My mom and I were never close. We butted heads from the day I was born because we were polar opposites. It must have amazed my mother that such an alien creature had sprung from her. She said I knew what I wanted from day one and let it be known. Mom, on the other hand, frequently kept quiet about what she wanted. Or maybe that is my perspective as her daughter.

I don't have that luxury to ask mom certain things any longer. I must confess that I have a long laundry list of questions I would ask her if I could, but lately those questions have less to do with me and my father and more to do with her. I have given a lot of thought to the fact that she more than a mother--she was a woman first. She had sexual desires, dreams, hopes, and lovers. I wonder if she loved sex as much as I do? Did I get that from her or is it just "one of those things"? I know she was madly passionately in love with my father...asking/begging/needing him on her deathbed, but did she ever lust after anyone else? Did she want to remarry in her final years? Did she yearn for a lover's gentle touch on her face once more or was she done with all that? She was 58 when she died...so young really. She would have been 66 last week.

I know she loved to dance and so I can't help but think my love of dance might have provided a bridge between us. I didn't dance when mom was alive and didn't think I could so it never came up in conversation. We both shared a love of clothes and fashion, but we never appreciated that as a similarity. As I look objectively at my mother's life I see more similarities or imagined similarities than I imagined could have existed between us. I just wish that I had gotten to know my mother as a woman. The women mom knew the best are gone, so I guess I will just use my imagination and intuition to fill in the gaps. She was an incredibly interesting woman who was ahead of her time.

I like to think that what she wanted was this: an incredible man in her life who loved her beyond reason, an unending supply of wonderful sex, her passel of children leading happy, fulfilled lives, granddaughters who grow up strong, healthy, and well-adjusted, and a genuine friendship with her eldest daughter.

Labels: mom