WEBVTT
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She told my grandmother one time, I'm just not sure apple pie motherhood is my thing, but she made it work and we became closer as she got older.
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Hello everyone, and welcome to A Daughters Inheritance, where we have honest conversations with daughters about the complex relationships they have with their mom.
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In this episode, I'll be talking with Dr.
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Diana Eubanks, who is a clinical professor of veterinary medicine with a specialty in dentistry here at Mississippi State University.
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But I've known Diana for a while.
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I will say I was in my 20s when I moved to Atlanta and we met shortly after that.
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So we've known each other at least 10 years.
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That's right.
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At least, yes, that's something like that.
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So um, and she she grew up in Smyrna, Georgia.
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So if you're not familiar, that's just outside Atlanta.
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Went to the University of Georgia for undergrad and vet and uh vet school.
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So thank you for being here today.
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Well, thank you for asking me.
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And and let me just start by saying I think this is an amazing thing that you've been doing.
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So well done.
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Thank you.
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Feel free to add in any other things about yourself as we go along.
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That was just a quick uh quick intro.
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But let's start with you telling me about your mom, uh, who she was just as a woman before she was a wife and a mother, a little bit about her backgrounds, just so we can uh kind of frame uh who she was.
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Okay, well, I was named for her, and perhaps a little bit too closely.
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My name is Diana with an A, and hers was Diane with an E.
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So that caused a lot of confusion as I was growing up.
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But uh she was born in 1943.
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Uh she was my she was raised by my grandmother and her stepfather.
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Uh my grandmother's first marriage didn't last very long.
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And uh she grew up in a household with two half siblings.
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She has a sister and a brother.
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She shared a room with her sister, and so that came with some of the normal sibling rivalry type of things.
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And she was very protective of her baby brother.
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Um, her baby brother was about eight years younger than her, and I think that was a big uh big thing in his life was he had his had his uh sister die that looked after him.
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She went to secretarial school out of high school.
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She married my dad when she was 20.
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She had me when she was 21.
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So she just took off, right?
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She did.
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She she took off.
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Um I'm not sure she was she was quite ready for all of that.
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I know that you've talked to a lot of people that talk about how motherly their mother was and how wonderful their mother was.
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And I think as I talk about her, you'll find out that I I do think she was wonderful, but I feel as a young mother, she was she was not quite ready.
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And I think she would tell people.
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Uh she told my grandmother one time, I'm just not sure apple pie and motherhood is my thing.
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But she made it work and we became closer as she got older.
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Actually, in one of the other episodes, somebody said, My mother didn't know what she was doing.
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She was 22 years old, and she'd have told you, I don't know what I was doing.
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So I, you know, I think that may be a a common thing as well.
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You were also named for your father, right?
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So I was my name.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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So I they they were either fairly original or unoriginal, however, you want to, however you want to say it.
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One or the other.
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Um, so what was the relationship that she had with her mother?
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My grandmother was she was a wonderful woman.
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She was a wonderful cook.
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Uh, she was a wonderful grandmother.
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She was a little bit of a stern woman.
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She wasn't exceptionally compassionate or nurturing.
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And and I think, you know, that probably shaped my mother a little bit.
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My mother was very independent, and I think she instilled that in me.
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I'm very independent, can kind of take care of myself kind of person.
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But she certainly didn't have that more motherly figure.
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Yeah.
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Similar to her mother.
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Right.
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Uh Aura May.
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That's right.
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I mean, you gotta love that name.
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Aura May and Oscar.
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Oscar.
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That's just yes.
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Yeah.
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And you had a great relationship with with him, even though that wasn't her father.
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I did, I did.
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And I heard her say one time that uh, you know, growing up with two step siblings in a household with a stepfather, she always felt a little different.
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Um, some of that may have been what she created, some of that, I think it it just was different.
