I got a call from my brother on Monday, July 8th, 2024. I was eating lunch, so I declined the call. I would call him back in like 10 minutes. He texted “call me” though, right after, so I did. It was always something bad when that has happened. He told me that he came home from work and found our mother dead on the couch.
My mother was an angel. I was very fortunate to grow up with a strong foundation of a loving set of parents, and it was through her actions toward my brother and me that made me who I am. She was the emotional center of our family. She made sure the four of us always got along.
She had me when she was 30. My parents had been married for 10 years at that point. She told me I was a quiet little guy that was okay playing with toys by myself and two and a half years later she had my little brother. That, plus two dogs and two cats along the way, that was our family. We grew up in a little suburb of Rochester called Hilton in western New York.
My mother grew up in the 1940s in Portville, New York – the closest “big” city was Olean. Her parents/ my grandparents lived there. She would drive the two hours to get there during our summer breaks from school. My brother Michael and I would read copies of Baseball and Football Digest during the road trips to Portville, memorizing stats. We played with our G.I. Joes and Transformers in our grandparents’ big (to us) house. Mom, Dad, Mike and I would be together for all major holidays, of course, always making sure to drive south for Thanksgiving where my aunt and uncle would hold a Christmas for all of us, but during Thanksgiving, because the roads would usually be too bad to drive that far in December. That was our routine for a number of years.
She put in the work to make me a good person. When I was very little, I remember stealing a piece of candy or a small toy from the drug store. When she found out, she drove us right back there and made me apologize and return it. (The cashier was our neighbor and her best friend, which made the experience even more memorable to me.) I can safely say that I have not stolen a physical item from a store in the 45 years since. Stealing is wrong. I think about what a pain in the ass it must have been to get us back to the car and drive back there, but it was important. I’d hope I have the same resolve if the situation ever happens with any of my nephews.
She signed Mike and I up for “Computer Camp” for a couple of summers, where I got to play with and use an Apple // and Mike got to play with an Atari 400 which encouraged a lifelong love of computers, to the extent that there is an Apple // to my left, and an Atari 8-bit one room away. I don’t know how many hours a day we were at this “camp” – we didn’t sleep there or anything – but she found out about it and took us there and picked us up. Being around computers was life-changing for me. I got exposure to it because my mother found out about the classes, felt her kids would enjoy it and made it happen.
As we became older, she took a job at the nearby retirement home. Her first day was when we were home for summer break from school. She gave us the number of where she was going to be working her first day and gave us explicit instructions not to call her unless it was an absolute emergency. A few hours into her first day at work, she is horrified to be told that she got a call from her kids at home. Worried, she went to take the call from me.
“Robb? What is going on, are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you calling? Is everything all right?”
“Yes…. Mom… we miss you….”
(Sorry, Mom.)
I have been at a loss all these months to describe my mother and what she meant to us. That is the thing I learned, what do you even say when your mother dies? It’s so incomprehensibly stupid that one parent could die, much less two. She came out with my Dad to Colorado pretty much every other year since I moved away. She got to see me build a career and get married and create a good life.
I keep coming back to the day my father died. He passed away in 2021. We checked him into the hospital as his heart was failing, as we later learned. Mom was getting the calls in the middle of that night from the hospital, it was a terrible night. We thought Dad was just going to be in the hospital again for an overnight evaluation, I didn’t know it would be the last time we ever saw him. I remember her coming to her first realization that her husband of 5 decades was probably not going to make it out of this one. I was so dumb and stupid, failing to understand that he was effectively on life support and of course they would wait for us to get there before they let him go. My mother got herself ready and put some makeup on before we left for the hospital that day and at the time I was like come ONNNN he won’t last forever, of course I understand now. I would have put on a full face, too, to delay the inevitable. I know that now. She had lived through her parents, her brother, her sister-in-law, her husband and so many friends at her age passing, of course she knew more than I did. Death changes a person. I’m sorry I was so impatient, Mom.
After Dad died, she had the house we grew up in to herself for about six months. My brother sold his house to move in with her — including his little dog Griffey, who had already elected himself chief protector of my mother before making it official with him living there. I called her once a week at minimum after there was a routine. I got her GrubHub delivered on Wednesdays from Colorado and we would talk about everything and anything.
In April of 2024, I was able to have one of the most special experiences of my life: my wife arranged a trip with my dog and nephew to Rochester, where my little nephew, who I see twice a week, got to meet my mother. My nephew was two at the time and my favorite little dude in the world, and he loves singing happy birthday to people. There was an eclipse that week (the day was overcast, so it sucked) and my mother’s birthday (ruled) and I will forever treasure being able to see my little guy with my mom. I am really glad we did not wait and we just did that.
And just like that, three months later, one random day in July, she was gone. She had just gotten a good bill of health from her doctor the week before and one of our neighbors said that they saw her working on her garden that morning. As far as we can tell, she finished gardening, went inside, and passed away on her couch inside the house she made into our home.
In the last five years, I’ve lost every family member of mine growing up, save for my brother. I wrote my mother’s obituary when she died and I guess I am supposed to take solace to some degree that my parents passed before their kids did, not everyone gets that. It has taken me months to be able to write this, to be able to even be able to process this. How can she be gone. The despair has somewhat caused me to lose 40 pounds which, don’t get me wrong, I have needed to lose, but also now as an orphan, I needed to slim down if I were to ever have a prayer of getting adopted, as nobody picks out the fat kids. There is no longer a concept of receiving unconditional love in my life any longer. What I think has taken me these months to understand is that with my mother, my lovely angel of a mother, passing that my role with the world and reality has changed. It is no longer I who receives love unconditionally, but it is my job to now provide it to the world.
I’m trying, Mom, I promise. I love you. I miss you every single day.
Linda Sue Haskins
1943 – 2024
My beautiful, wonderful mother.
