Cigarettes and coffee for breakfast

 My Mother was a conundrum. She could be a stern taskmaster and incredibly loving and kind. She had remarkable patience.

Mom was a hard worker. When I was a kid she sewed to bring in extra money. I can still remember lying in bed and hearing the sewing machine purring on and off in the next room late into the night. She made most of my shirts until she took an outside the home job when I went into middle school.

Mom did not drink alcohol. I can remember seeing her drink only a couple of times in my life. She drank copious amounts of coffee and had a Coke on hand every waking hour. And she smoked cigarettes. Lots of cigarettes. My mother woke in the night to have a cigarette. I would venture there was a lit cigarette almost constantly in the brown metal ashtray she always used, especially when I was younger.

There was never anyone better at organizing. She was active in the community. She was the ultimate room mother and PTO president. She put the Boy Scout Troop’s accounting books in order and later, when Dad was the treasurer of the Masonic Temple, it was Mom who really did the bookkeeping.

She loved animals and could never ignore a stray cat, often “just giving it water”. Then it was food and the next thing you knew she had yet another pet.

While she could be demanding, she had high standards for herself. She expected to be perfect and wanted everyone around her to be too. My mother had perfect handwriting. She was ever annoyed at my scrawl.

Mom also had a great sense of humor. I remember dad coming home from work furious. She packed his lunch and one day left the cellophane on his cheese sandwich as a joke. She even put on the lettuce and mustard. The guys at the lunch table found it funnier than he did.

Mom could bake a pie. She won awards for her apple pie. Her black raspberry pie was famous in the family. She always baked me a peach pie for every Christmas and Thanksgiving because she knew it was my favorite.

Mom could fight like a lioness to protect her kids. Her punishments were often harsh. She was slow to forgive. She was full of love.

Mom was complicated. I miss her. Today is her birthday. She would have been 82.