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And she didn't feel exceptionally close to him, but she said that where he maybe wasn't terribly successful as a father, he sort of made up for it as a grandfather because he was just the sun rose and set on him when I was a child, and I think it was a mutual feeling there.
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He was a very influential person in my life.
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Now, your grandmother was a great cook.
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She was.
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Your mother?
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My mother was not, not at all.
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My dad traveled a lot, and mom often did fish sticks, takeout, pizza.
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Yeah, she and as she got older, she made no excuses for not liking to cook.
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She wanted a very fancy mixer, one of those KitchenAid fancy looking.
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She wanted that simply because it looked very good on her granite countertop.
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She never ever turned it on.
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It was never used, but she she liked that.
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But uh, she was not a good cook.
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My dad was uh, we'll get into that probably in a few minutes, but he was he could be a little critical too.
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So I don't blame her.
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Part of learning to cook in most cases is trial and error.
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And I remember one time she cooked some green beans and didn't string them, and you would have thought she was trying to serve cat food or something the way my dad acted.
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So he wasn't he he wasn't one of those that pretended like, oh honey, that is so good.
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No, not at all.
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And I grew up being, for some reason or other, very, very protective of her.
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And so I remember a few dinners I just wanted to choke him and say, you know, she's she's trying.
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And then you couldn't blame her for not trying again when you know when there wasn't a lot of grace there for for error.
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So she had two step siblings.
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She did.
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And your father had uh he was he was an only child.
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He was an only child.
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And you were an only child.
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Correct.
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Uh so not a huge family, not at all.
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When I was small, we would often have my dad's parents over to my mother's parents' house for holidays.
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And I can't remember there ever being more than maybe nine or ten individuals there with, and that was with both sides of the family.
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So very small family, and as I've gotten older, that family's even smaller.
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Uh of her siblings, her sister did not have a child, her brother had one child.
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So I really just have one, one amazing cousin.
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Yeah.
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And she also has one only child.
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So we're not a real proliferative family.
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Um, so what did your mom like to do?
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She was she didn't necessarily like to cook, but what what brought her joy?
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She did like to garden and she passed that down to me.
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I think I take it a little level up.
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She mainly did little containers and stuff, and I love to do all kinds of yard work.
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I think her her job brought her joy.
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She stayed at home with me when I was small, but by the time I was in first grade, I think she got a secretarial job.
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My dad was a typical man of the time and did not think that his wife should have to work.
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And I remember when she did go to work that he made her get a separate checking account.
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And all of her money was to go into that, and absolutely none of it was to be spent on any household items.
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That was his responsibility.
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That was.
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So he was very, you know, very much the the provider in that way.
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And I think the very first thing I remember her buying from her special checking account was a nice set of patio furniture.
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And I think it very much hurt his pride to actually even sit on the furniture at first.
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There was some battle with that.
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But but I I think she enjoyed getting out and doing that.
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Now, when I say getting out, she was not a real people person, or I get so many of my traits in that that regard from her.
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Very introverted.
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I don't remember her spending a lot of time with friends.
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I mean, occasionally the girls from the office would go out to lunch or something, but she was always, you know, coming home right after work to to be home with.
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Like I said, my dad traveled some, but she was either getting home to be with me or just be at home, or certainly be at home if he was there.
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So that that trait I think is similar between the two of you, like like you said, because you have really close friends, but you don't have a ton of them.
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Right.
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Right.
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Right.
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And she had, I've heard you talk about her Girl Scout group.
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Talk about that a little bit, because that was, I mean, they've been friends for a long, long time.
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I don't think you could talk about Diane without bringing up the Girl Scouts.
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There was a group of about a dozen of them that knew each other from I think before the time first grade started.
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They all grew up in the same community, went to some of the same churches, and they were in a Girl Scout group together.
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And even though mom did not, in my opinion, spend a lot of time outside the home.
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She wasn't, as an adult, she wasn't active in church or her community or anything like that.
