Can't help wondering what could have been. It happens every year. Today would have been my mother's birthday, she'd be 71.
If, if, if, I play this game with myself where I go back to a random time in our lives - hers and mine. I pull her out of her picture and insert her into mine. I say, "If she was sober she would have loved to be part of this with me."�
Today, she's been gone (dead) for almost 20 years but she's still very vivid in my head. I can still hear her�laugh and�the smell of her Emerade perfume mixed with hairspray and cigarettes. That look in her�eyes that always made me feel sorry for her, guilty for everything that made her unhappy.��The way she'd hold her cigarette or�break a new piece of gum in half. The sound of ice clinking in her glass when she'd call me too late at night just to ask me something that would always lead to an argument. How she danced. That she was shorter than me. How she looked with those curlers she put in her hair every single night. How she called her mother "Mama".�Her "I love you" only spoken through�a drunken slur.�The sound of her purse snapping shut, her keys in her hand and the ring she always wore on her pinkie. She was so pretty but she didn't think so. She got alot of attention from men but she always chose the worst to bring home. She cried often, I rememer what that sounded like too.
If she were sober and here now I'd love to have her with me everyday to do all the simple things my days are full of. We'd have coffee together in the morning, we'd go shopping for our groceries together just like we did every Saturday when I was a kid. I'd take her to the mall and we'd have lunch and shop till we were exhausted. I'd make my spaghetti sause for her, not quite like hers but I know she'd love it. We'd watch old movies and cry - then laugh at ourselves. She'd love being with my kids and be so proud of all they've done with themselves. She'd get on a plane and go see her grandaughter in Portland because she'd want to see what its like for her up there. She'd go check out my son's office, so proud to be introduced as his Grandma Carolyn. I know she'd be at every one of the football games to see our baby play for only a minute or two, because she'd want him to know she was proud of him. She'd be thrilled with Danny because - because he is thrilling! His life is full and she'd be constantly wanting to hear his latest escapade. I'd help her clean her house and she'd iron my pillowcases. We'd do everything and nothing together. We'd go for walks downtown and sit in�my yard watching�the flowers grow. I'd go to her first when I needed someone to listen and she'd be the first I told when I got my job with Pam.
What could have been might have been like that, might have been different we'll never know so I might as well have it as sweet as sugar. This is my story now, I'll tell it my way.
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