My mom left this life on Tuesday, May 19 after a month long struggle to regain her health following a relatively simple surgery. Her body just didn't respond as quickly following the surgery. She battled an infection and had difficulty breathing and keeping the oxygen levels up in her blood. But she was making progress in the last days and we expected her to leave the hospital on Memorial Day week end. She quietly slipped away before that could happen.
Now its my brother and me left to carry on.
My mom grew up in a large farm family that lived in northern Indiana. Her dad was a hard man (by her own description) and they never got along. She was the second youngest of 13 children. They moved around a lot as my grandfather rented land trying to raise the best crops and make a living during the trying times of the Great Depression. At age 16 she left home never to return.
As a teen ager she married a soldier when went off to fight in Europe never to return. Before she was 20 she was a widow of WWII living in the 1940s. She married again shortly thereafter but that didn't last and nobody really talks about that much.
In the late 1940's she met my dad. My brother and I came along a few years later and we grew up in a house attached to a small grocery store. My parents worked together for nearly 50 years raising two sons and earning a living. We also tended to eat pretty well. My mom was a good mom, active in the lives of her boys when she could be and working hard to earn a living. I'm sure the fear of another Great Depression motivated both of my parents but we never lacked for anything.
Not long after celebrating 50 years together my dad passed away following open heart surgery where he'd suffered a stroke. My mom was devastated but she carried on. It was not easy. A few years later I moved away to Illinois and then Wisconsin but we kept in touch and visited when we could. My mom was lonely in those years but would never consider another relationship or moving away.
Just last summer my mom came to Wisconsin for several weeks to visit and see what was happening in my life. She loved it here and always said how different and beautiful it was compared to Indiana. I agree. Last Thanksgiving she and my brother made a trip up here for a week. She stayed in my new house and we enjoyed our last Thanksgiving dinner together. I saw her at Christmas time but never alive again.
I miss my mom. I miss the times I'd call her on my cell phone on the way home from work or driving to Stevens Point in the morning for a meeting. She was always glad to hear from me and would call me often as well. We were closer in the last years than maybe any other time.
Losing a parent is hard. I know two other people who lost their moms during the same relative time period. Its hard for each of us but we carry on. I'll remember the good times and the way she took care of me as a young boy and even as a grown man. She was always my mom.
She was Catherine Marie Lewallen Huys.
Born March 8, 1924
Died May 19, 2008
1 comment:
This is absolutely beautiful, Dad. Thank you for writing it. She was so proud of you. She used to tell me all the time. Grandma was an amazing woman and I miss her so much. I am comforted by the knowledge that she has been reunited with grandpa. Now the two of them can watch their Cubbies from the best seat in town.
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