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At least about twice a year, the Girl Scouts would get together, usually for lunch, sometimes at someone's house.
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And those were very important.
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That was a very important group to her.
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In fact, when when mom got older, she developed dementia.
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I had an 80th birthday party for her, and she was getting quite confused by that time.
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So I worried a lot about whether I was doing the right thing.
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Because, you know, there's always a little risk throwing a surprise party for an 80-year-old, even under the best of circumstances.
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So I had a lot of worries about it.
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And we had it at the assisted living place where she was.
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We had a lot of the people from assisted living.
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We had family friends.
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I had a few friends I had grown up with, real mixture of people there in the in the little community center area.
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And I had the Girl Scouts.
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I think at the time there were about eight of them.
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A couple of them had already passed away.
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And I had been praying that this day would go well, but I wasn't sure.
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And I walked in, she was in front of me, and everybody said surprise.
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And she looked a little panic stricken.
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And for about five seconds, I thought, oh Lord, what have I done?
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This is not gonna go well.
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And then her eyes fell on the group of Girl Scouts.
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She took a deep breath and a big smile on her face, and she starts heading over to the Girl Scouts.
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And I think that it's always been that way with her.
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That's just was her home group, even though she wasn't real outgoing.
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That was just, you know, they were friends that had been friends from literally cradle to grave and had always been there in each other's lives.
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You know, I think that's something that is, I'm sure it's important with men, but it seems like that is such an important thing for women.
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Yeah, just I mean, it was for my mom.
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She had friends.
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Now my mother was a lot more outgoing.
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Right.
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So motherfuckers.
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As you are.
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She was so much more outgoing than I am.
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So, you know, she knew everybody in Ashoba County, and they were, you know, but she had her really close friends also that they did their quilting and stuff together.
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I remember.
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Um, other people we talked about in another one, in another episode, about their sisters, where they would invite their best friends with the sisters and and uh how important those connections really are that kind of stay with you throughout the ups and downs, and maybe when your spouse is getting on your nerves or you know, whatever you have that that tight-knit group.
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Well, one one other story I'll tell about the scouts.
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Uh, my mother was not a big outdoorsy person.
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I mean, just she was always dressed nicely, she was a very pretty woman.
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She took a lot of time to do her hair, to do her makeup, to, you know, she just didn't didn't go out in public without that.
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Uh, and again, just not real outdoorsy.
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I was probably about college age, and she came to me one time and asked if she could borrow my sleeping bag and maybe some camping stuff.
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And I thought, where is my mother and what have you done with her?
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Who is this?
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And the scouts had rented a couple of cabins up in North Georgia and they were going for the weekend.
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And that was very out of character for her.
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I think she had a good time.
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She didn't often go off and do something for herself, but that's probably the only group that could have drawn her out to something, and then especially with being an outdoorsy type of thing.
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And they probably did the same things they did when they were little girls.
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I'm sure.
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They sat around, they told stories, they giggled, they stayed up later, you know.
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I'm sure.
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So yeah.
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Um did she change over time with she had to wear the perfect clothes, have the makeup, the hair?
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Was that something that kind of stayed?
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Or that that stayed.
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Yeah.
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Even as her mind went as she got older, she uh now sometimes she applied the lipstick a little too thick, a little too much, a little, but you could tell it was it was because she still thought that was important.
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So uh did she skip some of the Girl Scout badges, like the cooking and the thing?
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Yeah, I cannot imagine the woman got a cooking badge.
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So or a camp.
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Well, she might have gotten the camping one later.
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Um, you mentioned that, but you do like the outdoors, and you talked about that she passed on to you um the love of of gardening and planting.
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You you have 14 acres, 15, yeah.
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Tell tell us a little bit about that because you have lots of animals out there.
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I do.
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I would say that's my kind of passion in life is taking care of that uh that little hobby farm out there.
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Um I share it with a very dear friend of mine, and we have horses and a pig, and we've got many rescued dogs.
