Fallsnewspress.com - On The Mark: Mother's Day: not so happy for many

by Dorothy Markulis, reporter

Mother's Day, like being a mother, is a mixed blessing.

For many, Mother's Day is a pleasant walk through lifelong memories. For others, it is a wistful look back at what might have been. And for some, it is a series of painful recollections.

For those who want to become mothers, but cannot, the day is a painful reminder of a dream they cannot fulfill.

Depending on one's situation, even the selection of a Mother's Day greeting card presents a dilemma.

If you had a super mom, finding a card with enough heart-felt sentiment is an impossible task. Nothing is good enough to express your admiration and gratitude.

But if you had an absent or dysfunctional mother, finding a card bland enough, without all those superlatives about caring and loving, is a harder chore.

I know someone who was raised by a cold, distant and selfish woman. That person has no memory of ever being hugged or kissed by mother. How do you find a card to honor that mom?

My mom died more than a decade ago.

I had a difficult childhood. Mother's Day still conjures up many awful memories of growing-up years marred by alcoholism, even though that time was long, long ago.

But in honor of Mother's Day, I'm going to skip the bad stuff and remember only the good stuff.

Maybe some of you with less than ideal childhoods will do the same and it will provide you some comfort.

Mom was unique.

To this day, I love a rain storm because of her.

When it was thundering and lightning she'd turn the couch around to face the front window so we kids could watch the lightning display. She would ooh and aah at each celestial strike.

I love classical music.

Mom played Swan Lake and the Nutcracker Suite all the time. The year before she died I took her to Cleveland, in a blinding snowstorm, to finally see the Nutcracker ballet that she wanted to see her entire life.

I like to try new things.

Mom got her driver's license at age 60.

I arranged for us to take tap dancing lessons together when she was 70, because it was something she always wanted to do.

I love birthdays and birthday parties.

Every year, mom would bake me a birthday cake and I would get some small gift.

One year mom baked a cake for a boy I was dating. I bought some little trinkets for my sibs to give him and we sang "Happy Birthday." He told me later it was his first birthday party. He was 18.

I've always been a pretty confident person, maybe because I had to grow up so fast as the oldest of four children.

But maybe, just maybe, it was because my mom never ridiculed me, even when she wasn't sober. And if others picked on me, for one thing or another, my mother would always say it was because they were jealous of me.

It's hard to have low self-esteem with that kind of backing.

I try to make the best of bad situations.

In the hospital, the day before she died, after mom was told by doctors she would be confined to bed for the rest of her life, she asked me if I could teach her to crochet so she would have something new to do.

I love you, mom.

May each of you have at least one pleasant mom memory to sustain you on this Mother's Day.

E-mail: dmarkulis@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3143