The older I get, the more I think about my mom passing away. Morbid, I know, but I think my mind drifts this way because I’m finally realizing how special my mom is to me, and I unconsciously force myself to grieve her future passing as a way to self flagellate for all the times I ignored her or took her for granted, both in my disease and later. Working from home through a pandemic has forced me to look at the time I spend with my own daughter, and the path laid before me.

_ _ _ _

My mother was a project manager at a software company for over two decades, and yet I have no idea what she actually did. As a child, I remember there being ample “Cup-O-Soups” in the community kitchen, and I remember sleeping a fever off in her office once. When I was at her office, she was still Mom.

I remember her going to work in India and Europe for special projects. She brought me home a sari, foreign chocolates that I got stuck in the ice maker, and once, teeny tiny little salt and pepper shakers from the KLM flight. I too once had a business trip to Europe, and although I flew United, I kept the little salt and pepper shakers.

I remember my mother at her worst, when she sank deep into depression. Her mother sank too. She was there when I sank.

I remember tagging along to her women’s group bible studies and playing with the other tag-a-long children. I take my daughter to women’s meetings with childcare.

I remember finding out that she once attended the University of Pennsylvania, but decided that Philadelphia was too cold and went back to Florida for her Masters. I walked by the house she lived in. It’s still there.

I know she was married once before my dad, that she supported him through medical school and the marriage dissolved shortly after. Her mother loved him for his potential. Her mother didn’t love my father. She loves my husband as her own son.

I remember how amazed I was to find out she was one of the first people to try Gatorade at the University of Florida. She was in the marching band, you see. I was in the marching band too.

I remember her working on the old house with my dad, applying rose-colored wallpaper to my room during a hot summer. I bought an old house too, but I’m not as handy as she is.

I remember her coffee breath as she read us the Sunday morning comics, laughing as she read the punchline to herself before sharing it with us. My daughter notes whenever I have coffee breath, too.

She helps raise her grandson. She says she finally gets to do all the things she couldn’t do as a working mom raising us. I watch her read to him like she read to us when we were little, like I read to my daughter.

I used to hate it when people said I look like my mother. “Little Lois.” I love looking like my mother.

Her mother survived the Depression. My mother’s always worried about money, even though she doesn’t need to. I refresh my accounts daily.

If you ask her what she would like as a gift, she smiles and laughs it off. I don’t know how to receive love that way either.

Whenever I call her with a problem, she immediately jumps to a solution or offers an affirming message. She will never let me acknowledge the bad. I hate that about her. She thinks I can do anything.

She is so patient, so loving, and so kind. We curse her name jokingly, because she gives us nothing to complain about. “You mopped our entire house? Strike one, Lois”. Three strikes and you have to stay forever.

She once agreed to let her husband’s ex wife and mother of her stepson live with them, helping her get back on her feet. She can always see the bigger picture.

I watch her now, enjoying her retirement and trying out new roles. She raises chickens, attempts to keep bees, and helps guide the tractor up and down the red clay road. She teaches me it’s never too late to try new things.

She once had tuberculosis and breast cancer at the same time, and beat it, all the while supporting me as a new mom. Moms don’t take sick days, remember?

She married my dad and loved him. She married my stepdad and loves him. Lois is love.

When I look at my daughter, I see what Lois sees. I see so much potential, so much love, so much passion contained in one soul. I get it.

I don’t want my daughter to turn out like me. I want my daughter to turn out like me.