If My Mom Were A Blogger…
One of the writing prompts I received in my inbox today was: “If My Mom Were a Blogger” which caught my interest because I think about all the things she’s missed all the time. She didn’t live to see the blogging boom as she passed away in July of 2000. The internet was in full swing, actually it was the height of the “dot-com” craze, things like digital cameras were becoming common accessories, I had one that was 4 megapixels. This was eleven years ago…
Since then she has missed a lot of things: the internet bubble bursting, 9/11, my promotion, my wedding, the birth of her grandkids and my brother getting his MBA, to name just a few. She had so many interests: flower arranging, music, travel, her friends, her looks, dating, cooking, entertaining, crafting, and us kids. It’s so hard to say what she would have focused on.
She could have dedicated an entire blog to her boyfriends and suitors. She was tall, blonde, outgoing and single. She was looking for someone to share her life with but with 2 teenage kids, it was not easy, and we certainly did not make her boyfriends feel welcome. I’m sure she would have had post after post about her misadventures in dating as a single mom and the hell her 2 kids put her through.
This was all before internet dating remember. She used to meet propective boyfriends via friends, blind dates or New Yorker personal ads. Some of them were normal, some were crazeeee. I had nicknames for ALL of them*: Captain America, The BugMan, Duck Lips, Mr. Wonderful and so on and so on. I was a total pain in the ass, my brother was worse and I have no idea why she put up with us. Combined with her sense of humor and total bad luck it would have made for blogging gold. (*There were some sweethearts, who were good to her and us, they know who they are.)
Or she might have written about her battle with cancer. Her on-again off-again war with breast cancer and other tumors. She had cancer FOUR times. Who gets cancer four times?!? She’d have had a lot to say and her sense of humor would have resonated with other survivors and patients. She befriended everyone she met at treatments and was famous with the nurses for being a good sport and “real”. She put doctors on the spot and made them work to keep her alive, which she demanded. But she didn’t like having cancer define who she was, in fact she resented it, so maybe she would not have written about that. She never acted like a cancer victim even though in the end it did nab her. She fought bravely and courageously and only really got pissed off when she heard she was going to have chemo and lose her hair. That was her vanity peeking through, not that you could blame her… But then of course, she rocked the “going bald” look, the “wig” look and the “curly hair growing back” in look.
She could have done a blog about flower arranging, a passion of hers along with gardening and entertaining. She drove 45 minutes once a week to take a class on the subject. The random group of women she met became life-long friends and she called them “The Flower Girls.” She had names for all the different groups of friends she met along her life… and she was a magnet for interesting people and experiences; she could’ve blogged about them all. You would’ve loved it!
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When someone dies it’s very easy to idolize them.
Sometimes, they become bigger in death than they were in real life. I’m trying to avoid that here on my own blog when talking about my mom. In fact, I’ve drafted a couple of articles that talk about all the things she totally messed up on and how I would love to have it out with her now. I find it extremely inconvenient that she’s not here for me to scream at sometimes.
She was very human and knew that made mistakes along the way. Her key to life was that eventually she owned her mistakes and always tried to do better. I think she would have shared that in her blog. In fact, I think that would have been her tagline.
So while I can’t blog for her and all the amazing things that happened to her I can keep our dialogue going and honor the conversations we might’ve had. Hope you’ll continue to join me on this online journey.
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