Jill worked with my mom at Meijers and I worked for hers at the Ferndale library when we were teenagers. There was an interesting dynamic. We weren't even the closest of friends by this point. And for that matter, my mom and I had probably stopped really talking like humans long before the blisters of teen angst. We wouldn't really start talking again until my 20's.
And to top it off... my mother would much rather have had Jill for a daughter around that time than me. I mean she loved me because I was her kid, but if she was about to be struck down for not telling the truth, she would have had to fess up that she wanted Jill. The kid she was still taller than. The kid that was kind and chatty with her. That's the one my mom wanted. I don't blame her- I wouldn't have wanted me back then either.
My mom and I have not had a classic 'sisterly' relationship or even a love/hate relationship. I don't even call her mom much- I call her Nana like my children. I have needed her when I didn't want her. She cleaned the vomit up when I barfed over geometry exams and hovered over me when I drove myself into stress induced mono as a senior in high school. She sent me $20 and "here you go" notes written on the back of receipts from the grocery store when I was a freshman in college. It was really hard to say I Love You then. We just didn't.
She went to college after 50. COLLEGE. This woman who feared even pronouncing my elementary school spelling lists (because I was DARN sure to correct her) decided she was going to go to college and she graduated. She made me cry when she walked in her cap and gown that day. Nobody makes me cry like that.
When I lived nearby in Michigan she showed up during every pinch I had and holy crap there was a lot. She inadvertently provided the comic relief that I needed for my life to roll on. Like getting her first cell phone under the premise that it was for emergencies only. She called me out of a client meeting because chicken was on sale at Meijers and did I want her to bring me any. She blows through brakes on her car every other year but she drove my sorry self around when my driving privileges were revoked multiple times for health problems.
She puts up with my sarcasm and my exasperation with her 'Nana-ness'. She spoiled her oldest grandson with Thomas trains and introducing him to the term bull shit. But she stood by graciously with the complications of Noah's premature birth and persistent health problems that made him scream when most people so much as looked at his tiny blond headed self. Yes looked at him. She was well versed in what it was like to want to pick up and hug the cutest thing on the planet but to have that little thing want nothing to do with you.
She has needed me way more than mom's want to need their children. She doesn't hate me for it.
I have needed her when I want no one and she knows it. She steps in quietly and steps back out when I've brushed myself off.
Happy Mother's Day Mom.
Love,
Sheryl
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