A Bouquet of Mother's Day Memories from a Grateful Generation

Each of us has a unique narrative about our mothers. They can be positive,
negative, and everything in between.
In this episode, we delve into a diverse collection of these stories. From tale
of profound love to stories of absence, we explore the complex tapestry of
relationships with mothers.
Jean Feldeisen will speak about the deepening love between her and her
mom, while Ann Litts tells us about the mother who was taken too soon.
Soosie Campbell shares why she wanted to be very different from her mother, and how she feels about her own children wanting to be different from her.
Jim Parton says he and his mom had an awkward relationship, and tells
how things changed later in life. Nancy Franklin also talks about how it took
lifetime for her feelings about her mom to change.
Sometimes, people can be forced into having to make an impossible decision
and Jan M. Flynn says this happened to her mom.
Ace talks about a woman’s grit and determination, while Katherine Valentino
shares a daily habit she learned from her mother.
There's even a story about fried chicken, as Lee J. Bentch shares a life that
revolves around food.

Read these and other great essays on Crow's Feet: Life As We Age.

Transcript

(background music playing)

Jean Feldeisen 00:16

Such a loving person.

Suzie Campbell 00:25

How things have changed for mothers.

Nancy Franklin 00:36

I miss her every day.

Ann Litts 00:41

My mother's love is still here

Lee J. Bench 00:45

She was my mother and I was her son.

Karen Valentino 00:52

I remembered her bright “Good Morning!”

Jim Parton 01:06

So, Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

George "Ace" Acevedo  01:17

Welcome to the Mother's Day episode of the Crow's Feet Podcast. I'm George Acevedo, although everyone calls me Ace. In this episode, you'll hear stories, memories, and reflections from Crow's Feet writers about the mothers in our lives. The experiences about what motherhood means to us. Many of our moms have passed on, leaving behind a legacy of what they taught us, and how our views about them may have changed over time. They won't always be happy memories. Life doesn't work that way. Some of the stories will be gut-wrenchingly honest and will highlight difficult choices. We'll hear first from Jean Feldeisen, who talks about her mom, Millie, and how others' opinions about her mom matched Jean's own. She also shares how her and her mother's expressions of their love for each other deepened over time. And how this changed those important three words.

Jean Feldeisen  02:13

My mom and I met when she was 23 years old. And as far back as I can remember, and ever since then, I've known that she loved me. Of course, at times, I thought I should be the only one that she loved. Not dad, not my sisters, brothers, just me. But I learned to be content to share her affection. My mother Millie was a beautiful soul. And the days following her death three years ago, friends and relatives most often described her as kind, such a loving person, kindness and grace, a gracious soul always welcoming, a real sweet lady. To me, she was all those things and so much more. From the time my family moved from New Jersey to Maine when she was 76. Mom and I knew we could lose each other at any time. In a few months between each visit, there was extra potential for something to go wrong, whether because of the danger of the 500 mile drive for us, or because of her increasing age and health issues. Because of that we were careful to say I love you every time we talked on the phone,  every time we said goodbye. Each time could be the last chance. A few months before she died. Mom said to me in a kind of serious, a different kind of tone. Jeannie, you already know that I love you, don't you? I thought for a second and answered, yes, I do know that. Well, good, she said. So I countered. Mom, you already know that I love you, don't you? Yes, she answered. So now she continued. We don't have to worry about that anymore, right? Right, I said. It was settled. We could end our ongoing worry about saying it enough. It wasn't necessary anymore. I knew what she meant. We both realized that our kind of constant ongoing, dare I say eternal love for each other went way beyond those words. I like to remember this; hold it close to me on Mother's Day.

George "Ace" Acevedo  04:18

Ann Litts is next; she'll tell us about the absence of a mother who was taken too soon. The stories others told about her and the important lessons her mom left behind.