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That's that's really what's at the heart of what I love to do is is dogs.
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Uh I've got chickens, I plant a little vegetable garden, I spend a good bit of time on my little hobby farm.
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Now, having grown up in Metro Atlanta, that little 15 acres seems like a ranch to me.
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Right.
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You know, it's it's it seems big from where I came from, but in a lot of people's minds it would be just a big yard.
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So as uh as a little girl growing up in your home, as an only child, what what was your mother like as a mother?
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I think she she tried.
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I think that's something as I've looked back, I realized that for the situation she was in, she tried.
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She wasn't uh she wasn't like your mom.
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She wasn't the PTA mom.
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She wasn't on all the church committees, she didn't usually offer to bake the cupcakes or serve for Bible school during the summer or anything like that.
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Uh children made her nervous, really.
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She wasn't the Kool-Aid mom.
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All the kids in the neighborhood didn't come over.
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No, I did have that.
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I had some friends down the street, and they were a lot, you know, their moms were a lot more likely to have all the kids over and things like that.
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But she was she was good.
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She, you know, she came to most of my um, you know, school things, and I played basketball not nearly as well as you did, or as, but you know, she came to things like that, and uh she she made an effort.
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She was present, she was present.
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That's a good thing.
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Attentive, yes.
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Uh but not necessarily overly nurturing.
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Right, right.
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I I think she grew I I grew up very independent.
00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:23.839
Um I know for a lot of kids things like going off to college is a big thing, and the parents go with them and they cry, and everybody's I think I packed my car by myself, said I'll see y'all in a couple weeks and drove off.
00:17:23.920 --> 00:17:25.200
You know, she said okay.
00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:30.160
Yeah, I mean, you know, that was just kind of how we, you know, how we did things.
00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:34.240
You said something interesting that that surprised me a little bit.
00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:37.279
You said your mother was independent.
00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:38.240
Yes.
00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:45.039
That's not what I saw because of the relationship with your with your with your dad.
00:17:45.279 --> 00:17:45.599
Right.
00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:48.960
Because she seemed very dependent on him.
00:17:49.519 --> 00:17:52.000
So what what's your kind of take on that?
00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:58.160
I think I have kind of dissected my mother a little bit over the years.
00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:05.519
And I understand things a lot more, I think, now now that I'm older and having seen what she went through.
00:18:05.759 --> 00:18:07.440
My dad was an alcoholic.
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:11.599
He was a good provider, he always had a job.
00:18:12.079 --> 00:18:18.480
He um any of his spare time, as you know, was usually working real estate or flipping houses.
00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:25.519
I mean, he was he was a hard worker and he he and I did not have a wonderful relationship, especially as I got older.
00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:28.799
But he did instill in me a good work ethic.
00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:38.319
And he was uh, you know, in some ways good to me, but his drinking, I think more than anything else, probably defined our family life.
00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:50.079
And my mom was the typical codependent wife that constantly felt like her biggest job was to run interference for him in so many regards.
00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:53.200
And so that really defined who she was.
00:18:53.839 --> 00:18:57.279
I felt like when I was growing up, I saw her as kind of weak.
00:18:57.440 --> 00:19:02.880
You know, I was like, she just does whatever dad says or she just folds whenever, you know.
00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:08.480
Um, I had high aspirations to go to college and become something professional.
00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:24.160
And and maybe I looked at what she did and thought, well, you know, you didn't really make any huge, you know, huge contributions to I I don't want that to sound sound bad, but you know, I don't know that I looked at it as something a route I wanted to go.
00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:31.839
And then I look back and uh realize a lot of the strength I think I have comes more from her than than from my dad.
00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:36.480
Um I've always felt like I'm pretty strong and I'm very stubborn.
00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:40.480
I always say that my best and worst qualities are the fact I'm stubborn.
00:19:40.640 --> 00:19:47.519
I think uh, you know, I can be irritating as all, you know, as the day is long to work with.
