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A Story About My Mother
Mom was a sweetie and a tiger and your best bud and your worst-nightmare, and on some occasions she could be all the above in one sitting
My mother died in September 2018, after a long battle with dementia. Once they got her meds figured out, she was always a very pleasant lady. She always knew who I was, in the sense that she identified me as a coworker at the organization she’d retired from twenty years before, and she treated me professionally and warmly, as she would any subordinate who was working for her. But that’s not this story.
In 1982 I was an ensign in the Navy, and about to start Submarine Officers Basic School. Mom had come out to Connecticut for a week after I had been in a plane crash because I was having trouble with some things (sleeping, moving, carrying anything besides myself — I got banged up some). My right wrist was in a cast, but my thumb was mostly free. I was due for a follow-up exam the day before Mom was supposed to go home. She came along with me to the base hospital, mostly (I thought) to make sure I was driving okay.
Then she came in with me. NOT after asking me first.
Background 1: Ensigns are the lowest form of Naval officer. No one takes them seriously, unless they’re former enlisted (I wasn’t). So…
