I called and asked my dad the other day why he use to call my mom Mooter baum...he just laughed and said he didn't remember it was just a silly nick name.

My mom passed away 2 and 1/2 yearsago, very suddenly from a brain aneurism. She was in a nursing home due to her Bi polar and Alzheimer combination. Plus her caretaker (my dad) had been diagnosed with Emphazima   years earlier and the care taking had become to much.

The place she lived was actually helping her stabilize and she was really starting to get around and have better memory control. She was a nurse and the staff use to joke about her "bugging" them if they didn't respond quick enough to a residence call! LOL

My memories of her are very mixed. Not only some good and some bad but some so mixed up I have had to ask my older sister what is real and what is not sometimes.

Earliest memories are of her listening to the Beetles or Jesus Christ Superstar over and over...eating pudding for dinner...sitting up late at night watching horror movies with her and ordering dominoes pizza.

Some other memories a little later on was her sitting at the dinning room table that she took over for several years while completing her nursing degree. Typing on a "real" typewritter.

One disturbing memory that my sister confirmed was her spending a year on our couch in the living room. Only getting up to go to the bathroom and when we convinced her to bathe. Sometimes it was all I could do to get her to the bathtub to wash her hair. I remember during this time sitting on the floor by her and telling her about my outside world. I also remember that someone always had to be home with her. My dad changed his hours at work to be with her when we were in school.

Later memories include my middle sister who was the "difficult" child and one time she was in trouble and she was suppose to be writing down where she went so my dad would know since my mom didn't want to deal with her. My mom confronted  her trying to leave the house while I was sitting near the door she was trying to exit and my sister basically told my mom to F___ off. My mom flew in to a rage and chased my sister up stairs with me running after them both yelling for my older sister. By the time I got up there my older sister had come out of her room upstairs and ran in to the bathroom to pull my mother off my sister. She was trying to strangle her.

Later memories are when I was in my late teens and early twenties. Her sitting in the living room on my wedding day in a beautiful dress she made for herself and me in her traditional wedding gown just having a quiet moment. She and my father at the hospital when I had my first daughter since my husband was away in the military. The look of amazement on my moms face when she came down to Panama to visit us on an over seas assignment.

My final memory comes in two parts the first was the last time I saw her. She was in the nursing home and we had lunch out in the common room. She had arranged it so we could eat at a table by a bay window that overlooked flowers planted by my aunt for her and the residents. I looked at her and told her about her latest great grandson that my daughter had just had and how we would bring him up for her to see. I thought that she understood as she held my hand. She asked when dad would be there to see her. I gave her a hug and a kiss and said he would be there soon. I looked back at the flowers as I left and smiled because I felt that she was actually at peace with her illness. The second part was the last time I talked to her on the phone. I would call the nursing station and they would go get her and bring her down to the phone. Sometimes we would talk about the old days and my sisters and father or her grand-babies. Other times she would talk mostly about the residence and staff there. The thing is... I can't remember what we talked about the last time. It really bothered me for awhile. For some reason I felt like I had to know, I had to remember...then I realized what I said last. "I love and miss you mommy".

and yes, I am bawling like a baby right now...I love and miss you mommy! Happy Mothers Day!