00:19:47.839 --> 00:20:00.880
But also I feel like the things I've accomplished in my life are because not necessarily because I'm incredibly smart or because of any great talent, but just the fact that I don't I don't give up, but I'm very stubborn.
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:04.960
Um I think I'm stubborn believing in people and and everything else.
00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:08.240
But uh I think I got that from mom more than dad.
00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:12.640
And I I think that was a big realization as I got older.
00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:14.799
When did you come to that realization?
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:17.759
Because I remember you saying, my mom doesn't even know how to put gas in the car.
00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:18.079
Yeah.
00:20:18.319 --> 00:20:25.440
So when did that happen that you started seeing your mother in a different way than you had when you were growing up?
00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:30.400
I would say probably not really, even well, I guess it began.
00:20:30.559 --> 00:20:32.799
My my dad got very sick.
00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:37.839
Um, pancreatitis was in the hospital for almost an entire year.
00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:54.559
And my mother, who couldn't put gas in the car, who I felt like, you know, yeah, she had stayed alone a lot as he traveled, but he was always coming home to fix something, or, you know, I just wondered about her life skills.
00:20:54.960 --> 00:21:10.000
And that year that he was in the hospital, I think at first she saw her world crumbling, and then after a week or so, and she realized this was going to be more of a marathon than a sprint, she sucked it up and went back to work.
00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:14.160
She'd work every day, then she'd go to the hospital and sit with him for about two hours.
00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:17.279
She'd go home and rest and get up and do it again.
00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:26.960
And and I I think that was I was in vet school at the time, so I came home as much as I could on the weekends, but I wasn't there on a day-to-day basis.
00:21:27.759 --> 00:21:35.440
And I think I started to kind of see then, I was like, you know, dang, she's kind of tougher than I ever gave her credit for.
00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:42.079
And then, you know, I don't know that I that was a total epiphany though at that point.
00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:51.920
I think it was, you know, probably even after my dad died later in her life that I really looked back and thought, you know, she was the she was the stronger one of the two of them.
00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:53.759
And that really showed up.
00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:57.039
Because when you were talking about the sickness, that's not when your dad died.
00:21:57.279 --> 00:21:58.160
No, no, he did not.
00:21:58.480 --> 00:21:58.880
He rallied.
00:21:59.119 --> 00:21:59.759
He rallied and
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:03.119
Then he died about ten or eleven years ago.
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:06.000
He died in two thousand fifteen, I guess.
00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:08.880
Did you see her change after that?
00:22:09.039 --> 00:22:24.400
Um because I think a lot of times women uh maybe there is a codependency or or sometimes I wonder if women don't do stuff because they just want the man to think that they don't know, you know, uh-huh here, honey, you do this, it makes you feel good about yourself.
00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:28.960
Um so how did she change after your phone?
00:22:29.440 --> 00:22:31.680
She changed a lot.
00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:34.319
Uh, and our relationship changed a lot.
00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:37.519
We had always it had always kind of been stressful.
00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:48.319
I feel like there were times I know I talked to you at times back then when um, you know, you said you gotta realize she's got to live with him on a day-to-day basis.
00:22:48.480 --> 00:23:01.440
I think a lot of times she chose whatever was the path of least resistance, whatever to keep him happy, keep peaceful, even if it didn't really meet meet my needs or my expectations at the time.
00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:06.319
But uh I think it changed a lot when he passed away.
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:13.920
She had a pretty quick, in less than a year after he passed away, she had a uh health scare.
00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:20.400
She ended up in the hospital after a surgery went wrong, and she just about died.
00:23:20.559 --> 00:23:28.960
In fact, she a few times said she saw dad standing right outside the hospital window, and I thought, well, she there she goes, you know.
00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:40.880
But um she ended up going, you know, through a physical rehab, physical therapy, and went to an independent living.
