A mother is the star of every child's heart

With every year I age, I grow further away from the year my mother passed away. I grow closer to the year when, even had she lived, she would no longer be on this earth anyway.

After  32 years, I still miss my mother as if she left us just yesterday.

My mother and I, about 18 months old, in
Fredericksburg, Virginia.

I was always closer to my father than my mother – a specific bond existed between us that no one else could duplicate. I chose to hang out with my dad even when I was a child.

Until the day he died in 2002, I always preferred the companionship of my father – the sound of his voice, the delight in his hearty laughter, the simplicity of his faith in God.

Yet, it is the loss of my mother that makes me ache, even after all these years.

What is a mother?

Anyone who has carried a child in her belly knows the answer to this question. We are bound to our child from conception. It is our mother's voice that draws us as infants and whom we hear scolding us even into adulthood when we misbehave.

A mother has her own way of comforting us – a soothing hand patting our back, holding our heads when we are sick, preparing our favorite food.

She teaches us to seek and desire a life separate from her, yet yearns to hold onto us tightly and never truly let us go.

She is the first one we laughingly blame when our own children are growing and we realize that we've reprimanded our children the same way she did. "Holy cow, I have turned into my mother!"

She is the one who taught us how to tuck the sheets into the mattress, slip a pillowcase on the pillow, fold our clothes, do our laundry.

Mother is the one who taught us how to cook, cut a tomato, make a tuna sandwich, bake those Toll House cookies just right.

Mother is the one who made Christmas extra special each and every year – putting forth so much effort and sacrifice so the magic is always there.

Christmas is when I miss my mother the most. It's when I remember how exhausted my mother was because I too, am beyond tired. Those traditions she held, the special food, the stories – to be passed down through subsequent generations.

Mother is the one who knew just what to give me when I was home sick from school. The right comfort food, the cool cloth on my forehead, the warm, fuzzy blanket.

She also knew when I was faking and how to catch me at it. She was the one who spanked me with the riding crop she'd gleefully found in the antique store until the day I found its hiding place and broke it. Mother is the one who substituted her high heel shoe in place of the riding crop I had broken.

I deserved every spanking I got and I am none the worse for wear despite the harshness of those punishments. She taught me how to respect – not just my elders, but also my parents.

Remembering Mom

At the age of 19, I was estranged from my parents for a time. At this time, they moved to Missouri from the east coast and I moved on with my life – not speaking to my parents for an entire year.

My mother was 59 at the time, 18 months older than I am now. And I really didn't know her very well.

After a year of lackluster correspondence, we reconciled the way that older generation did – we picked up where we left off without ever bringing up the ugly past.

Little did I know as I selfishly rolled through my lower 20s, that my mother would only be with us another five years.

For a long time I only had the few years of letters from her to comfort me. I lived with the guilt from the rift we'd had and the time I had lost with her – it consumed me for years.

Thirty-two years after my mother died, I discovered a box of letters she had written to my older sister during the six years after my parents had moved back to Missouri. Reading through each one, I discovered just how wise my mother had been during our estrangement.

Urging my father to forgive me and my sister to let the past go had been my mother's constant advice. Despite equal fault on all our sides, my parents never accepted responsibility for their part in our estrangement. However, the art of forgiveness and reconciliation was exacted with precision and grace and we never looked back.

In reading those letters I found the forgiveness I had desired from my mother for over 30 years. She not only forgave, she loved me deeply.

Once again I found my mother and experienced every bit of her personality, not just from those last years, but also from the time she met my father, dated and married him. Their first years as loving newlyweds are evident in yet another box of letters my father had saved.

I learned of every place they had ever lived, their church family, neighbors and friends, their income and debts, their wishes and desires, their heartaches and fears.

From the beginning my mother wrote newsy letters – daily. When Dad went away on business, she wrote him every, single day. In reading through these treasures, I found myself re-living those days with them.

