I miss her unparalleled ability to fall asleep anywhere, any time. Once we were in the front row of Stomp, a very loud and raucous tap/percussion/drum show, when my son tapped me on the shoulder and pointed for me to look at my mom. Yep, fast asleep, mouth hanging open in the front row of Stomp. I poked her awake, she mumbled her usual, “I wasn’t sleeping,” then promptly fell back asleep. IN THE FRONT ROW OF STOMP. We could see the performers seeing her sleeping through their world famous show. Again, I. Died.

I miss her stories and her laugh.

I miss the security blanket of having her in my corner. I miss knowing I had an unconditional cheerleader who was always on my side, who cared if I had a headache or a hangnail, who would always be my soft place to land.

I know how fiercely and fully I love my kids with every single cell of my body. I know she loved me the same way. I carry my grief from her passing like a stone in my back pocket. I always know it’s there, feel the weight of it, but it stays tucked away. With me, always available, but not carried heavy in my hands. I can pull out the stone when I want to. When I choose to focus on a picture or a memory of my mom. But there are little unexpected grief bombs that cause the stone to slam from my back pocket into my gut. Times when I didn’t see it coming, but there it is.

When those moments happen, I let myself bend with the weight of the stone. I don’t try to hide it or toss it like I’m skipping it across a glassy lake. I hold it. I feel the heft of it in my hand. Then I put the stone back in my pocket where I will keep it safe as it smooths and softens over time while I carry it with me always, the same way I carry our memories and moments together.

But damn, I miss my mom. And now I’m craving M&Ms.

My pretty mama, back in the day.

• Harper Wilde is a California based company that makes bras, underwear and other intimates for women by women. When I say I hate wearing a bra, I mean I really HATE wearing a bra. But when I have to, my go-to brand is now Harper Wilde. They’re simple, soft and as comfortable as a torture device can be, and they’re less expensive than most other brands.

• Salad Freak by Jess Damuck - I have always referred to myself as a salad freak, so I feel like this cookbook (do you call it a cookbook when most recipes don’t involve cooking?) was made for me. The salads are divided by seasons, and the photos are artfully gorgeous. Even if salad is not your favorite food group, you’ll find something in here you’ll want to make on repeat.

• Get Moving Playlist - This one’s an instant mood booster and battery charger. Here are some songs meant to make you move.