I miss you Mom!

On July 6, 2019, we lost Mom

Acknowledging Our Grief Anniversaries

Ann O Douglas Obituary

Obituary in Local Daily News Journal

Grief is The Tax on Loving People

I lost a mom that raised three children. A mom that lost the love of her life, her high school sweetheart, Dad, to lung cancer. I was 12 years old.

A mom that worked three jobs after that, went to nursing school in the evening, took care of her dad with no legs and fed and clothed my two younger sisters and myself.

I remember the nights helping her study for her tests for nursing school. I remember how tired she looked when she had to get ready to go to work cleaning bedpans on third shift as a nurses aide. I remember her learning to play chess to spend time with me.

I remember growing up with my best friend Stevie, his nephew Vic (they were born on the same day) and Johnny and Butch and the Huntsville Park community. Mom went to Joe Bradley School. I was blessed with an awesome childhood! Aunts and Uncles in the neighborhood and the great people like Mr. Holmes and others.

The Huntsville Parker (1955)

The Desegregation of Huntsville

Timeline: Race and schools in Huntsville

I remember being accepted into a ‘special school’ for ‘gifted students’ after my sixth grade year and mom driving me every morning from our home on 3312 Bradley Street on one side of Huntsville to Huntsville Junior High School on Randolph Street on the other side of town, and then picking me up and taking me home every afternoon after school, so I could take accelerated classes with nine other ‘gifted’ students from around the town. She did this for my 7th and 8th grade years.

Mom remarried the summer after my 9th grade year. Step-Dad moved us from Huntsville, Alabama to Manchester, Tennessee and then on to Smyrna, Tennessee. A couple of years later, he just vanished. He vanished AFTER taking every dime out of the bank, including the money Aunt Lot and Uncle John paid Mom to buy our side the house we shared with them.

An uncle loaned Mom a car (Step Dad took that too!) and mom went back to being a single mom with 3 kids (and a lot of bills step dad had put in both of their names).

Years later mom would remarry again, to a great man named Billy. One day Billy fell on the front porch and hurt his ribs and went to the doctor. He found out he had advanced cancer and passed away a couple of months later. A few years later one of my sisters was in Gatlinburg on vacation with her fiance and she died of a heart attack.

Mom loved her babies, grandbabies and great-grandbabies. Mom loved her Kroger Wednesday Senior Nights and got mad when they stopped doing them. She also loved her animals. She had bird feeders, hummingbird feeders, squirrel feeders, a hummingbird bush and a butterfly bush. She would run out in the backyard with a broom to scare the big birds away so her little birds could eat. I found a radio-controlled tank that shot BBs and I told her I could buy it for her and she just laughed. Here is a video where she ran out on day after seeing several big birds attacking a small bird. She picked up the small bird, put it in the garage, and nursed it back to health – the video is her letting to go.

I left my 30-year career and decided to go to college to make mom proud. For years she kept telling me to “Quit that job! Stop driving back and forth to Nashville! Go to school and be a teacher!” and I decided to do it. In the back seat of coaching friend’s car, on the way to a baseball game, a month before I was to graduate college, I get a call on my cell phone. It is mom, crying. She has been diagnosed with Stage IV Lung Cancer, that has metastasized to her lymph nodes and kidneys. The exact same cancer that took Dad. Her third time having cancer. She was at the doctor’s office with my sister. I asked her if I need to have the car turned around and come be with her and she said “No, you go to your ballgame. We will get this fixed.”

18 weeks of daily chemo and 3-day-a-week radiation and she was right, it got fixed.

My mom had a rough life. She lost two great men to cancer and married one terrible man who took everything she had. She would tell you she had a great life, with 3 kids, 5 grandkids and 10 great grandkids. She always had a smile on her face. I am going to miss Mom. She was MY Mom.

Thank you for taking the time to read about Mom. Please don’t smoke. If you do smoke, please quit. Smoking took my dad far too young and made the later years of mom’s life terrible. She passed away because her lungs, scarred from years of smoking, lung cancer, chemo and radiation treatments, finally gave up. I went to see mom at hospice the night she passed away. We played Go Fish! without cards. We talked. I gave her a breathing treatment. Around 9pm I gave her a kiss and told her I would be back to see her in the morning. That morning never came.

The Grieving Need You Most After the Funeral