Did I Really Know Her?

And how did I miss all this stuff...

I was in charge of putting the tiny little rectangle green stamps into the booklets, keeping track of each each one received from the grocery store, and making sure that we filled the booklet out so we could get a free casserole dish or set of pans or dishes or box of glassware. Who remembers green stamps? Long ago, when you went to the grocery store and purchased groceries, they would hand you a certain number of green stamps for the amount you spent. Those “green stamps” went into a booklet that when filled, could “buy” you prizes.

I grew up with a Mom who was incredibly money savvy. She had to be as we weren’t the rich kids on the block. We shopped the day old baked goods section, the dented cans cart, the blue light specials constantly. Whatever we could make or can - we did. Mom made sure our pantry was fully stocked with dill pickles, freshly canned beets, canned tomatoes, green beans, cooked salsa, applesauce, canned pears and peaches, and so much more. She was so money savvy and focused on using everything without waste that she canned watermelon rind pickles and we used the skins from the apples we made into applesauce for dried fruit.

I remember pouring a bucket of tiny cucumbers into the washing machine to rinse them off, dropping specific herbs into freshly sanitized jars for the pickles, running the tabletop apple peeler at top speed to produce naked apples to be cooked down and made into applesauce. When I say “canned” I DO NOT mean in a can - I mean we canned them in canning jars after cleaning and cooking them down. My Mom would find some great deal on some fruit or vegetable and the goal was how to preserve it best - can or freeze?!

My Mom was so frugal that she ground her own wheat, made all of our bread, and even made butter from scratch. We didn’t have lunches with Capri Sun and white bread with Peter Pan on it - we had homemade wheat bread, water, and nut butters that I am pretty sure came from the grinder. No boxed crackers - my Mom made sesame sticks and homemade wheat thins. Yes she was a stickler for healthy foods but this also came from lack of funds to purchase prepackaged and processed food. Our pantry had a tiny shelf space of packaged food and the rest was jarred/canned/dried foods.

Frugality showed up in our clothing as well. My Mom made most of my clothing for the first seven years of my life. From underwear to nightgowns to skirts to hats to dresses - my Mom sewed it all. I remember the first time I went clothes shopping at Kmart and the excitement of “real” clothes - the reality being that their blue light special made them cheaper than my Mom could. We stood around for hours that day waiting for the next markdowns so we could buy school clothes for the next few years.

This is NOT to say I suffered at all. Mom was incredibly talented in making a dollar stretch without anyone feeling it. I don’t think I even knew we were frugal until I went to college and ate cafeteria food every day - saw how much waste there was, how much food was processed/prepackaged, and how little people cared about the value of that food (ie clean your plate). Mom made sure we ate every single thing on our plates. And when we went out to eat, Mom guided us to choose items that were larger yet less costly or even shareable. I remember my sister and I went on a fun little adventure with my Mom which included walking the mall (no we weren’t allowed to buy anything but just look and walk) and then head to lunch (because lunch was WAY cheaper) to a local Mexican restaurant that had a plate of nachos for $4.00. We shared the platter and were grateful.

I remember my Mom like this but then…

When I stepped into her closet immediately after her death and began to walk through the enormous floor to ceiling stacked spaces with hanging rods for miles (this closet is essentially the size of many people’s master bathrooms and probably larger), I was in shock. Over 200 pairs of designer shoes in boxes, many never worn. Thousands of clothes hanging on the racks with about 1/2 or more of them with new tags hanging off them. And let me say, these were not $5 t shirts either - many were very expensive designer brands from the “fancy” end of our local department store. The closet was so tightly packed full that it was almost impossible to slide an item out without the whole rack wanting to come down. She had hundreds of designer label purses in bags with tags on them - still stuffed from the store and some even wrapped in tissue paper as if they came home and that was the end.

