Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms and grandmoms out there. I’d almost forgotten about today until flowers started arriving yesterday. First, this beautiful bouquet from one daughter. The photo doesn’t do justice to the lovely roses, especially the pink ones.
Then another delivery. This one came with no card so it’s the mystery gift for this year. Now and then flowers will come without a card and I get to play a guessing game. 🙂 All my kids know how much I like fresh flowers. This bouquet has some lilies that aren’t open yet, but I can already get whiffs of the sweet perfume.
One more gift of flowers arrived later yesterday afternoon. There was a card from my oldest daughter, so possibly the mystery bouquet is from my son and DIL. There have been times she’s arranged for a plant, or flowers, and they came without a card.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thinking about my mother today, as I do every year. She’s been in heaven since 2014 and there are still times I wish I could tell her one more time how thankful I am that she worked so hard to hold us together as a family. Not that anything was perfect in the household that included my sister and me and Mother after the divorce, but she did the best she could under the circumstances. And once I matured enough to get past the trauma of my childhood, I was able to see her strength as a woman and as a mother.
Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but due to her traumatic childhood, she didn’t really know how to treat children differently than she had been treated as a child.
Throughout my writing career, I’d always wanted to write a book to celebrate her strength and have several notebooks with starts of a book that never seemed to get beyond a certain point. Something that always tripped me up was that there were, and still are, huge gaps in the facts about her life, and I was never comfortable just making up so many things.
Because of my journalism background, I thought the story should be the truth and nothing but the truth.
It wasn’t until a few months after she died that the story really started to come. Maybe a gift from my muse, and maybe my mother was the muse. She did love books and stories.
So a few years ago, I wrote, Evelyn Evolving: A Story of Real Life, and I’m so pleased that it found a home with a publisher and readers are enjoying the story. I especially love this review on Amazon: “Tender mercy comes to mind when I think of Maryann Miller’s love story to her mother. This is a sad tale of a child abused at the hand of the religious who warped her mind and her soul for a lifetime. Yet, the daughter of this flawed woman found within herself an understanding of her own abuse and forgiveness. A story well-told that offers readers a way to look at their upbringing in a new and forgiving light.”
Now, before I go, here’s an excerpt from the book. This is the scene where my mother first realized that she was about to be a mother. At this point, she’d been going out with my father for some time and had once given in to his urges as well as her own. From stories my mother told about their relationship it was clear that there was a lot of uncertainty about where the relationship was going and I recall that Mother often hinted at some jealousy of her sister, who also had a few dates with my father.
Enjoy the excerpt:
Another month had passed so quickly that it took a while for Evelyn to realize she’d missed her monthlies. Twice. This morning she’d opened the drawer for a clean pair of panties and noticed her belt for her sanitary pads in the corner of the drawer. That’s when that feeling of dread hit and twisted her stomach into a knot. She’d never missed a month. Not once since that day when she was fourteen and “became a woman” as Sarah had put it. Sarah had helped her with supplies as well as a candid talk about what the monthly “visits” were all about and what would stop them. Only two things. Pregnancy and the change of life. Since Evelyn was much too young for the change, that only left one possibility.
Evelyn dressed quickly and raced out to the kitchen to check the calendar, trying to remember the exact date of her last period. Near as she could recall it was early in July. Maybe right around the Fourth? And that had been almost two weeks before she let Russell have his way with her. The guilt over what she had done was not as strong if she thought of it in those terms. It also helped if she didn’t think about the wanton way her body had responded that warm July evening.
It was now the middle of September. Well past the time she should have started her monthly. She stood there staring at the numbers in the little squares wondering what on earth to do. Other than slither down to the floor and cry. She should tell Russell, that’s for sure, but how? When? How would he react? They’d only gone out three times since that evening he played at the hotel about a month ago, so she wasn’t as sure about their possible future together as she had been. And she wasn’t sure if that was because he was busy with work, or busy some other way. Always those doubts that came like unwanted guests.
When they were together, Russell respected her wishes about sex. He would ease off the heavy kissing and touching when she asked him to. Not that she always wanted him to. Her body seemed to have other ideas than her morality did, but she’d never told him that sometimes it was hard for her to tell him to stop. Although she had almost given in the last time he tried to convince her that they could visit the back seat of his uncle’s car again, and God would not deem it wrong. The way her body responded to his touch, she was sorely tempted, but she’d made a promise to God, and one did not break promises to the Almighty on the whim of passion.
Evelyn turned when she heard footsteps and saw Mrs. Gardner, who furrowed her brow and asked, “Something wrong?”
“No… I…” Evelyn took a breath to compose herself. “Do you need me for something?”
“I wondered if you had started dinner.”
“I was about to.”
“Good.” Mrs. Gardner pursed her lips. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes… I’m…” Evelyn turned and pulled a skillet out of the drawer under the stove to brown the onions for a ham and potato casserole. “I should get on with the cooking.”
“Very well.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABOUT THE BOOK
At just 4 years old, Evelyn Gundrum’s happy world is turned upside down. Abandoned by her mother, she is shipped to an orphanage run by the terrifying Sister Honora.
Evelyn grows up amidst hardship and heartbreak, plagued by unresolved emotions that follow her into adulthood as she seeks answers in a sea of questions.
Will her uncertain path to self-discovery lead to happiness?
Praise:
Evelyn Evolving is a heartfelt story of one woman’s journey through some of life’s most difficult trials, a coming-of-age that readers won’t soon forget. Maryann Miller captures the spirit of a woman who refuses to be defeated with great tenderness and, what’s more, enduring hope. — Kristy Woodson Harvey, bestselling author of Slightly South of Simple