My Mom - Final Chapter

I am really going to try and blow through the rest of this regarding my mom. After going back and reading everything I have written I am surprised I am not in counseling.

Needless to say my mom didn’t stop me from marrying Craig. My mom began to resent Craig because he had “taken me away” from her. It use to really insult me that she felt I was so feeble minded that I would let a man take control of my life. Then I realized it was just her way of dealing with me leaving. I look back at that part of our relationship and wish that I had never moved back in with her.

My mom is a compulsive gambler. Sometimes she wins, sometimes she loses. For the first couple years of my marriage I still catered to her financial needs. I would loan her money that she rarely paid back. Craig finally put his foot down and said that I couldn’t give her any more money. His rule was that she could borrow $20.00 from me on the week she was going to get paid and then she had to bring it to me that day to pay me back. This actually felt great. Craig stepped up and laid down the law when I was having a hard time dealing with it. This rule created tension between my husband and my mom. Not that their relationship was great.

We lived in the same town as my mom, less than 5 miles away. We would go months without seeing her. Even after the kids were born she was pretty absent. There was a whole block of turmoil regarding my marriage during this time that I will write about sometime. All I will say now is that she decided that Craig was the lesser of two evils.

In 1999, Craig and I moved to Pismo Beach. We lived down there for 3 years. She never came and visited us. But during that period she traveled to Chicago two times, Austin three times and Los Angeles three times. She even called me up when she was in LA and asked if I could come down and meet her there but leave the kids at home. I didn’t go.

As I have stated in previous posts, we reside in Redding now. We moved up here in 2002. Reno is about 3 hours away. I can say that she has at least made the trip 2 times.

I have to remind my mom of her grandchildrens birthdays becasue (her words) She would have to write them down on a calendar to remember them. Sorry for the strain that that would put on you Mom. (that is me being my sarcastic self, it comes out once in awhile)

I love my mom. My heart breaks for her. She has always looked for love and acceptance in the wrong places. Her automatic reaction to anything is to find something wrong with it. You could walk into the nicest restaurant in the world and there would be something that she could find to rag about.

She has classified me as another “Bible Thumper”. I am an imbecile to her to put my trust in the Lord. I pray for her to find her love and acceptance through Jesus instead of slot machines.

To finish this set of posts, here are 5 things that I learned from my mom that have been great lessons….
1. Work Ethic – Her home life is in shambles but she is the most reliable employee anybody could hope to have. She has over 5 months of sick leave saved up because she always goes to work.

2. Cleanliness – Because she is a slob, I am not.

3. Tolerance – By witnessing how she doesn’t tolerate. I am a pretty tolerate person.

4. Survival – I had no choice but to give up and cry in a corner or survive for the both of us.

5. Love – She taught me what the statement “She loves you as much as she can or knows how to” means.

Though Christ I have been taught that I can Love way more than that. But through my mom I have been taught that there is a difference between unconditional love and the gotta work for it love.

Thanks for reading my ramblings.