Orphan

While I will surely have much more to say about this, and not all of it very kind, it bears mentioning that among the reasons I have posted so little here of late is the passing of my mother.

It hasn't been even a few weeks since the news hit and I am still not all that sure what to think of it all.

Nobody in my family, including my mother, liked nor had a great relationship with, my mother. So it would follow that there have been a great deal of feelings and emotions associated with milestone in a person's life. However, there was one person who truly adored her, even though he was tormented by her and found himself hating her for a great deal of his own life. That person was my dad.

Today, February 4th, was their wedding anniversary. They were married 36 years by the time dad passed back in 1993. Mom spent a lot of time since his death crying, rewriting their history, and genuinely being conflicted by the feelings she had over his loss. She knew that the family was held together by a common LOVE for my dad. She also knew that while there was a common feeling among all involved for her, it was not an overwhelming amount of love. Tough for any person to take, even if that person knew exactly what she did to deserve less than flowers and rainbows on Mothers Day.

With all that being said, through it all, my dad loved my mother. He endured her drug abuse, her alcoholism, her infidelities, and her constant and repeated overspending via credit cards all because he LOVED her so very, very much.

None of us ever knew what he saw in her that kept him so dedicated. He'd merely tell us that he loved her. None of us ever really got to see the person he knew was in there somewhere, that person he fell for so deeply, that person he met long before there were kids and mortgages to worry about. All we knew was that he loved her.

At times we all loved mom. All kids love their mother to some degree. However, as the news came that her time was running out, we all knew that the person who would have shed the most tears for her died back in 1993.

With time being the most effective healer of all wounds I am certain that there will be more good feelings, more fond memories, and more reasons to feel a sense of loss. I have tried to focus on the best of times and let the bitterness and cynicism wash away, knowing that there will always be a caveat or two when I think of my mom and her life. I am certain I'll share more as time goes on, either to vent or to heal in some way. People need to know the rest of the story so they can understand the whys and the wherefores with regard to how the four Martello children dealt with her illness and death. For now, the biggest sadness is that I never knew, nor will I ever know, the beautiful woman that my father loved so much.