Thursday, July 02, 2009

My Mom the Writer

My mom just called with some good news, a recipe that she sent in will be published in a newspaper. And here it is, she just a couple of minutes ago walked in to my house to show me.

It doesn't sound like much? Well . . .

Let me tell you a little bit about my mother:

she grew-up working in the fruit since she was three. Yes, white folk do that too, and we're not all from Oklahoma. My mom was born in Roswell NM. She grew-up during the depression and the recovery period afterwords, so work was hard to come by. Graduated from HS in 1958 and lost her mom that same year.

She meet and married my dad in 1960 when she was 20, and became a mom just before mother's day less than a year later with me *grin*.

Her jobs have been working in fruit, cannery (Oberti Olives of Madera), and sold Avon (a few among many jobs she had). She went back to school when I was in the seventh grade and got further education to work in an office, then she did filing and typed over a hundred words a minute without a mistake, and did that eventually working at a grade school until my father illness from cancer in 1981. He died in 1982. Then she worked in the mail room at our local newspaper, and then did house cleaning until she married my step-dad who was a retired/widowed/school teacher.

He told me he retired her, lol.

My mom traveled with my step-dad until she developed a problem with her neck, she soon found out she had a very ugly disease called Spasmodic torticollis that made her a semi invalid for years.

A few years ago she had brain surgery. The doctors put stimulators into her brain, and it helped control the head twisting/turning and some of the tremers assosiated with her illness. This worked really well for a long time, until her batteries ran out. For some reason the new batteries or maybe the programing on the stimulaters were not enough anymore, and she had to have shots again. But they do seem to be working.

Last May my mom turned 70 and recently bought her very first laptop computer and has been trying to learn to use it. I've worked with her a few times trying to teacher her.

But the best news is the newspaper wanting to publish something she wrote. I'm just so thrilled for her. It is a triumph of my mom spirit to keep trying, and here she is a published author!

Yay, mom! Woot!!!

2 comments:

Merle said...

Hi Janice ~~ Please congratulate your
Mom for me. Well done at 70.
I enjoyed your post and hearing about her busy life. She has worked hard for a lifetime, so I hope she enjoys the travel and relaxing.

Thanks for your comments, and glad you liked "Before I was a Mom"
Take care and enjoy the rest of the week. Love, Merle.

Janice Seagraves said...

Hi Merle,

Thank you, I will pass on the message and tell her a very sweet lady from Australia congratulated her on her writing.

I loved before I Was a Mom, very moving.

Take care,
Janice~