For Mom

 

My mom, I miss her so much. Just about every person who met her thought she was just great. When my mom lived adjacent to a convenient store, she would talk to the kids who worked there and one kid was thinking of not going on in his education but, later, a woman knocked on my mom’s door and she thanked my mom because her son decided to stay in school because of what my mom said. I could talk to her about anything and she was there for me and rarely judged. Now, mind you, she was no saint, she did favour my brother, without her really knowing this. When I was a kid, a school trip went to Marineland and I bought this little bobblehead seal and was so happy that she had it always on her desk because she almost always kept what my brother made or bought her. When my mom got dementia she was wanting to give everything to my brother and I kept reminding her what she told me when her mind was sound. She told me the seal would go to Baron and I asked why. She said because Baron bought that for her but when I told her it was I who bought it, she looked at it and said, “ oh, well, you can throw it out then”. I just looked at her, shaking my head. Now, don’t get me wrong, she bought me a beautiful dress for my birthday( just don’t tell your brother that she spent so much on me), she often told me how proud she was of me and that she was so very thankful that I was with her.

 She loved her classical music with Beethoven being her favourite ( the 7th Symphony, her favourite of his) but she loved folk music and she loved to dance! In fact she once won a dance contest when she still lived in Germany ( she said it was for a dance similar to the one you see in “The Sound Of Music”). She loved to sing and was in the choir when she was a kid. She was told she could have a career in singing but the war and, later, her smoking, killed that chance. Still, she sang up until the day she died. Many young people loved that she would dance to many rock songs. She couldn’t listen to it, as her shoulders would shudder in discontent ( she could be such a ham) but the last wedding she went to, she was quite famous because she danced to AC/DC with many of the bride and groom’s friends asking who she was and that they thought she was cool. I guess she was and she was my mom. I am adding this to the mom special over at Monday Music Moves Me…

1. CATCH A FALLING STAR SUNG BY PERRY COMO-1957

Many, many years later, she asked me why she loves the music from the 50s now and  I told her that was her fun time when she was in her 20s and felt the most free despite her many responsibilities. She really loved this song and found it enchanting. In fact, the day she died, January 15, 2018, a month shy of her 90th birthday, the nurses and PSW’s told me she was singing this song in the dining room at lunch. After lunch, she went to go for a sleep and never woke up. What a nice way to go actually.

2. A TYPICAL LANDLER PLAYED ON THE ZITHER BY ANTON KARAS-DATE UNKNOWN

My mom, and I, love the zither and Anton Karas made it world renown after he became famous with The Third Man Theme. I am certain this probably comes from the 1950s or 60s and the Landler ( there should be 2 dots over the “a”) is a typical song(s) stemming from as far back as the 1600s. She knew many of these songs and loved them.

3. WOLGALIED WITH ANDRE RIEU-2018

This is from a Frank Lehar opera about a soldier who stands beside the banks of the Volga and became famous for soldiers in WW2 on the German and Russian side. My mom, a survivor of WW2 and the Russian takeover, suffered from PTSD but never got treatment for it. She could talk to my dad, a veteran of WW2 who fought with the Canadian army and was part of the liberation of Holland. They met many years later, in 1959, and they could talk about what they experienced. My mom was a huge believer in the veterans no matter what side. She felt a strong kinship to the allied veterans and did lose 2 brothers during the war, one was 1 year old and the other, 19. She was part of the resistance movement thinking it great fun placing the TNT under the bridges to prevent the German army from advancing. Any song belonging to the veteran, she held close to her heart. 

Have to add this..

BACK IN BLACK SUNG BY AC/DC-1980

This is one of the song my mom danced to at the last wedding she went to. We both danced to this and she was the rock star because most people her age were not dancing to this…only her and loving every moment. She couldn’t listen to the song but dance? Yup!

What songs did your mom love?