Around the holidays I like to stay busy. And Mother's Day is one of them. Because I still miss my mother some 22 years after her death. It's so better for me to be doing something productive to avoid becoming depressed.
My biggest supporter was my mother. I don't mean as far as money goes. I'm talking more about the important things like having good values. Learning to be responsible. Not letting life get you down. Things like that. She taught them; I didn't absorb them.
I was born when she was 15; my father 27. She was a simple Mid-Western farm girl when they met, in an era when 50% of the country lived on farms.
Later, when I was about five she and my father divorced over his drinking. She went to work in the aircraft industry, helping assemble air-frames for the Air Force's counter attack on Germany. She became skilled at what she did. So much so that after Japan surrendered she - like many women of that era - went to work in the post-war electronics industry.
She had several troubled years trying to regain custody of my brother and me after my father took us to his place for a Sunday visit and didn't return. It took her seven years to regain custody. But she stuck to the fight until she got us back.
One of the best parts of my recovery is that my mother got to see me sober over three years before she passed away. I've always felt good about justifying her faith in me.
