Loving You Tommy Lou; Me and My Mom

Tommy Lou. That’s my mom. That’s the name she went by with family and friends from her youth. But for her adult life, she went by Tommy. The traditional boy’s spelling mind you, no girly “ie” or “i” on the end!

It’s Time

Recently, I was struck with a desire to write something about my mom. Her passing in June of 2016 was well over 3 years ago now, so I suppose it was just time to do this. And it’s not so much a tribute specifically to my mom as it is a tribute to our relationship, or more appropriately, our relationships. So here goes.

Why Is It?

My love for my mom has grown even deeper since her passing, which is quite common I suppose. There’s a tendency for feelings to grow for loved ones that are no longer with us. Fonder memories replace the not so fond memories. But for me, I do try to keep my memories grounded in reality whenever I revisit my life with her. Because it feels more authentic to me and that is how I try to live my life. Authentically. It would be too easy to talk about my mom with a spin that would exaggerate the closeness of our relationship. Because, in reality, we were two incredibly imperfect people in a very imperfect mother-daughter relationship.

An Exercise For Me and My Mom

This post about my mom was a necessary exercise for me. Stuff I simply needed to get off of my heart. Because you see, it was in those final years, months, and days of her life, that a brand new relationship began to develop between me and my mom. I’m not sure if she was fully aware of the change, but I sure was. And it was a healthy change; one that would allow me to embrace our relationship both before and after her passing.

The old cliche held true whereby my mom and I had switched roles. I had become the parent and she the child. But it was more than that. This new relationship was one in which I was learning to love my mom for exactly who she was and where she was as a person, not just because she was my mom.

A Little Bit About Tommy Lou

My mom grew up with a difficult mother for her role model. My grandma was a tough person and “loving” is most definitely not a word that comes to mind when I think about her. Grandma was a DEVOUT Christian, but not in a good way. She was the type of Christian that has given Christianity a black eye and the type that this Believer can’t even remotely identify with, quite frankly. My grandpa on the other hand was a saint and I definitely remember him as a loving and caring soul. He was my mom’s rock, I know that for sure! But even her “rock” couldn’t protect her from an overbearing mother.

Loving

In spite of my mom’s upbringing, I’m thankful that I can associate the word “loving” to my mom. She was a loving person without question. Tommy went through a lot of hardship in her life, even beyond that less than awesome childhood. Mom struggled with relationships, as many of us do. But her struggle with relationships was beyond the norm for her generation. She was divorced twice and married three times. She had 2 kids, one from each of her first two marriages. Beyond the norm of her generation, it was most certainly not acceptable behavior in the eyes of her mother.

My mom often shared the story of her mother disowning her for several years following her third marriage to my stepfather Vince. I was always thankful for that third marriage though, because it was the one that lasted and it was the union that gave me my “dad” at a very young age. That story always bothered me as a child and I resented my grandma for the way she treated her family. Again, I’m so thankful my mom was a more loving mom than the example she was given.

A Complicated Mix

My mom was a complicated mix of both tough and fragile. She was a world-class worrywart. A trait I hate to admit I see in myself more and more as I age! I harshly viewed that trait as a weakness in my mom. Throughout my life, I often found myself resentful of and annoyed with her worrisome personality. That and she always seemed so incredibly dependent on others. Moving from her parents, to one marriage after the other, and always very emotionally dependent on close relatives. I wanted, and always considered myself, to be completely different from her in those regards.

On the flip-side, she was a tough little lady and a hard worker. She worked full-time outside of the home her entire adult life until retirement. I now know that my strong work ethic came from her because she demonstrated it often in everything she did.

I have many memories of my mom being a bit feisty and sometimes defensive with family members, so there’s a weird contradiction that exists in my memories, even today. At five feet even on her best day, my mom was a big personality in a small package!

Stuff From My Mom

Strength

My mom faced many challenges in life but she also persevered through strength. That same strength was passed on to me, for that I am certain. And this is something else I am thankful for. I think I’ve navigated life’s challenges in a different way than my mom, but my underlying strengths most definitely came from her.

God

It was my mom’s faith in God that provided me with a belief in God as a child. While my parents never truly walked with Jesus in their day-to-day life, I knew there was a God. That belief was enough to keep me “connected” to Him until my mid 20’s when I truly came to know Christ! And while I now have an even deeper faith and relationship with Jesus than I ever saw present in the lives of my parents, I have hope that in each of their final moments on earth, they reached out to Him and fell into His arms for their return home. And for that I have hope that I will see them all again one beautiful day beyond this life.

Me and My Mom

Truth be told, I was never really close to my mom. Don’t get me wrong, I always loved her because she was my mom! And it’s not that we had a bad relationship; it just wasn’t a very deep relationship. I’ve tried to figure out why we weren’t closer and I think it always goes back to what I viewed as her weakness, her constant worrying.

We butted heads quite often when I was growing up. I was closer to my stepfather Vinnie because he wasn’t always worrying about everything. And like my grandpa was to my mom, Vinnie was my rock. Even though I wasn’t Vince’s biological child, he sure treated me like I was. And while my biological father Curt was still in the picture (through visits on school breaks for the most part), he and my mom divorced when I was so young that a relationship with him just never fully developed. Vinnie was the one I looked to for just about everything while I was growing up. And I think that was a bit hard on my mom. I think she wanted to be more for me at times.