The letters my mother wrote in the last six years of her life were even more informative as if she was writing her life's diary. She wrote of the Missouri weather, the local church people, their new friends and reacquainting themselves with family and old friends. She wrote about their garden, our cat Buttons, shopping at the mall, visiting the Truman Library, Missouri sunsets and its rolling countryside, ice cream from the local Dairy Queen, trips to restaurants, what they ate and how much it cost.

My Mom & Dad in December 1977. Dad was celebrating his
25th anniversary as an Episcopal Priest. They are holding
the vestments (white & blue) Mom had made for him. My
father would later be buried in the same vestments.

Sounds trivial doesn't it? It's not – it is endearing and comforting in taking me back to the commonality and complexity that was my parents.

In 1982 there were no huge flat-screened TVs, no CD players, DVD players, cell phones, multiple phone carriers or Internet. Microwave ovens had just become more commonplace as had answering machines and cassette players, yet they didn't have any of these. Life was enjoyed with rabbit ears on the 24" TV and a good book.

Communication was done through the telephone or letter writing – an art my mother had nailed perfectly.

I am so grateful that I have these reminders of who she was. That I can still hear her voice calling me, "Elizabeth Anne!" That I can look at one of her paintings, remembering the time she painted the lilacs and they had been dead for months before she finished her artwork. I can still remember her childish delight at seeing her grandson Jimmy, hanging out at my brother's cabin in Maine, climbing a mountain or catching a fish when we went out fishing.

I remember the special trip to our favorite spot on the Potomac River in Virginia that she took me on in my senior year. Because I didn't have a date to the prom, my mother treated me to a mother/daughter retreat that I've never forgotten.

I can easily recall the taste of her remarkable fried chicken and the way she would take the extra time to cook up a huge batch for our first day on vacation so we could keep up our traditional lunch when we stopped at a roadside park.

I can remember the smell of her Tony perms and the Pond's cold cream she used twice a day. The sight of a pair of earrings on her bedside table – removed just before she turned out the light.  Her tuna casserole for Christmas Eve dinner – served in between Dad's Christmas services; her layout of dip, cheese, crackers and Cold Duck served to us after the midnight service, along with a real Smithfield ham and southern biscuits; the Christmas morning breakfast of pancakes and waffles and filling my stocking with delightful surprises.

My mother in 1965, exhausted yet smiling, after
a busy Christmas of multiple church services,
bazaars, meals, gifts and family visits.

I can see my mother's white knuckles as she gripped the steering wheel whenever she drove and the sight of her slightly manicured nails, always covered with a smidgin of clear polish.

She saved dimes throughout the year to pay for our Christmas tree and stocked her dresser with a hoard of hosiery, bobby pins, hair combs, emery boards and orange-red Tangee lipstick. Her closet always had a variety of different colored Grasshopper sneakers, aprons and dusters to wear around the house.

I am reminded of a time when life was much slower. When we weren't bombarded daily by news, phone calls and texts, emails, and social network. When our lives weren't cluttered with a house full of electronic equipment and when our mailboxes were loaded with hand-written letters and cards.

Despite 32 years of separation by death, my mother remains close to me – my heart and mind rich with memories. Nothing separates us from our loved ones, not even death – for memories comfort, teach and live within us forever.

Addiction to soda, artificial sweeteners is a recipe for disease

About a year ago, I walked through the office where I worked and was shocked when I looked at each person's desk. Every desk but two contained anywhere from a 12 oz. can to 48 oz. super-sized soda. Upon further inspection, every single drink was diet. Every person but one was well over 30 years of age, with one – our boss, who is in his late 40s, as the one with the 48 oz. super-sized diet soda.

In the course of an eight hour day, these people went through several of the beverages, sipping them constantly. The boss himself never went anywhere without his giant cup of diet soda. He was constantly stressed, hair thinning, his nails yellow with fungus (not that soda was causing the fungus – just that he has an unhealthy appearance), and is overweight despite his towering 6'8" height.