Ann Litts  04:31

 The Motherless Day. An annual event for 52 years. I am a motherless daughter. My mother died from lung cancer when I was 12. In 1972, it was statistically anomalous that nonsmoking women would die from said cancer. But it happened. It happened to my mother, to our family, to me. I don't think there ever is a good time in one's life to face the death of your mother. Mothers are like that. They’re supposed to be there for you. There at every step, every transition, Every sorrowful moment, and every joy-filled celebration. When they're not, the vacuum surrounding their absence is vast. 

My mother was a full blooded Italian. She was raised in an Italian neighborhood and English was her second language. They were poor in my mother's family. She learned to sew early on to make doll clothes out of scraps and later to make her own clothes. She owned one dress that she washed every night and would wear to school the next day. I know all these things about her because my uncles would always share their stories about her with me, one uncle in particular, Uncle Rocco. He seemed to love talking about my mother as much as I enjoyed hearing about her. Because when we're gone, that's what we leave behind…our stories. And the humans who loved us.

 I have been sustained throughout my life by the stories others have told me about my mother. About the stories I told my children about her. I have her rolling pin. The same one she used to make every single pumpkin pie I ever ate. I have the stainless steel bowl that she used to pour popcorn into. I have her china, I use those dishes for all the celebrations my family enjoyed. Each time I set the table I could feel her presence in the room with us, smiling and laughing and loving me and my kids as though she was standing right there next to me. 

One thing I know I was blessed with is this, I never doubted that I was loved. In fact, my mother loved me so well. In the 12 years I had her it has sustained me for the whole of my life. She taught me that was the most important thing to love a child. And I vow to honor my mother's memory by doing the best job I could with my own kids. And that lesson, the most important thing to love a child is what inspired my parenting. 

Now I'm a grandmother, a role my mother never got to enjoy in her life. Knowing that life is precious, knowing that death doesn't just happen to other people. And knowing that grief has walked with me for over five decades, allows me to love my grandchildren with abandon. Because time is short. And life is fickle. So I take that most precious lesson. And I love not just one child but all the children that the universe has blessed me with. Because I have also learned that the only piece of us that survives is our love. My mother's love is still here. It's in every hug I give my daughters. It's in stories read and stories told. It's in the pride in my heart as I watch each daughter and each granddaughter grow into their potential. Namaste.

George "Ace" Acevedo  07:27

Next up, Lee J. Bench shares some memories about his mom that some would say could only come from a son. Food is the focus with one crispy and juicy dish in particular.

Lee J. Bench  07:39

My mother, she was known as the fried chicken queen. She loves making it for dinner, buying it at restaurants and indulging in cold pieces for breakfast. Growing up in the 60s we enjoyed great meals, primarily homemade unique dishes. We ate everything from ambrosia salads to chiffon pies, meatloaf, chopped liver, Swiss steaks, beef liver and almost anything that could be fried. Throw in an occasional Swanson's TV dinner and we as kids were just happy. 

Our favorite meal though, was homemade fried chicken. It was so good because it was fried in chicken schmaltz. If you don't know what chicken schmaltz is, it's rendered chicken fat. It's called Liquid Gold because of the exotic flavors it adds. Sounds pretty gross, but it's not, it's really a delicacy. The best fried chicken in the world was made by frying it in its fat. There wasn't a week that went by without fried chicken on the family menu. My mother was proud of how she spiced up the flour mix while creating a unique egg and milk wash for dipping. The chicken schmaltz was always the hero of the recipe. Amazingly, no one left in my family alive today has serious heart trouble. 

As my mother became a senior citizen homemade fried chicken faded from her cooking repertoire. Instead, she would ask me or my brother to pick her up and take her to lunch once a month. We each lived within five miles of her and that was an easy thing to do. We used to joke about who would have fried chicken duty that month. Her choice of lunch was always Popeye's fried chicken. They had a Tuesday special two pieces for $1.99. It included a biscuit, a drink, it was the perfect size for her and enough to satisfy my appetite. It was the highlight of her month, having lunch with one of her executive-like sons while indulging in her favorite meal. It made for a warm and loving afternoon. 