It was the worrying that put an even greater distance between me and my mom as I grew older. She wasn’t the one I went to when I needed emotional support as an adult. Whether it was dealing with an illness with one of my kids, the time that I finally came to terms with my failed first marriage, or with everyday struggles relating to things like my job. My mom simply wasn’t equipped to provide that type of support to me and so she was absent from many of those difficult times in my life. You know, those times when I could have used a mom. I would most often only talk to her about such things after they had passed or after I felt like I had a handle on the situation enough to share it with her. If I went to her prematurely, which I did do and would subsequently learn from, my mom would typically make me feel much worse than I did when I first sought her support. So I simply learned to stop seeking her support.

Grace In The End For My Mom

The lessons I have learned about the amount of grace we extend to those around us came late for me and my mom. They didn’t become realized until the last couple years of her life and after she had begun to decline cognitively.

After we moved my mom to Colorado in early 2012, I was still getting aggravated with her on a pretty regular basis. Frustrated that she didn’t want to do more each day. I tried to convince her to get involved in the various activities that were going on in her little community. Warren and I were annoyed when all she wanted to do was watch TV all day. I became angry when she told me she had worked all of her life and she deserved to do “nothing” now that she was retired. I had so little grace to extend during nearly all of my life with her. But while something was beginning to change with mom mentally, I began to sense an emotional change beginning in me.

Losing Tommy Lou

My mom suffered from dementia. And while the dementia did not rob her of recognizing her loved ones for example, it did rob her of her ability to communicate. Slowly, yet pretty quickly in hindsight, her words became so jumbled that we could no longer understand what she was trying to say. And in the early stages, it frustrated her terribly. As her “word salad” progressed though, so did her ability to recognize that she was no longer making sense . She was no longer aware of her inability to find the right words and that, while sad for me, was an unexpected blessing.

One Last “Talk”

In my very last conversation with my mom, it was a focus on her loving nature, rather than her weaknesses, that I was able to look to for comfort and understanding. Ultimately, Tommy’s loving nature allowed me to release the frustrations and embrace the thankfulness. Gone were all the thoughts of what she hadn’t done for me or been for me. Those thoughts were all replaced with what she had done and been for me.

That last conversation wasn’t much of a conversation because it was one-sided, given mom’s inability to communicate clearly. But I was able to tell her that I knew she did everything she could for me and how much I appreciated her love and care. While my childhood was not lavish, my older brother and I were always cared and provided for and I wanted her to know that I was grateful. And I thanked her for bringing Vinnie into my life too because he was a good dad to me!

I don’t live with regrets for the relationship that I had with my mom. It was what it was and I know that God works for us and through us in His timing, not ours.

Learning To Let Go And Grab Hold At The Same Time

When my mom died, it caught me off guard. I always anticipated that in the end, she would become ill and just not be able to recover from the illness. But other than her cognitive loss, she was relatively healthy.

I remember getting a call on the morning of June 15, 2016 that I needed to come to her place because she had taken a downward turn that morning. When I got there, I was told by the nurse that my mom was exhibiting end-of-life symptoms and I was absolutely shocked. She was fine just the day before. I had spoken with her doctor that day after she had been given a regularly scheduled check-up. The doctor’s only focus was that mom just wasn’t eating very much and they were concerned about her weight. But the nurse was right that morning because my mom was dying and she would be gone within a very short 48 hours.

It was tough when I got the call that she had passed, of course it was. But it was also somewhat of a relief because she wasn’t just “there” anymore. Just getting through an empty life each day. She was ready to go, I knew she was and I was happy for her release.

Grieving for Tommy Lou and Vinnie Too

Of course, my mom’s tiny service 3 months later at Ft. Logan National Cemetery was sad, but also bittersweet. And that’s because it wasn’t just her service, it was also my dad’s. You see, Vinnie didn’t want to have a service when he died (which was 8 years prior to my mom’s passing). Nope, he wanted to wait until my mom was gone too so that their ashes could be buried together. His wishes were fulfilled when they were buried together in early September of 2016. It was a beautiful sentiment, and so very appropriate for them and their relationship.

When It Really Hit

You know when it got really tough for me, my mom’s passing that is? It was on my next birthday. Over 4 months after my mom died. I remember getting out of the shower that day and realizing that it was my first birthday without my mom. I was without the one person in my life that had been there for every one of my breaths up until June 17, 2016.

She had been on this earth with me for every other birthday. I felt so alone which seemed silly because Warren was just in the next room! But I suppose it was just one of those rites of passage that we all go through at different stages of life. And while it was a very tearful morning for me that day, I know now that I’ve never truly been alone nor will I ever be alone. That even before I took my first breath with my mom, God was there. He’s always been there and always will be there. And how amazing and comforting is that?

Loving My Mom In a New Way

And here’s something else that I’m in the process of learning from God. How to love people like Jesus loves people. It’s how he loves me. He loves me for my brokenness, not in spite of it. I was able to start loving my mom through that same lens and that brought me peace.

It’s through that lens that I can now love little Tommy Lou who grew up under the tightly held fist of her mother. It allows me to love the tough yet worrisome Tommy that was present for most of my life. And it allowed me to love the soft, sweet, gentle, little lady that could no longer put words together with meaning at the end of her life.

I now love all of those various representations of who my mom was and who I was throughout our relationship as well. And that is a wonderful gift from God that I am the most thankful for!

Last Thoughts

I’ll close now with words for my mom: I love you Tommy Lou and miss you much! Thank you for everything mommy! And thanks be to God for giving us to one another all those years ago. For doing life together as best we could and so many lessons learned!

Blessings,
{Shelley}