Soda, whether artificially sweetened or laden with
processed sugar, has zero nutritional benefits.

Of the two people who didn't have soda on their desks, I was one of them and the other was a woman who, like me, ate organic, natural foods, exercised and only drank water.

As I began perusing the idea of how many of my co-workers in this small business drank diet soda, loaded with artificial sweetener and offering zero nutritional benefits, I realized that I could enter a restaurant and likely find that more than half the diners were drinking some form of soda or iced tea – diet or sugar-sweetened.

Enter the same homes and one can easily find pantries filled with cases of soda, refrigerators loaded with 2 liter bottles of soda, iced tea and other sweetened drinks.

I've never understood the draw people have to these beverages, nor could I stand the aftertaste left in the mouth no matter what flavor or variety I sampled. Do
                                                                               these avid consumers of soda realize their breath reeks?

Are there nutritional benefits to diet drinks?

The answer is a resounding "No!" Besides the fact that diet drinks contain zero nutritional benefits, they can cause long-term health problems that affect various parts of the body.

Research from a study of 3,000 women done at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston revealed that those who drank two or more artificially sweetened beverages per day doubled their risk of declined kidney function.

My father died from kidney failure, his mother also died from the same – both were diabetics. My sister, who died from congestive heart failure, also endured kidney failure – resulting a most horrific final week of suffering.

Who wants this?

As a 30-plus year diabetic, my sister had used artificial sweeteners daily. She drank diet soda, used the artificial packets in her coffee and tea and on cereal until about seven years before she died when she was introduced to the natural sweetener Stevia. Unfortunately, the damage to her kidneys was already done.

Other factors contributing to the side effects of artificial sweeteners

If one were to study those who tend to use artificial sweeteners with regularity, other abuses will rear their heads. Over-eating, poor choices in diet, consuming too much sodium, smoking, alcohol consumption, possible drug use, poor sleep habits, high blood pressure and stress are some of the abuses that can take the use of artificial sweeteners to a whole new level of poor health in the body.

Splenda and Equal are just two of the artificial sweeteners
on the market, approved by the FDA that cause a number
of serious side effects from long-term use

The largest abuse and cause of many health issues is dehydration. Soda and other types of beverages do not hydrate the body.  Approximately 75 percent of Americans are chronically dehydrated. The body, on average, excretes about 100 oz. of water per day through urination, bowel movements, sweat, and if you are ill – additional factors are fever, diarrhea and vomiting.

If you are replenishing daily fluids with nothing more than soda, whether diet or sugar-laden, you are not hydrating your blood, organs or skin. Eventually, this will take a toll on your health.

What are the symptoms of dehydration?

• Fatigue
• Dizziness
• Slower metabolism
• Muscle weakness
• Short-term memory loss
• Inability to focus on tasks
• Dehydration contributes to join and muscular pain
• Constipation
• Rapid heartbeat
• Low Blood Pressure
• Dry Skin
• Additional strain on kidneys and other organs that need water to flush toxins
• And more

Among the strain on all your organs that rely upon water to hydrate the body, imagine the strain it takes on your kidneys day in and day out over the course of many years.

What about Splenda?

While I am of the belief that no artificial sweeteners are safe for human consumption – don't get me started on the FDA – Splenda pops out as one of the more toxic of artificial sweeteners on the market today. And it's in a lot of foods, from ice cream and cookies to soda, sugar-free candy and more.

Splenda contains sucralose, which is a chlorocarbon. Chlorocarbons have long been known to cause organ, genetic and reproductive damage. Sucralose has shown to shrink the thymus, a gland that regulates the immune system. Sucralose also causes the liver to swell and calcification of the kidneys as well as swelling of the kidneys.

How did sucralose get by the FDA? The company that originally researched sucralose, McNeil Nutritionals, lowered their acceptable levels of sucralose until they achieved one that was acceptable to the FDA, who was intent on getting it approved.

