I would like to take a moment to talk about my Mum. She was born on a summer day in August of 1958, in Virginia. Given the name Rita after her mother, the middle name Theresa after my great grandmother.
My Mum was the middle child for a couple years till my aunt came along. Her family never stayed stationary very long, my Papa, her father was pilot for the Navy, so they were constantly moving. My Mum, never really knew just how much my Aunt loved, but I see it now.
Rita, she had didn’t have it easy growing up, her parents loved her but with my Papa gone a lot, and four children to be raised, a lot fell on my Mum. The burden carried on for years dark memories that haunted my Mum for years, but she hid it well, with a smile that lit up a room, with a gravitational force pulling people in to start a conversation with her, to become her friend. Your problems were her problems, she would stop at nothing to help you fix them.
Her favorite place to ever live was Asbury Park, NJ. She worked on the boardwalk as a teenager in a diner that Bruce Springsteen frequently came and had a cup of coffee. A story my Mum would tell me often, how she didn’t know him, but he knew her name, smiled she fill his cup, her manager asking if she knew who he was. My Uncle would sneak into a concert of his at the Stone Pony, where my Mum fell in love with his music, she would later pass on to me.
My parents met at the persistence of my Aunt, constantly bugging my father to take my Mum on date though they had never met. My dad said it was love at first, my mother, she was smitten. They dated for 6 months before she moved to Hollywood, CA, in search for the sun and warmth. My father, he followed her four months later. They married in front of my fathers parents in a small ceremony on St. Patrick’s 1979, in the Lutheran Church. Four months later they were married in front of all their family in a Catholic wedding though my Papa tried to get them to elope.
In the years that followed things weren’t easy, they lived pinching penny’s, my mum loss babies, and failed adoptions. My mum was blessed with my brother in ‘84, but life just seemed hard to keep going on, but she managed it but barley. I came along on accident in ‘90 and prematurely. I was the oops baby, but often referred to as the miracle baby, the baby no one thought would come or make it.
My mum had a really hard time after my birth, postpartum depression came down hard on her, the thought that she was horrible mother never leaving her, but she still took me to every doctors appointment, held my hand, and loved me to the best of her ability.
I know looking back with my Mum’s server depression, anxiety, and mental state she was the best Mum she could be. I still get moments where I get mad for the moments I watched her walked out the door, the moments she missed out on my life because the pills made her to sleepy, because she was in too much pain, her past was too painful. But she still loved me to the best of her ability. She made our vacations fun, she made each birthday and holiday so special, making sure I felt like a princess for the day, even if it was her birthday. My mum became my best friend.
No one loved my Mum quite like my Dad ever did. They were together 42 years and I used to watch how my dad looked at my Mum as if she hung the moon and how my Dad could bring a smile to her face in the most smallest of ways. The way that they didn’t need to do extravagant things for a date night that just being together was so beautiful to. I loved how they would sit and cuddle on the couch, even after my dad had just worked 12 hours, he would listen to everything my Mum had to say. They had their moments I was sure they were going to call it quits they stuck through it and it made me so happy. It made want to find a love like that, someone who would love me the way my dad loved my mom and the way my Mum loved him.
I lost my Mum in her sleep on April 21st, 2016, 5 years ago this year. Sometimes it literally blows my mind to think she is gone, I was only 25 years old when I lost my Mum. I know many lost their Mum younger, but both my parents mothers were still alive, I always thought I’d be like her sharing my children with her. I still have dreams where she comes home and I get angry and scream at her an all she does is give me her beautiful smile, and when I wake I know she was there visiting me. I think of her day in and day out, how she would have loved this song or this movie. I find her in everyday little things and miss her so terribly.
I wanted to share my Mum with you because my Mum had always been the one to inspire me to write, the one to read, to smile, and keep on living. I wouldn’t be Katy if it weren’t for my Mum.
