it’s been three long years…

UncategorizedApril 23, 2008Comments: 2

It was early this morning when the song popped in my head…

“Tie a yellow ribbon ’round the old oak tree. It’s been three long years. Do you still miss me?”

And not just the normal chorus version, but the jazzy ad lib outro of the song. At first, my musicology background corrected the lyrics to “Do you still want me?” but then I remembered that my mom always told me when a song pops into your head like that, there’s usually a meaning for it. It wasn’t hard to figure it out.

Today was my mom’s birthday and it’s been three years since I lost her to cancer. She would have been 56 today.

The Artist at this timeNow a lot of people think I didn’t love her because we fought all the time. But it wasn’t that I didn’t love her – I have always loved her deeply. I just hated the drug-dependent person she became later in life and that’s what we fought about.

To me, my mom will always be the deeply passionate, insanely talented artist who taught me it was ok to be smart and strong and most importantly, myself, no matter what other people said.

But it still frustrates me that she constantly surrounded herself with people who enabled her to do her drugs and who encouraged her alcoholism. Pisses me off that she always chose relationships with men who beat her and cut her down and told her she was good for nothing. She could have been a world famous artist or anything she wanted, but she chose to do the drugs and numb herself with them.

Now I know I’m no saint. I’ve had my issues with alcohol when I’ve been super depressed, but I’ve never been completely dependent on it and I’ve never thrown my life away in search of the next fix. But to watch this amazingly intelligent and talented woman just waste her life away on this shit was more than I could handle. Even towards the end, she still wouldn’t give up her cigarettes and pot and alcohol and god knows what else. And it’s hard to watch your own mother self-destruct and know that no matter what you said to her, it would just end up in a big argument where she would deny she had any problem at all and that is was me that had the problem because I wouldn’t do that stuff.

But of course, to everyone else, it was all my fault because I didn’t love her enough.

It’s been three long years since she passed away and I still miss her to no end. Even with the anger and the frustration, she has always and will always have a big chunk of my heart. And nothing anybody says can take away how I truly felt about her.

Mom, wherever you are, I hope you are in a good place with gramma and Michael. And today I celebrate your life, for the short time I had to share it with you. You are a big reason I am the person I am today and I will always love you.

PS: Here’s a few of my favorite pieces of art that mom did that I could find photos for. You can view the rest of it at Webshots. The image above is also a self-portrait my mom did before she got sick.

Memories-of-a-past-life Diamonds in the Water

Girl in Victoria The Ship

The Kiss YinYang coming at ya

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About zengrrl

I'm Michelle Snow, the writer and creator of Zengrrl. I write about travel, entertainment, women's issues, health, body positivity, and more, both for this blog and freelance. I have also authored/co-authored four guidebooks on Orlando and Florida. If you aren't already following me, the links are below, as well as on the top right of this page. Thanks!

Comments: 2

  1. Yvonne June 6, 2008 at 7:29 pm

    Michelle, I too feel ur mom wasted her talents, and her choices of men was awful, but they were her choices, nothing anybody said to her would stop her when she had her mind made up. And she would walk away any of us that tell her that. To my dear friend Elizabeth….I salute her…for she lived life Her way! It was the most awful time in my life, when I had to watch her wilt down to nothing and her hair was falling out from her cancer treatments. As her closest and best friend it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. And when she asked me to be her power of atterney of her health care …the first time I said No I do not think I can handle that, but than I thought well Who else is there?, So the second time she asked I said Yes. Elizabeth was one of the most talented artist in the world. as far as I am concerned. To my dearest friend Elizabeth: I Love You and a part me died with you. I am not sure how to take your commit about all the people she surrounded herself with were drug attics. I do believe the best in everyone and am hoping that was not including myself. I have some very firm believes and I feel that God took Elizabeth, beacause he needed a awesome artist. Everytime I see a beautiful sunrise or sunset I know that she painted that for us to see. She also got me to cloud watching. And oh my gosh, there are such awesome things that you can see in the cloud formations. I believe that every one should try it sometime, and think of Elizabeth Dagmar Snow.

  2. jeff April 24, 2008 at 7:44 am

    My thoughts are with you.