My mother was a piece of work — brilliant, born in the wrong time, emotionally wounded, and kind. My dad stayed out of the way and supported us with his solid, unwavering presence. But my mother, with her invasive curiosity, almost pathological capacity for empathy, and demand for excellence, even while passing on her sense of inadequacy and deficiency, shaped the outlines of my character. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to color inside those lines. I miss her greatly.
I don’t care who you are or what your feelings about your mother are, your umbilical link to her still remains. If she’s still alive, reach out. If she has passed, shed a quiet tear for all the things you left unsaid. This is her day. You wouldn’t be here without her.
Thanks for this Ken. I just sent it to my son, who’s adopted, and has a difficult relationship with his birth mom. I’m hoping he reaches out to her, even if it’s just in his heart, just a little. With love, James
Yes I have thoughts of my parents , my mother, both positive and negative. But it’s true I wouldn’t be here without them so I’m totally indebted to them. Also , no one is perfect in this world. We must only look at ourselves and know. I went to my mother’s grave yesterday and put a pot of “hen and chicks” on her grave as I do each year and told her I love her. I do miss her. I think she only wanted us eight children to love her as she sacrificed so much. She wasn’t given the credit she was due. Sometimes I cry and the pain is great that I must ask Wakan Tanka, God, the Great Spirit to forgive me and bring some sense of peace. Mothers are often under appreciated. I Love You Mom.
Yes, your mom WAs difficult in some ways, but she was just great! She was much loved and you were a good son!
I had two mothers: one who bore me and one who raised me. I didn’t know about birth mom until she was in her 90s. Turns out I have siblings. We are growing closer as time passes. The mom who raised me (my “real” mom) did the best she could, which, it turns out, was pretty damn good.
I remember your mother very well, Kent. She would get frustratred at times, and I had the feeling she wanted more of a career than being a mother. She worked for a local paper for a while — at least this is what I remember — and she seemed really happy and challenged by the work. She was probably as intelligent as her son, which is saying a lot.
My mother, Violet Palm, was born in the woods up along the Canadian border in rural Roseau County, Minnesota on May 17, 1909. She was raised in a two-story log house which her father ‘Willie’ built for his wife Annie Berg and family, with no indoor plumbing or electricity, in Palmville Township, so named after her grandfather and grandmother, Louis & Ingegerd Palm, both Swedish immigrants, as the first homesteaders in 1895. Oldest of six children, Violet was born a natural micro-manager, and I think, her father’s favorite as she was fun-loving, dependable, and very hard-working all her life.
She met Guy Reynolds, in October of 1928, who was nursing a broken-heart he had incurred in Illinois as the story goes. Hoping to mend it by working hard, he and a friend began working the harvests north from Texas, ending up to work on the same farm Violet was working at in Osnabrock, North Dakota. She was 19. Guy was 23.
Violet was the threshing camp cook and cooked 3-meals a day, with help, for upwards of 40 hard-working men; she was of Norwegian/Swedish ancestry and proud of it; English was her second language. Willie, her father, was the steam engine engineer and her oldest brother Raymond was the fireman; this was the trio’s third year working for this North Dakota farm family during wheat harvest.
Smitten by the small but lovely raven-haired Violet, Guy’s feigned dismissal of her cooking one afternoon brought immediate color to her cheeks — and very likely her language, as she wasn’t afraid to mix it up with man nor beast alike when it came to somebody hurting her pride; you just didn’t do that. ‘Fierce’ doesn’t begin to describe it. However, Guy, also unafraid to mix it up with man nor beast, proposed to her a few days later and she accepted. They were married in Des Moines, Iowa, in March of 1929, eventually becoming parents to three girls and a boy over the span of 1930-1951, and married for 53 years until her death with an enlarged heart at 73, in 1982.
I was given the opportunity to say goodbye to my mother, as her health was failing. Everyone was called in to be with her at the end. I arrived last, as I had the farthest to travel being from up north. Arriving at the hospital I was forewarned of her condition and encouraged to stay strong. When I opened the door, everybody was visibly astonished to see her sitting on the edge of the bed reading the newspaper, acting as though nothing was different in her world. Looking at her and back at them, some of whom were in sudden tears at this unbelievable turn-around, I said, smiling, “Hey Mom, how you doin’?” and sat down beside her to give her a hug. She rallied long enough to see me a day or so; it was a gift in itself.
In effect, my eldest sister, Ann, who is turning 95 on May 19, 2025, and my two late sisters, 84-year old Ginger, and 82-year old Sandra, 19 and 11 years older than myself, were all my mothers in some respect and who, upon Mothers Day every year, receive my lifelong respect in the form of anecdote, laughter, and good memories.