It's like cholesterol levels. A level of 240 was completely acceptable 25 years ago. Now it's considered dangerous because someone who conducted research somewhere said so. Now a level of 240 requires a prescription for a drug that makes the doctors, pharmacies and insurance companies pockets fatter while the patient suffers from side effects and is taking a medication that has never been proven to prevent heart attacks.

So you avoid diet soda, what about soda with sugar?

Soda with sugar is just as bad for you. It's laden with processed sugar, loads of it. It is still empty calories with zero nutritional value. It is not just bad for the body, the liver and the pancreas, but causes numerous dental problems.

Sugar affects the pancreas and excessive use can lead to diabetes at some point. It is shown to be addictive and cause obesity. Again – empty calories.

What is the alternative to soda and other sweetened beverages?

Water. Water. Water.

You still need to be careful about drinking tap water. You can get an analysis of your city's water from the water supplier. In the town in which I live, we receiving warnings all year. In a recent letter I discovered that my mother wrote 35 years ago, she mentioned that the water tasted bad. This has been ongoing for decades!

Filtered alkaline water is the best and you don't have to purchase a multi-thousand dollar system to get good alkaline water either. We purchased a Bawell alkaline water system two years ago. It literally took 5 minutes to set up and has delivered delicious water for us to drink from, brew coffee or tea with and cook. Our pets all enjoy the water as well. We are able to achieve from 7.5 to 10 pH alkalinity.


How do you give up drinking sweetened beverages?

It's very difficult to convince those who drink soda daily that they need to give it up. They are literally addicted to it, whether artificially sweetened or sugar laden. Recently, an acquaintance who has a rare affliction from which she suffers regular attacks posted a query about giving up her cola and asked if another, colorless soda would be just as good. I suggested water instead, without going into the fact she suffers from this serious affliction. I offended her and got a simple, "No Thank You,"comment.

With the affliction she has, I can only imagine how dehydrated she truly is if she doesn't replenish those important bodily fluids with water.

In the end, the drinking of these toxic beverages is so addicting that unless a person faces the fact that they have an addiction to them, much like any other addict, they will prefer to poison their body slowly over the years. The long-term side effects to the excessive use of artificial sweeteners usually doesn't become apparent until the damage to the body is already done.

Most people prefer the Scarlett O'Hara outlook, "I'll think about it tomorrow." Unfortunately, tomorrow maybe too late.

I revert back to my sister. She began smoking menthol cigarettes when she was 15 in 1956, and followed that with consuming diet soda by the time she was an adult. Every day included a pack of cigarettes and diet soda until 1992 when she had a massive stroke and already had been diagnosed with diabetes. She lost all her teeth seven years later and suffered a number of serious diseases and illnesses until she died last year. The suffering she endured from kidney failure is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

What about an alternative sweetener?

If you must sweeten your beverages. Try Stevia. It's all natural and comes in flavored drops, packets and powdered. It doesn't take long to get used to it and a little goes a long way. You can also try buying fresh lemon and dropping a wedge or two into your water. It is absolutely delicious, not tart and helps in excreting toxins out of the body.

Whatever you do, don't get injured in a Walmart store

One could say quite honestly that America has become a country of litigation. You burn your tongue on a cup of java and sue the store from whom your purchased it. Your daughter leaves home at 18 because she doesn't like your house rules and sues you for support. You fall at work and sue your employer for the wet floor or onion peel on which you slipped.

We are a country of sue-happy people. On many occasions it is necessary – if your accident is legitimate and if the company that caused your accident is truly as fault. Then there are those occasions where the suit is frivolous and ridiculous. If you drink coffee, then you know it's going to be hot. And why are we, as parents, having our rights to establish our own rules in our own homes, taken away from us by our own children?

Are store keyholders well trained?

I worked in the supermarket industry for 21 years – most of that time as a keyholder in the store. This required me to know exactly what to do when a customer or employee got injured. It could be anything from a knife slipping in the Deli Department and cutting an employee's finger to a customer who slips on a wet floor. Management was always well trained on what to say and do. And always – the injured person was to be treated with respect, dignity and their safety in mind.

