Dorothy Mae NeSmith Standridge...

...was my mother. She died on this day in 1975, one week before my 12th birthday.

I apologize for the quality of the pictures. The one on the left was a very small photo I have that is less than 2" x 2" in size and it was in really bad shape. I have done my best to clean it up. The one on the right wasn't much bigger, but it was at least in better physical condition. She was very pretty I think. The left photo has always been my favorite picture of her.

Momma was born on March 10, 1930. I don't know what date the picture on the left was taken, but I figure she was probably in her early twenties. The nursing picture was her graduation picture after she became an LPN. I think she went back to school after I was born, so I figure it was taken in the early to mid-60s.

After all these years, I still think of her often. I have moved back out to the "country" to family property and the little country church where she and my Daddy are buried is just down the road about a quarter of a mile. When the weather is nice, we walk the dogs down past the church. So I am reminded of her every time we go by.

Sometimes I hear friends talking about doing things with their mother; talking to her on the phone, going to visit her at Christmas, etc, and I am so envious. But sometimes I'm not. I'll explain in a moment. I dream of Momma sometimes. Usually it's a "present day" kind of dream, not something from the past, and she still looks just like she did when I was 11. I suppose my imagination just won't let me age her.

Momma died of pancreatic cancer. It was angonizing but swift. From diagnosis to death was less than 5 months, which encompassed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and pretty much my birthday. Suffice it to say, it was many, many years before the holiday season was anything but miserable for me. It's just been in the very last few years that I've actually started to look forward to Christmas again. Thank you, Len.

For the last few years of Momma's life, everything in our world was in turmoil. She and my Daddy had been in the throes of a divorce for several years. They never did get the papers signed before Momma got sick.

When I found out Momma had cancer, I had just started the 6th grade, new school, all new classmates. I remember praying and praying and begging God to please not take her. I tried bargaining, promising, pleading. My Ma (Momma's mother) was what you would call a "Holy Roller." She was a very Godly woman, went to the evangelical church down the road every time the doors were open, and talked to God just like He was sitting at the kitchen table. She and I prayed together about it many, many times and I think I really believed that Momma was going to get better, for a while. And I kept believing that up until just a few weeks before she died. By that time, she had been in the hospital for over two months. I went to see her every day. By February, I knew it was hopeless. And was I pissed. God was on my shit-list. And He stayed there for a very long time. Even though I continued going to church, got baptized, sang in the choir, did the youth group thing, did all those other things you are "supposed" to do, inside I was railing against Him. I was in the church, but it wasn't in me. It was just a social function.

Luckily, I got over that phase of my life. Of course, it was about 1998 before I did. Thank you, Church of the Good Shepherd, Episcopal. Story for another day.

Now let me explain why sometimes I'm not jealous of others with (living) mothers. For the last couple of years before Momma died, she was very sick with pancreatitis. I don't know if this led to the cancer or it was just coincidental. Who knows? But because she was very physically ill, I think she was mentally ill. Sometimes I wonder if she was really mentally ill first and that led to her physical problems, although not necessarily the cancer. I have always believed that physical health and mental health are very closely linked. As an adult, I can look back on things that happened and I wonder if Momma really was mentally ill. I don't know anyone who is bipolar, but I've read about it over the years. There were days where she was just as happy and normal as anyone, but there were also black days. About a year before she was diagnosed, I walked into her bedroom and found her sitting in her bathroom holding a loaded revolver threatening to kill herself. I ran. She didn't. If she hadn't gotten cancer, would she have gotten help? Would she have killed herself anyway? I don't know. But I do believe that things happen for a reason. After Momma died, I was raised by my paternal grandparents. By this time my Daddy worked for a company based in Virginia and he was on the road working. I graduated 4th in my senior class and eventually graduated from college (with a marriage and a baby thrown in the middle of that). I was the only child of Dorothy and Neal to graduate from 4-year college. As a matter of fact, I was the first person in my immediate family all the way back beyond my grandparents to graduate from college.

How different would life have been if Momma had lived? I don't know. How good has my life been since she died? Very. And although I don't usually say it out loud, I think the way it all happened was for the best. I love my Momma and I miss her terribly, but I'm afraid that my life would have been very, very different (and not in a good way) if she had not died when I was 11 years old. I am not, and never have been, happy about her death, but I am always thankful to God that my life has become what it is.

Life is good.

I have worked on this post for about a week, trying to get it just right. I still don't think it is, but it is what it is. Momma was a beautiful, loving, smart, caring mother. She had problems. Don't we all? She did her best in the few years she had and that was enough. I look forward to seeing her again one day. It will be a great reunion.