JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I have a confession to make. Despite having three kids and getting a steady stream of school-made crepe paper bouquets, hand-drawn cards (Ross was in charge of wrangling this project) and dollar store gifts wrapped in tissue, I always feel a little bit like an imposter when I'm receiving Mothers Day benisons.
Because, of course, for me, Mothers Day was about my own mother, Lois Fleming. I had college and grad school years where I made reverse-charge phone calls, and young mother years where I sent too-expensive gifts because I was guilty I didn't call enough. In the last decade or so before my Mom died, we fell into a good rhythm - I had a wonderful local florist deliver little potted gardens that she could grow indoors, and we talked multiple times a week.
I loved my mom and she drove me crazy. She assumed raising me gave her a lifelong permission slip to let me know when my hair, weight and child-rearing techniques were wrong. She saw my potential always; when I was a distracted teen not getting the grades I should and when I was wondering if I might be a writer. She was my fiercest advocate, pushing my books on everyone and anyone, and she was also the Queen of Passive Aggression, who reminded me on at least eighty occasions about the one time I forgot to send her one of my author copies and she had to buy the book herself. In the style of Catholic saints' days, my brother and sister would call her Lois Fleming, Mother and Martyr.
She was ridiculously funny, kind of a cross between Carol Burnett and Joan Rivers, and my sister and I can still crack each other up by referencing one of her jokes or making one of her faces. She would also say things that literally left me crying after I hung up the phone.
I once said Enough, with Ross's encouragement, and didn't speak to her for six months.
My sister brokered a peace, and we all met up for a weekend at my house. Mom brought her favorite Finger Lakes wine, and we all pretended nothing had happened, and after that, we fell right back into being friends again.
She was widowed, remarried, divorced, and back living in her own mothers house with three kids by the time she was 34. She never let us kids realize how poor we were in those years before she married a third time, and despite having to go most of a winter driving with the windows open because she couldn't afford to fix the defroster, she banked every single Social Security Survivors check that came for me - so when it was time for college, I could get two degrees, take internships and study abroad with zero debt, because that money was there for me.
She taught anyone who would listen about pinching pennies, saving and investing - my oldest credits her Grammy's advice for enabling her to buy a house by herself at 29. She and dad sent generous checks for birthdays and Christmas and nothing else despite their wealth, a policy that was both liberating and frustrating. Some of their kids suffered real hardships that could have been avoided.
On the other hand, she wouldn't spend the money on herself, either, despite urging from her children. When I helped dad clear out her closets, I found six unopened bottles of shampoo she had gotten buy-one-get-one-free plus a fifty percent off coupon.
My parents had eight kids between them, and left us all a very generous sum when dad passed away last year. I wish I had less, and that she had taken one more Caribbean cruise and one more trip to Europe.
She died suddenly and unexpectedly of a stroke, en route from DC, where my brother and sister live, to her home in upstate NY. Her three children and two of her grandkids were there. My sister and I sat on either side of the bed and held her hands and told her she looked great, despite the ventilator. Appearances mattered a lot to her, and even on her deathbed, her hair, makeup and manicure were impeccable. She would have liked that.
My mom drove me crazy, and I loved her. I miss her - the real person she was, flawed and fabulous - and I hope I make as good use of my time on earth as she did.
Happy Mothers Day, Mom.
