Diane.

Diane – Divine. What a crock of shit.

My mother, Diane, was anything but divine. I’m sure she still goes around telling people that she’s a mother of 3 grown children and grandmother of 7, possibly 9 (depends on if she counts my sister’s stepson and mine). I’m sure she’s told a tale of how my father kicked her out when we were all young and how he lied in court to get custody of us. How he never let her see us and how she never got the chance to be a real mother to us. I’m sure everyone believes her and I’m sure my dad looks like a real ass in their eyes. I’m by no means saying that my father wasn’t an ass... he actually was quite the asshole and not that great of a parent. However, my father never kicked her out, he never kept us from her: she left, and she stayed away.

Up until I was 6 years old, my mother was in my life. My parents were married, and I remember her being there. I have memories of those times.

I remember when I was around 3-4 and my mother would let me stay up with her while we waited for dad to get home and she’d let me do her hair. She’d get the curling iron out and the combs. She’d sit on the floor at the foot of the bed, and I’d sit on the bed. I’d sit and curl her hair for hours!!! It was amazing and probably what started me on the love of hair.

I remember when I was 4 locking my mother and baby brother out in the cold because I didn’t want them anymore. I don’t remember what my mother did or what my brother did, but I do remember not wanting them and locking them out thinking that they would just go away... they didn’t, and I got my ass beat for that one.

I remember when I was 5 and my baby sister was crying in her basinet. I remember it was early morning and her crying had woken me up. I remember coming into the living room and my mother was asleep on the couch, right next to the crying baby in the basinet. I remember getting my sister a bottle and feeding her while she was in the basinet until she fell back asleep. I was later informed by my mother that she wasn’t actually sleeping that day, she was fake sleeping and watched me take care of my sister. That seems sweet, except I WAS 5!

I remember when I was 5 and my mother had to go to work one night. Let me back up, my father didn’t know that my mother worked. She’d wait until my father was gone and she’d pick up shifts at the nursing home. So, my father would be working late or out of town or whatever and my mother would leave to go work. My mother couldn’t hire a babysitter, or my father would know she was working, so, what was she to do? She left me in charge. I remember her leaving one night for work. She told me that I was in charge, at age 5, and I was to make sure my sister, brother and myself got in bed at bedtime. If there were any problems at all, I was to walk 2 blocks down the street to our closest neighbor's house and she would get ahold of my mother. I remember eating a dum-dum (you know, those little lollipops), and I lost a tooth, my first tooth! I lost my first tooth and neither of my parents were home. I gathered up my siblings and we walked down the street to the neighbor’s. I told the neighbor to tell my mother to tell the tooth fairy that I had lost my first tooth.

I remember when I was six and I woke up to no mother. I remember being confused because mom was never gone in the morning; she’d been gone many nights but never in the mornings. I remember my dad moving us out of that house and in with my great grandmother because “mom left” and he “doesn’t know where she is”.

When I was a child, I thought my mother left because of me. My dad didn’t help these feelings, blaming the divorce on me on multiple occasions.

I remember receiving maybe 3 letters and upwards of 5 phone calls from the age of 6-13.

I remember at the age of 13 that my mother actually asked to have me and my siblings at her apartment for a night! A sleepover at mom’s. I remember she picked us up and took us to the mall. I remember she bought us all an outfit; I got a jean skirt, blue tank top, and jean jacket...it was adorable! I remember we had family pictures taken in our new outfits and then mom let us rent the SouthPark Movie. I remember eating pizza in the living room and meeting a bearded dragon for the first time. I remember that we all fell asleep on her sectional in the living room after staying up WAY too late watching movies.

I remember at age 15, Mother's Day fell right before my birthday and my dad thought we’d do something nice, and we took mom out for a movie and dinner. I remember her asking me what I wanted for my birthday, and I told her I wanted my belly button pierced. She told me that we could do that and that she would pick me up on my birthday. She never showed.

I remember when I was 18 and I was living on my own, I reached out to her. I remember thinking that maybe through it all, my father was keeping her from me and now that I’m an adult, he can’t do that and we can finally have a wonder mother/daughter relationship, like the fucking Gilmore Girls. For about a year, we would meet once a month and have lunch or breakfast, maybe hit up a thrift store for frugal shopping.

I remember one day when I was 19, we met for lunch, and I told her that we wouldn’t be meeting again. That I was going to Canada, to chase a boy. She didn’t even try to stop me, she just said “okay”. By the way, by the time I made it to the border, I was no longer chasing a boy, I was just going on a Canadian adventure.

I remember when I was 21, driving all night and going to her wedding when she remarried just so one of her children were actually there. I was the only one of her kids that was at her wedding.

I remember when I was 24 and my husband and 2 daughters had moved to the same city that my mother lived in, and I tried to reconnect again. It was awkward, she didn’t seem to like my husband or my family.

I remember when I was 25 and I actually needed my mom and she couldn’t be one. I needed her, I really needed her. I was losing a baby, I was having a miscarriage, I needed my mom. I called her in my time of need, while I was at the E.R. My husband was stuck waiting in the waiting room with our two daughters and my mother couldn’t be bothered to come sit with them so my husband could be by my side... as I lost our baby. I lost a baby that day and my mother lost a daughter. I knew in that moment that she wasn’t a mother, she never was.

Finally, when I was 26, I saw my mother for the last time. I was in the hospital, I had just given birth to my 3rd daughter, whom had a birth defect and was transferred to the children’s hospital within an hour of being delivered. I was in the hospital and my mother and grandmother showed up, camera in hand, ready to get a picture of the new baby. She asked me where the baby was and I told her that they had already transferred her and I hadn’t even gotten to see her but for a few minutes before they boxed her up and shipped her off. She was disappointed that I didn’t call her and tell her that the baby wasn’t there, because now she wasted a trip to the hospital. She never asked if I needed anything or how I was, she just left, disappointed. In the time it took my husband to go to the vending machine and back, my mother had showed up and left. That was the last time I have seen her and that was 9 years ago.

A mother is someone special, that holds a place in your heart forever. A mother is always there, even when they don’t want to be or it’s inconvenient. A mother is in a constant state of worry about their children, whether they are newborns or adults. You never stop being a mother once you become one.

Diane is the lady that birthed me, but I’ve never had a mother. I had a great woman in my life, that raised me to the woman I am today. She loved me with all of her heart and she was not my mother, she was my great-grandma.

My mother taught me disappointment at a very early age. She taught me how to be a mother by never being one herself. You can’t miss what you never had and I never had a mother but I sure am a damn good one, thanks to Diane.