00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:47.680
It was a retirement community, but was in an independent side, and she really blossomed there.
00:23:47.839 --> 00:23:49.440
She made friends.
00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:58.079
She, I think, always missed dad because despite the fact that he could be a royal pain, he he was good to her.
00:23:58.240 --> 00:23:59.599
They loved each other.
00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:06.240
Um, I've heard people remark they might be the only two people that would have put up with, you know, either each other of them.
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:16.720
And I said several times, my mother deserves her angel wings for living with my dad for 51 years, I think, but uh that's a whole other story.
00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:28.480
But she went to the independent living side of a retirement facility and really just she made very typical the way I would probably be.
00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:36.559
She made a couple of very good friends, and she sat with them at dinner and still kept to herself a lot.
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:51.119
She did a lot of, you know, reading and word search, and she liked her coloring books and things like that, but she was still able to drive, and she went to Belk and went to the grocery store and things like that.
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:53.359
So she settled into that pretty well.
00:24:53.599 --> 00:25:01.759
But I'll tell you something that really changed the whole thing was COVID.
00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:08.960
Uh, they were in lockdown for almost an entire year, and I worried a lot about her.
00:25:09.119 --> 00:25:12.319
I had things delivered via Amazon.
00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:16.559
The building she was in, they took incredibly good care of them.
00:25:16.720 --> 00:25:20.160
They made sure they, you know, had whatever they needed.
00:25:20.319 --> 00:25:23.440
And mom made a lot of friends during lockdown.
00:25:23.599 --> 00:25:26.079
They were just forced in there together.
00:25:26.319 --> 00:25:31.440
I used to call her and could usually predictably tell when she would be in her apartment.
00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:40.880
I knew she'd be at, you know, breakfast or dinner, but you know, the normal thing before COVID was she would be by herself for the afternoon or something like that.
00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:44.240
Well, then it got where I would call and she wouldn't be there.
00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:48.400
Well, she'd call me back later and say, sorry, we were bowling in the hallway.
00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:50.640
Or we had a of course you were.
00:25:50.799 --> 00:25:51.039
Yeah.
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:55.519
Yeah, we had a um cornhole tournament out in the lobby.
00:25:55.759 --> 00:26:08.240
Um, or they had a you know, a singer or some type of music musical uh entertainment that came in for the afternoon, and she went to all of these and just became a real real participant in it.
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:12.799
Now I also think her mind was starting to starting that gentle slide.
00:26:13.119 --> 00:26:24.160
I was gonna say, was that part of a personality change that happened with or was it just more freedom or yeah, it's I mean, more freedom after dad died.
00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:32.160
I think by the time they were out after COVID, though, she was probably starting to have a little personality change from Yeah.
00:26:32.319 --> 00:26:34.160
My my dad's personality changed.
00:26:34.240 --> 00:26:37.279
He had uh Alzheimer's in he was like that.
00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:39.200
He didn't didn't like people.
00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:46.000
Uh he had his very few people and he was funny and enjoyed them, but he was not a people person at all.
00:26:46.240 --> 00:27:01.440
And uh when he was in the um uh nursing home, he loved for people to come by and they they would uh when they were doing tours of the nursing home, they would take people to my dad's room because he was so hospitable.
00:27:01.519 --> 00:27:03.039
And I'm like, really?
00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:04.000
Where's my dad?
00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:04.880
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:27:05.039 --> 00:27:06.720
So I think that does happen sometimes.
00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:14.960
I was incredibly blessed in that my mother, for the most part, as she progressed through dementia, she was she was very sweet.
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:23.759
Now she got toward the end got anxious and you know that that side of it that I think a lot of people don't see until they actually live through it.
00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:27.279
But uh she was had a lot of anxiety toward the end.
00:27:27.359 --> 00:27:32.480
But she was she was pretty sweet and easy to mostly easy to deal with.
00:27:32.640 --> 00:27:32.960
Yeah.
