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Mommy drinks because you Mel

Last updated on October 23, 2018

Click to donate toward Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes
Click to donate toward Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes

Things I did that probably scarred my mother for life & made her question my sanity:

  • Wander into a neighbors yard around four years of age and hand-pull up all of the pretty tulips because some idiot little boy dared me to.
  • Drink an entire bottle of cough syrup.
  • Eat dog treats.
  • Dump out an entire carton of eggs, alphabet cereal, entire bag of milk (Canadian, our milk used to come in bags. Baggie milk, represent’ wutut) and flour in the middle of the chicken floor. When confronted, innocently state, “Feeding Rusty!” (The Dog.)
  • Shave only a part of the dog with my father’s clippers and calmly state Rusty (dog) needed a hair cut.
  • Take shoes off in a neighbor kids’ yard. Forget where they are. RUN AWAY FROM HOME = LOGICAL DEALING COPING MECHANISM.
  • Throw up guts in the middle of the night in the kitchen sink. When asked, “Are you all right?” Reply between hork with a miserable, “yesBLARG.”
  • Sharpen teeth on a car window.
  • Fall face first out of car door, tangled in seat belt. Land in soft ice cream cone. Bawl that it’s ‘NOT FUNNY 🙁 🙁 🙁 STOP LAUGHING MOM. STOOOOP.”
  • Drink watermelon shampoo because it smelled so good.
  • Throw up in the middle of the night but not tell anyone.  SURPRISE?
  • Run outside with first training bra and hike shirt up to my neck to study it’s lacy goodness in the reflection of a car door. Wonder why mother & Aunt are dying of laughter.
  • Tell a french teacher she, ‘fucking sucked,’ at teaching french. Appear surprised when she gets sent to the principle and detention FOREVER.
  • Go through a three week phase of alternatively spiking hair a foot and a half into the air and flashing itty bitty titties for attention.
  • Take an $80 pair of jeans her grandmother bought her and CUT THEM INTO SHORTS.
  • Steal cigarettes
  • Skip school so much she gets suspended. Instead of telling father, Mother was willing to keep it secret. If her brat went out into the yard and hand pulled all the rocks from it. Acres and acres of lawn by the way.
  • Run away from home at 15, refuse to come home and scare her to death.
That and a lot more. And despite all of that (and the more) she never said she didn’t love me. She never said to anyone in family our outside that she hated me for the things that I did or ended up doing. She may have said as well as stated her disappointment; we never did get along before well after my 20’s because I never understood her–(until I grew up. Funny, that.)–it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what I did, when someone asked her how they weren’t angry with me forever she said she just looked at them funny and asked, “How could I not? She’s my daughter. How could you not love your daughter, no matter what?”You don’t have to get along with family. You don’t even have to like them. There will be days when you won’t like yourself left alone family…I’ll admit there are some crimes as well as acts within family that can be unforgiveable. For the most part, you love family even when you want to kill them.

My mother never stopped loving me when a weaker person might have given up. I am glad she didn’t, otherwise I would have never grown into the woman I am today.



Help pay for Mel's tattoo in memory of her mother
[box type=”bio”] Melissa Pence is wife to the husband and wife team here behind 2 phatgeeks. On December 11th, 2011, Melissa lost her mother to a long, difficult battle to diabetes. In her memory, Melissa is blogging 24 hours in order to raise funds for her through the organization: Step Out: End to Walk Diabetes, and for the personal goal to finish a humming bird tattoo on her right arm in memory of her mother. [/box]
Published inPersonalPhat Life