Mom

Mom
and Mother's Day,
a construct of US culture,
made more complicated because
many do not have a Mom or
do not have a
more classically traditional
what is that anymore?
Mom

My Mom,
shared 7 ways
made it hard to say she was all mine
even though sometimes I wished that
and other times I did not.

My Mom,
tough exterior,
mushy sometimes,
hard to know which way she might go
unless you pushed it.

My Mom,
her skin so soft and that
scent
that even with my eyes closed
I would say,
that is My Mom.

She has a way of saying
Mary
with a reverence,
perhaps I  only imagine
and still it is my reality.

She wanted me to feel unencumbered by her goals,
she felt lost through circumstances,
and fate,
She said to go, go and be,
be what you want,
She could not have such freedom.

When she wrote her memoirs,
reviewing 3 quarters of a century,
I am puzzled most by her thinking
her father would be disappointed in her.

How could a five year old girl
lose her father
and feel that way?

A larger than life figure to me, my Mother,
looms tall in intellectual self discovery,
exploration of faith,
and parent to 7 children, wife, productive worker
and volunteer,
and yet she sees herself
so small
compared to her mythical father.

He too, her father Kelly,
would have seen her for who she is today as well,
I have no doubt
if he could have,
he would have told her of his pride
in her
and his love
for her
he would have wished her Happy Mother's Day
and she would feel a great relief

kelly would be 127 years old