This past week was Mum's birthday. March 12. 
She was born in Alamosa, Co in 1926, on a ranch that had belonged to the family for many years. When her grandfather died, the ranch had to be sold to pay bills, taxes, etc. and her father became a hired hand on the place that he had grown up on. I don't know that he ever got over that. But into the small shack house for workers he moved his wife and young daughters.
Space and food were limited, the girls were farmed out to other family members as needed. Kind family, that had to help. 
She married a young man, an officer in the Army Air Corps, straight out of high school. She always said that she didn't love him...but I don't believe that. 
They were together a very short time, she and Gene Asay, before he was called up for service in WWII. He was killed in a training mission. I've read passages from a memory book compiled by Gene's family and all accounts from people talked of his lovely young bride, pale and weak with grief. She, in later years, would tell me, when I finally discovered him, that she used him as a means to get off of the ranch and nothing more. I still don't believe it. It was how she looked when she talked about him...it was the fact that she didn't talk about him, that I never knew about this man my mother had been married to until I was in the 6th grade and accidentally found a stash of photos, letters, small mementos. He was a handsome guy, he had a kind face, the kind that new that unkindness existed in the world but wasn't going to give it power over him. All those farm kids in the depression era, they all knew about hard times and hard people. 
My siblings dad, my dad...no, she probably didn't love them.But who knows. 
Mom worked for the state departments, the military, the state park system...
We moved alot. She was always looking for the place to call home. THAT place. 
When she and my father were divorced for the 2nd time, we moved to WA. I'll never forget that night, the one I learned this. We had been looking in Northern Ca, where we lived, and we'd been looking in Missouri and Iowa. But she came into the living room and handed me a map of WA and told me that she thought we needed to move there. 
I was the map kid. I still am. I love maps. I would read them over, memorize them, copy them, plan out routes, add up miles, check elevations...I do the same now, except that when i actually get out on the road, I put it away and just go on instinct. Must be all those years of orientating myself.
Anyway, she handed me the map, gave me the general area and turned me loose to get to know the area. My sister had been living in Graham WA for awhile, and we'd been up for visits, so the locale wasn't unfamiliar entirely. I already knew i loved it. But those names, omiheck.
Puyallup. That was a fun one to work on. Nope, wasn't even close. Then we got here and saw names such as Stilliguamish, Nooksack, Skookumchuck, Nisqually, Chehalis, etc. 
Love it. I love those names. They roll and trip off my tongue now, old familiar friends. 
We sold stuff, we packed, we moved. 
And i found home, for the first time in my life. 
But that's another story.
When Mom died, just there with me, just as she would...the biggest thing that hit me was the awareness that we each experience the same happening differently. That people are different to each of us. Maybe it had been there in my head already, but in talking with the others in the days after, I realized clearly that we each had a different mom. She was unique to each of us in how she parented, loved, punished, taught...We each saw her differently, and it was frustrating at first. It became very interesting for me once I realized how silly it was that we were upset with each other for different feelings about things. 
Mom was a dreamer, a pragmatist. She was a writer, an artist, a free soul who couldn't sing, couldn't dance(St Vitus Dance as a child had damaged her nervous system). She loved music, nature, esp the mountains and sea. She needed a man who could let her be all the different parts of herself with feeling threatened, and I'm not sure that she ever found him. She was a glamorous vixen, a plumber, electrician, carpenter. She was a high heeled lady who raced Corvairs. 
I wish that my younger daughter could have known her. 
I saw a woman who held on to her heart and emotions so tightly, determined to never be hurt again. 
I saw a woman who should have been cherished, but wouldn't allow it. 
I admire my mum in so many ways...but that one. And that's okay. 
That's all. Just some thoughts about her. Lovely Eileen McCallum. 
I miss you, Mum. Every damn day. Sometimes, it hurts. I just want you to hold me and let me feel taken care of for a moment. I hope whatever you were needed for in such an allfire hurry was worth it. 
love you always ~

Rihanna

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