We were taught how to write out an injury report, who to call within the company to report it and, of course, emergency services if needed.

So, it was with great disappointment when I learned that my mother-in-law had fallen at a Walmart in southern Maine in July of 2012 and been treated about as poorly as a person can be by store management.

My mother-in-law was 74 at the time, and was pushing a shopping cart through the aisles, when a wheel locked up on the cart, she stumbled – grabbing onto the cart to keep from falling and the cart keeled over on her. She was knocked to the ground with the cart landing on top of one of her shins.

She received a bad gash in her leg. Moreover, she lay there on the floor while customers and employees walked by ignoring her pleas for help. Imagine a 74-year-old, 5' tall grandmother lying on the floor in a crowded store with a shopping cart laying on top of her pleading for assistance and people just walk on by her.

Eventually her pleas for help landed on a woman with a baby. That woman sought help and got the cart off my mother-in-law and management was called to handle the incident.

Management, in my opinion, dropped the ball. While they took a report, they immediately treated my mother-in-law like she had done something wrong. She was taken to the front of the store and made to fill out the report before help would be called. My mother-in-law, not wanting an ambulance, instead phoned one of her sons to come and get her and take her to the hospital.

In the end, she had a very bad wound in which she now has permanent damage. The shin is so sensitive that she cannot even put clothing over that particular spot without discomfort and pain.

Can one attorney fight corporate America?

An attorney was hired to handle the case. He immediately notified Walmart to flag the shopping cart and not put it back into the cart population – but they did so anyway – making the cart impossible to identify for litigation.

It's been three years since the attorney took on this case – not a huge lawsuit by any means – he merely seeks to compensate my mother in-law for the hospital and doctor's bills she incurred, the permanent damage she now has and the negligence of those responsible at that Walmart store.

Meanwhile, big old corporate Walmart refuses to even return phone calls. While they assigned one of their own attorneys to handle this case, she corresponded with my mother-in-law's attorney a few times and now will not reply to voicemails or e-mails. Professional courtesy is not even followed.

It seems the industry standard of "make them wait and hope they'll go away" is still going strong in corporate America. While stores such as Walmart continue to grow and infiltrate every corner of the U.S.A., they stuff their pockets with every dollar they can – pay low wages to their employees, good training a thing of the past, just as the maintenance of store, carts and floors.

Start noticing your local Walmart. When you drive into the parking lot, how many shopping carts are out there? How many are corralled and how many are loose? How dirty is the store, the floor, the restrooms? Are employees working in the aisles friendly? Are they blocking the store aisles with their U-boats and carts? Is there ever anyone around to help you? Is there ever enough help for assistance in service departments?

When I worked in the grocery industry, our company standard for shopping carts in the parking lot was no more than 20. Plus, no clerk grabbing carts could ever push more than five – as a policy. This all served to keep the amount of vehicular damage done from carts to a minimum.

Shopping cart cleanliness and maintenance was a top priority.

Apparently, this is not the standard at the big box stores we have today.

Litigation is apparently a waste of time

The amount of money requested to compensate my mother-in-law is like one grain of sand in a large bucket full of billions of dollars. The company's attorneys are content to sit happily in their offices playing the waiting game – hoping my mother-in-law will die before they have to respond to her attorney – thus resolving their problem once and for all.

I'm guessing none of them ever had mothers, grandmothers, sisters or daughters or maybe they would feel a little compassion and do what is right. They certainly do not have a conscience.

While this goes on day after day, my mother-in-law's leg is now disfigured and pains her daily. She is our mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and in-law – someone we love and care about ... not an object meant to be ignored, stepped on or treated like an annoyance.

The irony here? She continues to shop at that Walmart. It's her favorite store and she's shopped there for many years. The company is still taking her money with great ease, while denying their responsibility for the injury she received in the very same store.