On the days that I took her, I would arrange to hang out for the afternoon. I'd fix a few computer problems, help her with some paperwork, and I would do a few things that my father used to do before he died. Promptly at 4:30 though, she always pulled out a bottle of gin and vermouth and declare that it was happy hour. I would make us a couple of martinis and we would toast to our good health. Well, one martini always led to two martinis and possibly three and before you realized it, I'd be tipsy, laughing and joking with her as if we were old college friends. But we were better than old friends. We were family. She was my mother and I was her son. And for those few hours I was the highlight of her life. As all good things come to an end, my mother eventually had a stroke and died. And so did  our traditions with one exception. Once a quarter, I stop in at the local Popeye's fried chicken, and enjoy a meal. Not only is it good, but it triggers my memories of the times I spent with her and the fun we had before she got sick.

George "Ace" Acevedo  10:38

Suzie Campbell has a unique take on motherhood. She discusses how what she wanted from her own life was vastly different from what her mother wanted, and how the choices of her own children are different from hers.

Suzie Campbell  10:52

The changing shape of motherhood and Suzie Campbell, a Brit living in France. My mother was an original Trad wife. It was the reason I vowed at the age of 13, to never marry and never have children. Don't get me wrong. She was a wonderful mother, one of the best, but she had too many children and no time for herself. I learned early in life about how to take care of small children. But I saw a mother who was repressed, she was tied to the home, her work was never ending. And this is what I didn't want for myself. as I've grown older, I can see that it was exactly what she wanted. I was wrong to feel sorry for her. But I was right to choose a different path for myself. 

My attitude about motherhood changed over the years because when I married in the mid 80s, I knew that I would only have two children and not eight or 10. I knew that I would have machines to wash and dry clothes and clean floors. And most importantly of all, I knew that I wouldn't give up my career. 

My daughter is a mother and a good one like my mother. But she also has a career. She's a teacher. She loves children, and would have had eight if she could have afforded to give up working. 

How things have changed for mothers in the space of three generations. I think the middle generation, mine, was probably the best time to have a family. We had enough money. We had all the modern conveniences. We had contraception, we had tax free mortgages and affordable homes. We had free education, careers, and paid maternity leave. In the 50’s women were expected to stop work as soon as they got married. My mother was offered a career of her dreams and turned it down because she just got married and was already planning a family. I worry for my daughters and my granddaughter. They are postponing motherhood. And in so doing, they are dicing with nature. But if they give in to the biological clock, they could face severe financial hardship. I could help them by dying, but I'm not ready to do that for at least another 30 years. They're gonna have to wait for their inheritance.

George "Ace" Acevedo  13:04

Jim Parton had an awkward relationship with his mother. At first, his mother had needed to make sacrifices when she married. And it wasn't until later in life that Jim's mother found the solace she had been looking for, which improved her relationship with Jim and her other children. 

Jim Parton  13:22

I have never had an easy association with Mother's Day. As a retail florist. It was an economic holiday for me and not a loving one. I wonder if the day was awkward for my mother as well. married at age 17 My mother had five children in nine years in the late 1940’s, early 50’s. She married because she had to at age 17. Thus she had five children by the age of 27. No judgment. That isn't an uncommon story. But my mother left a fairly well to do life for poverty. That had to be difficult. She left her piano and her playing behind. She left her comfortable farm home and her cheerleading in a rural Oklahoma school behind. I am sure she left her high school girlfriends behind as she became a lesson in what not to do in life. 

My father was an over the road trucker. He was 18 when they married and even in the early years he had to work long hours to support his ever growing family. My mom was at home and raising five children alone, alone with five small children almost all of the time. 

I understand how difficult it was for her. I understand how her psyche was trodden upon. I understand how she sunk into quiet desperation and depression. My father started other relationships on the road early on, she had to know that. I am sure that this added to her feelings of loss, self worth, and a very damaged image of how her life had been and what it had become. So she walked in silence. She didn't turn to drink or drugs but she retreated in work. 

