My Three Moms

The Saturday list  will resume next week after we pay proper homage to the woman that tomorrow is  all about. My mothers.

This is my Dad. Okay so he's not a mom but my (adoptive) mother died just before I officially hit puberty.  He did the cooking and the cleaning and the shopping and the Christmases and he had a management job in a  factory and he worked a lot of overtime. I'm sure he spent most of our teenage years not really having any idea what to do about any of it.  He was sensitive and supportive and he bought me my first sewing machine. He is the best mother that I had in my teen years and I am beholden to him for  lovingly embracing an extraordinary challenge.

My Mom. She's my birth mother and I met her when I was 21. That's a picture of her taken the year that we met. She was just 39 and had 4 small sons. My brothers. She seemed like a great mom. 

At 17 (shown with my father shortly before she learned she was pregnant) after trying to mask a pregnancy  for a short time while remaining in a high school she was eventually  shipped off to a Catholic maternity home to repent, give birth, recover, and return to grade 12. In these years since we've met she has become my mother again. 

And then there was my adoptive mother. Her name was Peggy Hill. I am ashamed to say that I spent this morning searching for a picture of her and failed to find even one. I am vowing to correct this deficit.  She and my father married both for the second time and adopted 2 children.  The act of adoption didn't seem all that amazing to me until I became a mother. Both sides of the adoption equation now seem heroic to me. She was good at playing barbies and her drawings and handwriting were beautiful. She made a big vegetable garden and baked and cooked. She sewed and crafted and would rearrange the furniture in my room into more pleasing scenes while I was at school.  I have very fond memories of the thrilling feeling it gave me when I walked into the freshly fluffed space that I have rarely felt since.  During her illness, we fought ruthlessly (as only a pre-teen girl and her mother can do) about whether I would take Home Economics or French in Grade 9. She won the battle and sealed my interest and skills in sewing for good. After she died, I just kept taking Home Ec.. It was the one thing I knew for sure she wanted for me. 

Happy Mother's Day to all of the lovely mothers who are reading this (including mine). Thanks for making mothering a community affair and for setting such a good example.