My mom was the type of woman who didn’t apologize for who she was, and she was fully aware of her abilities.  It always amused me how she made sure I knew how to use basic tools like hammers and screwdrivers, and wasn’t afraid to do things like assemble furniture or fix a hole in the drywall.  However, she was also willing to admit when she was not as adept at certain tasks.  One case in point was cooking.  My mom didn’t really cook, and with the exception of meat loaf, broiled meats, and sukiyaki which was made with canned sukiyaki vegetables and fresh beef, her idea of cooking was looking at the back of the Stouffer’s box to see to what temperature the oven needed to be heated. 

Since Mom was always working so much, she was doing the best she could to provide for me, but even if she had time to cook, it just wasn’t her thing.  So I wasn’t surprised when she VERY eagerly encouraged me to bake and cook after I had revealed to her that I had an interest in doing so.  In fact, when I was 17, I told my mom, “Let’s not go to a restaurant for Thanksgiving this year, I wanna make an entire turkey feast!”  She was doubtful that I could pull it off, but when I did, she told me that I had full permission to repeat the process every subsequent year if I wanted. 

My mother was always interested in spy stories and mysteries, and had told me that she once wanted to become a private detective.  She also wanted to travel internationally, but sadly was never able to do so, mostly due to a lack of money, but also because she was so devoted to work and to me that it would have been difficult for her at best to go traipsing all over the globe. 

By the time I actively began pursuing my own international travel goals, my mom was already ill, so there was no way that she could join me in those travels.  In an effort to bring exotic locales to her, I would share all the photos, videos, and funny stories I had collected from my travels.  I often thought that if she hadn’t had me, she might have been that jet-setter she had dreamt of becoming, but as we all know, life can take us in all kinds of directions we hadn’t anticipated.

Even though I was her only child, my mom probably also really would have been happy to have had other children besides me, and I was able to see her motherly devotion given to others when I got her a Scottish Fold kitten, whom she named Spencer Tracy.  That little dude stole her heart, so much so that I got a bit edged out! After she had had him for about a year, she started referring to the cat as my baby brother!  There was one time when I was at her apartment, and figured I would sleep in my former bedroom, but Mister Spencer would have none of it!  He hissed and carried on so much that I was effectively banished to the sofa for that evening!  What a bratty brother!

Harriet also adored my ex-husband, not only while we were married, but throughout the years after we divorced. Whenever he would visit her at the assisted living facility, my mom would pretty much ignore me, and devote all her attention to him.  This would prompt me to say, “Hey, what am I, chopped liver?”  But I always secretly enjoyed the fact that she was so close to him.  She always had a keen interest in in hearing about other members of her family or my dad’s family as well, and even my friends, some of whom she had never even met in person. 

Over the 19 years after her brain aneurysm rupture occurred, Harriet’s tastes changed, and they were unexpected and interesting. She became a Bingo master, and I could tell she enjoyed being the boss lady, calling out the numbers and monitoring everyone else’s boards.  She won so much virtual money from those Bingo games, I tell you…if that had all been real money, she would have been able to buy something like a television! 

Speaking of television, she cultivated a passion for the Lakers, despite never having followed the NBA, or ANY major league sports for that matter, prior to 2013.  She had Lakers posters in her room, and would talk to me about the games.  Mom also kept up with current events, and was pretty hip for an elderly woman.  She surprised me shortly after Prince had passed away by telling me, with a devilish glint in her eyes, that she thought Prince had been a VERY good looking man. 

All in all, Mom was a remarkable, caring, supportive, tough, honest, opinionated woman, who made sure I developed a backbone. You would be asking for it if you wanted her opinion about something, and this was the case until very shortly before her passing.  I think people actually got a kick out of how sassy my mother could be, even though she could also be cantankerous and defiant. 

Now that my smart, strong, sassy, beautiful, amazing mother is gone and no longer suffering, I can honestly say that I must have been the luckiest person in the world to have had this wonderful woman as my mother, my hero, and my best friend.