When I was about four I'd already become accustomed to being very quiet around my mother, I had already learned to work very hard to make her smile, laugh or even speak. I believe my middle sister raised me more than my mother. I remember her being the most present in my life. But I became the ultimate pleaser. I constantly worked at anything to make my mother happy. There wasn't a school award that I didn't go after, and often win. Winning might make my mother happy. 

My mother also had good qualities. She never allowed us to go hungry, unkempt, or uncared for. Our ironing was done, our clothes were washed. I don't know how she produced food out of nothing, but we never went without or felt like we had nothing to eat. Even in poverty. We were never hungry. That was a parental miracle. 

She did most of her parenting in silence. My parents stayed together for 50 years. We held their 50th wedding anniversary party with a huge family gathering. The very next day my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he died about six weeks later. My mom had waited 50 years for my father to retire and spend time with her. She got six weeks. She then lived the next 20 years alone. I felt this was so unfair, but life isn't always fair is it? 

She became a granny. She had loads of grandchildren and great grandchildren all around her. She babysat, she ran the grandkid carpool and she cooked. She was happy and smiling and had a good 20 years. During that time, she kept a small herd of goats that she loved and cared for on her little acreage. Yes, she was probably lonely for my dad, but she was decidedly happier. So Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I'm glad we became friends in your later years. I'm glad I finally saw you smile and laugh and enjoy your life. You deserve that good time. For this alone. I'm always grateful.

George "Ace" Acevedo  16:38

You're listening to the Crow's Feet podcast, where we are sharing stories and memories of mom in honor of Mother's Day by many of our writers on media. This next story is from Jan M. Flynn. And it's about how her mother was forced to make an impossible decision between her mom and an insecure stepmother and how affection can sometimes be insisted upon.

Jan M. Flynn  17:11

My mixed feelings about Mother's Day probably have their roots in the stories my mother Helen told me about what Mother's Day was like for her growing up. Her own mother died in 1921 when mom was eight years old. The cause of death was never explained to her. When it became clear that my grandmother was not going to recover from whatever it was. Helen and her older sister were taken to the hospital to tell their mother goodbye. Be good. Mom's ailing mother whispered from her deathbed and don't fight with the neighbor girl. And then little Helen was led away. 

Beulah Beam Dayton, my grandmother, died a few days later. Four months after that, my grandfather married the woman who had been his late wife's nurse during her illness. In Iowa in the early 1920’s such things weren't unusual. But Helen’s stepmother, while hardworking and competent, was sensitive. She didn't take well to reminders that she wasn't the first wife. The girls learned not to talk about their dead mother. 

At the small town Methodist church they attended, Mother's Day worked like this: You wore a red carnation if your mother was alive and a white one if she wasn't. This placed nine-year-old Helen, the little girl who would be my mother, in an inescapable snare. If she wore the white carnation as she desperately wished to, she'd earn the silent but abiding resentment of the woman upon whom she depended so deeply. She could wear the red carnation, pleasing her stepmother and keeping the peace. But at the cost of abandoning her late mother's memory, driving the pain of her unexpressed grief, even deeper, not that mom ever put it that way to me. I wore the red one, she'd say but I felt bad about it.

George "Ace" Acevedo  19:04

Next, Nancy Franklin will tell us how it took a lifetime to have a different view of her mother, why she held back and how she felt about her mom, and how she finally let go of that belief.

Nancy Franklin  19:17

It wasn't that I didn't love my mother. I did. It's that I didn't respect her. I grew up in equal pay, Roe v Wade, and Title IX years. I graduated college and had a career. My mother never graduated college and was mostly a stay at home mom. We didn't have much in common. But when my father died, my mother had to create her own future. She got her pilot's license at 62 her flight instructor was in his 80s She traveled to all seven continents. She developed a fine eye for art. Some of her pieces purchased during her travels are in museums today. She was hiking and doing Pilates until two weeks before her death from cancer. The last six weeks of her life I moved in with her and cared for her. She always said I should be with my family. I always replied, I'm right where I'm supposed to be. When she died with dignity and grace, she had not only my love, but my respect. I miss her every day.

