My Beautifully Imperfect Mom

Laurie Taylor

It’s been fourteen years since I sat by my mother’s bedside as she drew her last breath. I was exhausted after sitting vigil with her for five days. I was especially physically and emotionally spent after losing my dad to Alzheimer’s exactly two weeks prior. They were both on hospice but their lives had become very different. Dad lay in a fetal position with vacant eyes and a mind that was void of the brilliance and clarity that made him who he was. He had already left us and all that remained was the shell in which he had lived for 79 years.

Mom, on the other hand, was still the Energizer Bunny until four days earlier when she suddenly lapsed into a coma. She was still racing down the hallways of the skilled nursing center in her wheelchair visiting residents who, in her opinion, needed love and companionship. She was still calling me several times a day even though she had lost most of her hearing and refused to wear her hearing aids. Our conversations were short . . . and loud. 

My mom and I couldn’t have been more different. She was very extroverted and was happy to be the center of attention. She was always on the go and could never visit enough Dollar stores or eat enough Church’s chicken or beef lo mien. She had to drop out of school in the tenth grade because World War 2 brought financial hardship. She was born and raised in inner city Washington, D.C. where her mom, my grandmother, worked her entire life as a custodian in the Library of Congress.

Two years before she died, my mom wrote the story of her life and gave it to me for Christmas. My heart broke as I read the secrets she had kept in her heart all those years. She would hide in the bathroom at lunchtime because her mom had no money to buy food to send with her for lunch and she didn’t want anyone to know. The soles of the one pair of shoes she got each year would get holes in them so she would use masking tape to make new soles. She never had a birthday cake because several aunts and uncles lived in her mom’s home and there wasn’t enough money to make a cake for every child so none of them got one. 

When she was eight, she watched as her best friend was grabbed, thrown into a car that sped away and was never seen again. She lived in fear that it would happen to her, too. She longed for a father, but her alcoholic dad abandoned the family when she was two weeks old. Years later, she learned that he lived on the streets of D.C. as his alcoholism grew out of control and mental illness consumed him. I realized this was why she always let us know what a wonderful father we had and how he always put us first.

My mom wasn’t the perfect mom. She carried baggage from her childhood that changed who she was. She always felt “less than” the other moms and tried so hard to fit in. She battled mental illness that often controlled her actions and decisions. In the midst of all the chaos and misunderstandings, she never failed to tell me that she loved me and was proud of me. 

As a child and even into adulthood, I dreamed that she would one day become the mom that my imagination had created. When she died, my imaginary mom died with her. I’m so grateful that I had already come to understand that she did the best she could and she gave me all she had to offer. 

On this Mother’s Day I honor my beautifully imperfect, loving mom and thank her for being the best mom she could be.