This is a picture of my mother. I'm guessing that it was taken in the mid to late 50s, so she would have been almost 30 years old.

It was before she met my dad. She was a single girl from the Iron Range, and now she was living in the big city. She looks happy. I never saw this happy, relaxed, playful look on my mother's face. My mother had a lot of mental health issues, but I don't see them in this picture. And then I wonder.. when did things change?

She used to tell me that if she had to do it all over again, she probably wouldn't have married, and she definitely wouldn't have had kids. Was there something inside of her that thought she wouldn't be a good mother? Back in those days, though, getting married and having kids was what was expected. In this picture she was getting pretty close to "old maid" territory. She got married to my dad when she was 32.

And then I wonder.. was this one of the last times that she was truly happy? I know that she probably had to have had some happy times being married and having kids, but I honestly don't remember any single incident where she was just.... happy. There was always an undercurrent. She was happy.. but you knew she was going to let you have it later on. She was happy... but then we kids walked into the room, and she didn't like that. She was happy... but really, she was just putting on a good face, and when the company left, she'd go back to sitting on her chair in the kitchen, chain smoking and drinking coffee.

I used to be really, really angry at her. I was so angry - and so hurt - that, when she did finally throw me out of the family, I was relieved. Thank God I didn't have to deal with THAT anymore. Several years and several dollars of therapy later, the anger was (mostly) gone, replaced by.. nothing. I didn't feel anything towards her. When she died, I wasn't sad. I didn't shed a single tear. Her death didn't change a single thing about my life (other than the always-nagging thought of "what if I run into her at the grocery store?").

I won't ever know what it's like to have a happy mother who loved me, and that messed me up for a long time. She taught me how NOT to love people, and how NOT to be happy, though. Once I figured out that the best way to love people and be happy was the exact opposite of how she did it, I was just fine. Heh.

Then I found this picture the other day. I looked at it, and I was surprised that it stirred up a feeling. Not anger, though. I felt sad. Sad for her. I looked at this picture and thought "You used to be a happy young girl.. and then your life changed, and you weren't ever happy again. I'm so sad that you had to live like that."

I don't know if feeling sad for her is better than feeling angry at her or feeling nothing about her. But that's where I am right now. And I look at this picture and I wonder what it would have been like to be raised by that happy person... but, that's not what was meant to be. If she hadn't been the way she was then, I wouldn't be the way I am now.

So this is my thank you to Dorothy. Thank you for (indirectly) teaching me how to love people and how to be happy. I'm sorry that you couldn't find that in your life.