I am 56 and that post almost fits me to a tee. Throw out the military school although I had been threatened with many, many times. My mom knew how to beat more than she showed affection. Growing up getting smacked when I said something she didn't like. She used to take me in the basement to beat me so the neighbors wouldn't hear me yelling. Mother of Moses, Joseph and Mary she would go off on my ass from the lower back to back of my knees. Marks these days would put a parent under the jail. That screws with a kids head man!My Mom didn’t really know how to show love, hell I never thought she even liked me when I was growing up and most of my adult life. I found out when I was an adult that my grandfather was a mean SOB to her when she was growing up. I had already known she got hit by a car when she was 16, that plus the way she was treated is probably why she was the way she was. If it wasn’t for my Dad & my Grandparents I probably wouldn’t be here to tell it. I became a rowdy little bastard at about 12, that’s why I got shipped off to a military school for two years (‘71-‘73). Even though it did a world of good for me I sure as hell didn’t believe it at the time. Lol! Fortunately though my Mom and I reconnected when I was 58 and had a year and a half of some pretty decent times. When she was diagnosed with stomach & bladder cancer that had spread to her lungs in April of ‘18, her doctors gave her one freakin’ week to live. I brought her home with me and we had 7 really good days of laughs and good times, we grilled some steaks, she had an all meat pizza and hamburgers and chicken and ice cream, she had been a vegetarian for decades! Her two sisters, her friends and my cousins came down to see her and she had a blast, I even convinced her Trump wouldn’t destroy the world starting with the elderly, she was a whack a doodle waaaaaaaay left wing nutcase with a bad case of TDS but I think I got through to her at least a little.Seven really good days, then my wife and I helped her up off the couch that last night before she went unconscious for three days and she hugged us both real tight for a long time and just smiled said she loved us. Her last words to me were “I love you, I always have and I’m proud of the man, the father and husband you’ve become.“ That right there to me is the single greatest compliment a Mom could ever give to her son. I loved her too and now I miss her something awful. God I am so grateful for that time with her that last year and a half of her life, she passed quietly with my wife and I with her ten days after I brought her home from St. Joseph’s hospital.
Sorry bout that y’all. Just feeling a little nostalgic lately. Turning 65 has had me thinking a lot about how my life has turned out for some reason, all the friends and family that’s already died. I’m just floored at how fast the time has gotten away from me. My sons are both over 40 now, WTF happened?!?! At least I’ve always had a good relationship with my boys except when they were about 16-18 and thought they knew it all. Lol! I’m proud of the men they’ve become though, my oldest lives in LaGrange and my youngest lives in Navarre Fla. but I hear from them often and my oldest comes by every couple of weeks so he can get some of Momma’s home cookin’ and visit a while. My youngest and I are always trading memes back and forth on the phone, he comes up with some funny **** too.
