Cheryl

Sitting down to write this blog post about my mom is not how I would choose to spend this rainy, cold, heavy-hearted Saturday in November; just 5 days since my mom passed away.  But I will do it, and get it posted as soon as I can, because I know that she’s looking for it from above.  She loved to read my mamamooregon blog, and share it with her friends. She told me this all of the time.  “Kathy, you’re such a good writer!”  She would scroll back through old posts, telling me of her favorites on here.  I don’t actually think that my ability to do a post was what she admired.  I think that what she was really saying was that she enjoyed reading my posts because it’s where she could reap what she sowed as a mother, and brag about her family…that she loved more than anything.  So, here goes…..

My mom was a mom at her core.  Mothering was her greatest accomplishment and greatest joy in life.  She gave birth to the 4 of us kids within a 4 ½ year time span.  She always said that looking back, those years with kids at her feet were her favorite.  We were always her priority, and we knew it; felt it.  She kept our faces clean with a swipe and a rub of her big thumb with her saliva as the cleaning agent.  We sure hated that.  As adults, my mom would always tell us how much she loved that the 4 of us kids actually like each other and would choose to spend time together.  This made her most proud.  She loved seeing us being both siblings and friends.  As a mom, I now totally get it.   This was truly a gift that she treasured.

 She was the kind of mom that all of our friends thought to be ‘so cool’.  She had an open door policy on our house, and it thrilled her that our house was the house where everyone would hang out.  I now know why it was that way--my mom made everyone feel welcome and was happy to accommodate another dinner plate or two for whichever friend happened to be there at meal time. Things were easy at the Slater household.  It felt like home to everybody.

 On my 13^th birthday, my mom even loaded all of my slumber party friends into our van and drove us to the next neighborhood so that we could T.P. our Social Studies teacher’s house.  “Coolest mom ever!” everyone proclaimed.  As a mom, she was always supportive rather than judgmental or rigid.  As teenagers, she never gave us a curfew, but rather trusted us to show good judgment.  I think that her easy going style of parenting is what ultimately kept all of us out of trouble…we would never do anything to break the trust that we had, and we knew that our mom had 100% faith in us and our decisions.  It was a magical combination.

My mom was fun.  She was also quite funny.  Although often times her jokes were borderline inappropriate, she loved to laugh and make others laugh.  She loved the simple pace of everyday life (“nothing fancy!”), and was always beyond generous to others.  She really was full of love.  She made the best clam chowder around.  She loved her animals.

My mom was rich with friendships.  She always would say “I have so many friends!” and yes, she did.  Friends from her childhood, friends from her neighborhood, friends from bunco, friends from work, friends from the grocery store, friends from online, friends from everywhere.  Cheryl was the kind of person who could be friends with just about anyone.  She was open to others and always gave people the benefit of the doubt, and welcomed them in.  As rich as she was with friends and being with them, my mom was also very comfortable with her alone time, and ‘putzing’ around the house.  She loved it when she actually didn’t have to go out to get anything for the day.  It was like a little victory to her, as she loved to stay put and “see what the day might bring.”

My mom was not perfect; in fact there were some things about her that drove us kids crazy over the years.  Her inability to have her picture taken (“I don’t know how to smile!”), her constant worry about her hair looking bad, how she planned things by verbalizing them out loud (“I am going to go fold the laundry, then I will get dinner started!”), how she would leave the dishwasher hanging open and the water running in the sink for no good reason, her smoking, her dance moves, how she would shake tons of salt on her food before tasting it, her uncanny ability to show up early to every single event, her lack of smooth social graces at times, the list could go on.  But those were all things that made Cheryl, Cheryl.  It’s funny how those annoyances quickly become treasures to our memory.  I can hear her voice in all of the above.

My mom joined Facebook, and she sure had fun connecting with people on there.  Sister Susie and I had made a pact that we wouldn’t friend her because we feared what she might write with her comments.  Well, eventually Susan caved, and accepted her friend request.  My mom was always the first to post/comment on her wall, and often times we would call or text each other and just cringe at what mom had just typed.  It drove my mom crazy, but I held strong and never would accept her friend requests.  She would jokingly give me grief about it all the time.  (Just so you know mom, even with your passing I didn’t rush to suddenly accept your request.  That would have made you so mad.)  I’ll leave that one pending.  Forever.

 My mom died much too soon, and I know that she didn’t want to die yet.  There were places to go, grandchildren to love, jokes to tell, friends to visit.  She was so angry that pancreatic cancer had found her-- but she was ready for the fight.  She always had a fear in the back of her mind about this awful disease, because her father died from it nearly 45 years ago.  One of my mom’s favorite things to say, that she echoed from granny, was that “all will be as intended.”   I don’t think that this is what she agreed to when she said those words.  She intended to do a lot more living.  She will be missed.