Mom's always with me...

I've been seeing a lot of signs from my dearly departed Mother lately. All good, of course. I know she's letting me know that she's doing okay over there on the other side. She's also making her presence known to my Brother as well. He had a dream a few weeks ago where he was at her funeral (we didn't actually have a funeral with a casket, we had a funeral mass with her ashes). Anyhow, in his dream she was lying in a casket in a funeral parlor, and when he went to say goodbye, Mom opened her eyes and yelled "SURPRISE!!" then she was gone again.

Totally freaked him out but in a good way. That was my Mom's sense of humor.

3 generations of us.

I actually had a dream of her around that same time. She was sitting crossed legged on the floor in her apartment, no oxygen tube, healthy as a horse. She and I were having a conversation as we always did when, in the dream, I remembered that she had died. "OMG, I just realized Mom, we thought you died!" "What?" dream-Mom replied, "well I'm here to tell you, I'm just fine." And I have to believe she is.

Yesterday morning I was listening to my Patsy Cline station on Pandora while I was at my desk, and Brenda Lee's version of "I'm Sorry" came on. Oh my God, you guys, I literally started cracking up! Here's why:

My Mom was seeing an alcoholic assbag for years, beginning in the mid-70's until my freshman year of high school. I could write a book on those years but that's a story for another time. I'm writing now about a specific time that he did some boneheaded dumbass thing that pissed off Mom in a major way. The following day after the offending incident, Mom was at work at the Wildwood Water Department back in New Jersey and she was in her office with 3 other women, her boss, some customers and about a dozen water department employees in the back of the shop.

In walked a middle aged woman who asked if my Mom was Jane. "Yes, I'm Jane, how can I help you?" she replied. All of a sudden, this woman, in front of God and everyone in the office, began belting out "I'm sorry, so sorry, that I was such a fool."  But she didn't stop there. She sang the entire song from start to finish.

The alcoholic assbag hired a singing telegram to go to my Mom's office and apologize for him in grand, musical fashion. This woman really laid it on thick with the most dramatic rendition of "I'm Sorry", complete with hand to heart motions and almost tears. My Mom nearly died of embarrassment that day. She said she was mortified. She wanted nothing more than to crawl under her desk until everyone left the building. I believe she was angrier at him for embarrassing her in front of so many people than she was for the actual infraction that originally inspired her ire.

It's funny how you forget things, and then when something is triggered, those things hit you like a Mack truck. I hadn't thought about that memory in ages, probably because it's been so long since I've actually heard that song but man, when I heard it, it really brought that memory back like it was yesterday, and I thought of Mom and smiled so hard. Yeah, I know she's with me. She reminds me often, and for that, I'm so very thankful.