Today I remember my mother. I miss her, dead now for nearly twenty five years, but why?  Mother was chronically depressed in a world where treatments for depression were worse than the disease.

She was bright, but could not afford college in a world where a job to support a widowed mother meant everything. She was a drama queen, as only the daughter of an alcoholic father can be. I remember her laughter and her rage. Her rage contained all the angry thoughts she ever had, externalized. She would say  she only wanted two children, but Dad wanted more.   There are four of us. I was the second. Let me tell you about Survivor’s Guilt.

She liked sit coms, from I Love Lucy to The Golden Girls.  Her favorite soap opera was As The World Turns. 

So remembering that angry, tragic, paradox of a human being is hard. I got through my sentence in her household of a prison, devoid of self-esteem,  filled with self-hatred that alcohol could never purge.

On balance, she loved us and did the best she could. That is all any Mother can hope to do.