George "Ace" Acevedo  20:28

Everyone calls me Ace, and here is a story of my own. Now, this isn't about my mother. Don't  misunderstand me, I love my mother and I thought she and my dad did a great job raising six kids. She was there when it mattered, and I never felt unloved. I feel she did a good job of teaching me right from wrong and how to treat women respectfully. 

Instead, this is about my mother- in-law, Elaine. I have never met anyone with the grit and determination she showed and overcoming tremendous obstacles to raise a daughter and create a good life for herself. 

Elaine came from a small family in Northern California. She and her sister grew up in a happy household and it wasn't until she moved out and married that things turned sideways. She and her husband wanted a family but they struggled to get pregnant. After several years of trying, they made peace with the fact that they wouldn't have children. You know where this is going next. Out of the blue Elaine became pregnant with their only child. 

But tragedy struck soon after. A few months after my wife was born, her father Elaine's husband suffered a work accident that put him in a wheelchair for life. Unfortunately, it turned him into an angry and bitter person. And it wasn't long before Elaine knew that staying with him would not be good for her and her daughter. She made the extremely difficult decision to divorce him, back when society was not so accepting of a single mother. There was also the stigma of leaving a disabled man. 

Life was hard on her own. She didn't have much money, and her parents had passed, leaving her without much help. her former husband wanted nothing to do with either one of them. 

Then things became more challenging. She developed Bell's Palsy, which caused one side of her face to droop and left one eyelid unable to close. several surgeries were needed to make her eyelid work. This was followed by her apartment building catching fire, forcing her and her daughter out. This is where many people would give up, but not Elaine. 

She started by taking a full time job at Macy's while relying on her friend for childcare. She considered herself crafty, so she started making clay pins and brooches to supplement her income. If her daughter needed clothes, she made them. My wife remembers sitting with her mom clipping coupons and putting blue chip stamps into books. 

While raising a child on her own, she managed to go back to college and at the age of 44 earned a degree in education. She became a teacher, a role that lasted into retirement. She eventually saved enough to buy a nice house for cash and she began traveling the world. 

Elaine did have one final challenge. She developed lung cancer. She didn't win that battle, but it wasn't for lack of trying. What makes this more impressive to me is that my wife says she never knew her mom was struggling and that they didn't have money. She says there was always food on the table and that she never felt unloved. She also said her mother was a great role model and that her mom's determination and grit showed her and everyone how to be strong in the face of adversity. We're going to finish with a memory from Karen Valentino, who will share the one daily habit that she picked up from her mom that she continues to do throughout her own life.

Karen Valentino  24:07

And I do try. Every morning for more than 60 years since I left my mama's house to make my own way in life. I have remembered her bright, good morning, and almost every morning, I, too, give Cheerful a try.

George "Ace" Acevedo  24:35

You've been listening to the Crow's Feet podcast. We'd like to thank all of our contributors for their stories and memories. I'm George Acevedo, your host for this episode. I want to thank the Crow's Feet podcast team. Nancy Peckingham founder, Rich Halten, our sound editor and designer, Nancy Franklin, our marketing and public relations expert and the Crow's Feet writers and editors who make up our team, Lee Bench, Melinda Blau, Jean Feldeisen, Jan M. Flynn, Betsy Allen, and Jane Trombley. The Crow's Feet original theme music was composed and performed by Rand Bishop.

Voice Over  25:24

Thanks for joining us on this episode of Crow's Feet: Life as We Age. Don't miss any of our great stories. Subscribe to Crow's Feet wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to tell your friends and family to give a listen to and leave a rating or review. You can read more Crow's Feet stories online at medium.com/crow’s-feet.  So until next time, remember to savor every moment.

As Abraham Lincoln said, it's not the years in your life. It's the life in your years.