Unlucky in Love

My mother has been married, let's see... four times. Her first marriage was when she was 18 years old. She annulled that marriage shortly after taking her vows. Her next marriage took place in her early 20's; I was born when she was 25. Soon after my birth, she discovered my father had been straying; she divorced him and became a single mom.  By the time I was two years old, she met a guy, Thomas Williams, at her work. The two hit it off  and married. Tom adopted me; my mom worked until my sister Tracy was born. Three years later little sis Wendy arrived. All was lovely for a few years. Unfortunately Tom was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died when I was 14; my sisters were eight and five.

Mom went back to work to support the three of us. After about four years she began dating again. At first she dated a variety of guys. Then she dated one man exclusively for a bit. It turned out he didn't like kids. She met another man and it became serious. The two married at a justice of the peace. The day after the wedding her new husband ordered my mom to turn over all of her bank accounts and house mortgage to him.  Well, no one ever "orders" my mom to do anything. But even if he'd asked nice, my mom wouldn't have turned over her assets to him just because he thought that was the way it should be. She asked him to leave, which he did in a huff. She annulled that marriage, too.

Many years later she met a fun-loving guy on the bus that took them both to work. They had great times together, tooling about on his Harley and getting together to BBQ with friends. He was looking forward to retiring early, buying an RV and traveling through the U.S. He asked my mom to go with him. She couldn't decide whether or not to quit work and travel with him. He retired and bought the RV. Two weeks later, before getting to travel anywhere, he suffered a massive heart attack and was raced to the hospital. There he never regained consciousness andhe ffpassed away. That was 28 years ago. Mom has been by herself ever since. But she's an independent gal and it sort of suits her.

It's easy to think my mother has been unlucky in love. I bet she would say that isn't true. I think she'd say, in her no-nonsense way, "Live and learn, kid, live and learn." I like to think that my mom has lived large and loved large. And that she is a better person for doing so.