And in her garage were brand new unopened boxes of small appliances, dish sets, pots and pans. Her linen closet had dozens of brand new never opened designer sheets and blankets - price tags still sealing them shut. Her entire house was full of beautiful and expensive things that she put away in a closet or a shelf or a back corner or the garage or a storage bin and forgot about. Or maybe she didn’t. My Mom had a joke at the end of her life - the person with the most stuff wins.

This is not the Mom I grew up with who made sure every thing had a use, a value, was USED fully and completely. This is NOT the Mom I remember who taught us to respect and care for the things we had as they needed to last a long time. This is NOT the Mom who taught me that the most important things in life were family and love. This is NOT the Mom who taught me the value of a dollar and how to best use that dollar.

This Mom is someone I didn’t know. She’s someone I have never met and had no idea was living in that house. She’s the aunt you met a few times and was told she was a little odd but that you never had to deal with much so you didn’t care.

My Mom, growing up, would hand food and money to people in need on the side of the road, bake up a storm and take it to the neighbors who were struggling, pick up strangers and take them to soup kitchens. She was always trying to help others. She would give the coat she had on to someone shivering in the cold and never blink an eye. I remember her going through the drive thru and getting a full meal for a homeless guy at the corner when we couldn’t even afford for us to eat at the drive thru.

In the last years of her life, she raged against the homeless, the poor, the unemployed, the unfortunate, the economically challenged. She would say things I won’t repeat here but I was stunned when they came out of her mouth. This WAS NOT MY MOTHER.

Where did my Mom go? Who was this woman she became in the last few years of her life? And how could someone so open and loving with a huge heart and a frugal view of the world become a hoarder and hater?

She’s gone so I guess I will never know the truth. In cleaning out her things I have found so many things that make me question if I ever knew her at all or if I should have packed up my family and gone to live near here years ago so I could somehow patch the fraying person she seemed to have been spiraling into.

This morning I told my son that I wish my Mom had realized her priorities at the end - that she could have enjoyed her beautiful house and gorgeous garden and spent more time with the people she loved. But Mom focused on making more money (which she had no need of since she was financially stable), hoarding expensive things just because she could, pushing everyone away. When we visited, she would be so busy with her newest flip house or realtors or plans for some new house she was buying that she was gone, busy, unavailable to hang out with her daughter and grandchildren. She was so afraid someone would steal from her that she wouldn’t allow anyone to visit her - including extended family and friends. And she believed everyone just wanted her money and her things. She was actually angry with me when she asked what I wanted when she died and I said “Mom - I don’t need anything except what you want to give me to remind me of you.” She huffed, stomped her foot, and said I hated all her stuff anyhow and I would probably just throw it all away.

As we come to the end of clearing out her houses and going through all of her things, I can only say how much I clearly did not know my Mom and how I don’t know how I ever missed all of this. I visited every year for a month. I talked to her on the phone almost every day. I lived with her as an adult twice and yet - did I really know her at all?

All I am left with is this disjointed picture of her. The memories of the loving Mom who stayed up all those nights rocking me as I cried from being so very sick (6 bouts of Scarlet Fever with strep throat and 1 horrible Mumps month), the frugal yet fun Mom who made every moment special and like and adventure even if it was only over $4.00 nachos or a $.15 ice cream cone, the spiritually awake Mom who taught me that everything was inside of me and that it was all between me and God and no one else’s business, the Mom who sparkled and smiled and was kind and compassionate to others in need OR the Mom I am seeing now, at the end of her life, the hoarder, the hateful words, the focus on money and things. How can I even begin to make those things into a complete picture of her when they are SO very far apart?

I am reminded that we rarely know people as well as we assume we do. We don’t know their daily experiences, their challenges, their influences. It’s crazy how while my Mom was in Texas for her cancer treatment, I spent days with her and none of this ever came up but when I visited her the next year as she was dying, she was such a different. She was belligerent, angry, incredibly critical, believed the worst in people, accused everyone of being out to get her. Was it being home? Was it cancer? Was it knowing her time was ending? Who was this woman I called Mom? I wish I knew. For now all I can do is let my feelings work their way through and my grief to find it’s own path.

Love, Aprille XXo