Mother's Day when Mom is still in the ICU

This is a tough day with mom still in the ICU. My sister's birthday was in April and she did not celebrate it. Now, Mother's Day... I still hope for her recovery before my birthday in early June.

Also, my heart goes out to Anne over at Cooking and All That Jazz whose mom just passed unexpectedly. She and her sister are in my thoughts and prayers.

If I cannot be with mom, if I cannot even send her flowers like I always did, I can at least talk about her here.

Mom is not a typical doting parent. She is a realist and a tough cookie. When we got sick as kids, my dad would be devastated and was not much help around because he worried a lot and he could not function other than taking our temperatures and pacing the apartment nervously with a very worried look. Mom on the other hand, would feed us, administer our meds and would order us to stay in bed and rest. Even if she was worried, she would not let us see it and would rather act like the authority figure than get all sentimental. So, as I was waking up after a surgery when I was 17, I was shocked to see that she was crying by my hospital bed. Then, she told me they were tears of joy because everything was fine.

In 1990, when I have learnt that my new company was going to send me to the US, the very weekend that I started my new job instead of three months later as was the original plan, I called my dad and he totally freaked out because he thought, he had time to get used to the idea of me moving away for the first time. I also called mom and she said "Oh... This weekend ha? I should take a half day of today to do some shopping for you." She came home with a bunch of new clothing items including extra underwear, a bath robe and pajamas and started packing my suitcase while my dad was still nervously ranting. At the airport, they stayed longer to see the plane take off and right after it did my dad turned around and told her "Shit! She really is gone!" Mom laughed at him. 

When my sister wanted to get married, she was cool as cucumber. Typical Turkish moms would be overinvolved with everything, be ready to dislike the mother-in-law to be, would state their opinions on everything from the wedding venue to the vacuum cleaner to the bed linens and every single trivial matter. They love to meddle and blow everything out of proportion. Mom? Not at all. She worked out a budget and handed my sister and BIL the amount of money she wanted to gift them to buy whatever they liked. Then, she gave me the same amount of money in cash! She told me even though I did not get married, I was still her child and the money was my right. It was a pretty hefty amount too. Then I jokingly asked her what if I got married later on; with a big smile in her face, she told me I would get zilch then.

She always believed in the values they instilled in us, the education they have provided and also believed in us. She says, they have done the best that they could and after graduating the University, it was our turn to get a hold of our lives and live with our own decisions.

She is the authority figure and the matriarch of our family. As my grandparents got old, my grandpa took her two brothers aside and told them that, the three siblings would be getting their house as inheritance. They were all entitled to do whatever with the house but that, my mother would be the one to say the final word.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM! 

I love you and I want you back! 

Please, please, please get better and come back to us!