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with 2 small children living back at home, Bonnie had moved out living with the father of her child. When my sister Candy called me into the bathroom and asked me to help bath my mother because she was not feeling well, that I got a glimpse of what was happening to her..

Her body was wasted away, her stomach was the size of a watermelon and she couldn't have weighed anymore than 90 pounds. I was sick seeing her body looking like a starved African child she had once used as an example, scolding me for not eating my food because there were people who would kill to have the food I had. And her she was looking like a photo of someone starving from some third world country.

Days later my Father's denial after all these years must have turned around and for once he saw some reality, and between he and my sister they called an ambulance and had her put in the hospital.

She lived only a few months and never did came back home. Her diagnoses was "Cirrhosis of the Liver" with " Chronic Emphysema", all cause by drinking and smoking and not eating properly.
After her death I went home and started the usual of cleaning the house, now it was my turn to start cooking and caring for my father.

When I was later married and children of my own I became frantic about certain things, never wanting my children to experience the childhood I had. In someways I tried to be the perfect mother to them, making cookies for them when they came home from school, and always having the house spotless upon their arrival. Most of all I made sure their underwears were always good smelling, for some reason that was important to me.

"Everyday was a day they may remember", this was something I daily told myself. Something good needed to be done in case they picked that day to remember for the rest of their life and my life was consumed with this until they grew and left the home.. Not looking back with regrets and coming to terms with my mothers alcoholism and my fathers role, both being from different eras, I can now lift my head high and say I did my best! And knowing had I not been raised in such a home the turnout may not have been so crystal clear to me, making me grateful for all I had gone through despite it all and re-placing their pleasant memories for mine.

Learn more about this author, Linda Emma White.
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