00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:38.559
So I'm gonna ask you to uh put yourself in your mother's place for a minute.
00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:45.839
If she were sitting here and I said, How did your relationship with Diana change over time?
00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:47.279
That's a good question.
00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:49.279
What what would she say?
00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:51.359
Would it do you think it would parallel?
00:27:51.599 --> 00:27:59.359
Do you think it would be like, well, I was doing the best I could with the, you know, uh my family, my spouse trying to make that work?
00:27:59.519 --> 00:28:01.279
What what do you think she might?
00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:11.279
I'm not sure if she would realize quite the magnitude of times she, I think, chose my dad over me.
00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:14.400
I think she would think she had done the best she could.
00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:28.799
But yeah, I I definitely think she would have seen that at times she had to try to do whatever was going to keep the peace with him and let me be, you know, I I like I said I was you could take care of yourself.
00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:29.359
I could.
00:28:29.440 --> 00:28:42.799
I you know, I look back and and I think a lot of people look back on their childhood and they have things that they think damaged them or and you know, and some people deal with horrible things that I can't even imagine.
00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:50.319
But uh, you know, for the most part, a lot of times those things just kind of make you who you are and you can you can choose to make those good things.
00:28:50.640 --> 00:29:02.160
Um and I think they get they gave me a lot of uh you know, a lot of freedom and a lot of um I was an only child, but I wasn't just handed things left and right.
00:29:02.240 --> 00:29:05.680
Uh like I said, they instilled a very good work ethic, I think, in me.
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:15.200
But I did grow up with, you know, money to go to college and opportunities that, you know, might not have had had there been six children or something like that.
00:29:15.359 --> 00:29:16.720
So I understand that.
00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:18.319
We've talked about or may.
00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:21.920
Uh your father also had a very interesting mother.
00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:25.119
Uh, what was your mother's relationship with her?
00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:31.920
Um, I think she just tried to keep the peace and tried not to get too involved.
00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:37.759
I I think my dad's mother could have been a little overbearing with stuff.
00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:42.559
I think it was probably a typical, you know, typical kind of relationship.
00:29:42.720 --> 00:29:59.680
I know when I was small, she would get aggravated because they would want the her in-laws would want to pop down at eight o'clock at night and see the baby while the baby was asleep, you know, and my mother, I'm sure, was exhausted and you know, they didn't understand why we don't just wake the baby up.
00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:01.200
We're we're here.
00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:01.519
Yeah.
00:30:01.759 --> 00:30:05.200
And they were community leaders uh in Smyrna?
00:30:05.599 --> 00:30:06.000
They were.
00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:12.559
My grandfather was big in the civitans and historical society and things like that.
00:30:13.119 --> 00:30:16.880
So I think they could they could be kind of irritating.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:23.920
I don't think she had a particular adversarial relationship, I think it was just there, yeah, just there.
00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:31.920
You've talked a little bit about some of the ways that you're like your mother.
00:30:32.799 --> 00:30:44.640
If if you're looking now at this is what I've inherited from her, and not the financial stuff or whatever, but this is what I carry forward that she gave to me.
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:46.640
Uh, what would that look like?
00:30:46.880 --> 00:30:50.000
Like I said, probably my stubbornness.
00:30:50.720 --> 00:31:00.240
Um she was someone who could, I think, look at a situation and not let it get her to bog down.
00:31:00.319 --> 00:31:03.119
She just figured out a way to to do it.
00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:28.960
Um she I I think just my relationship with her, looking back, and and one of the things I can say, if I can go back just a minute to uh after my dad died and then she got sick, I feel like immediately things changed a bit for me and that I was sort of in a caretaker position.
00:31:29.119 --> 00:31:38.880
Not necessarily daily, not necessarily, but her ability to look after herself changed sort of suddenly because of the illness.
00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:44.480
And I just became a little more of a, you know, caretaker from a distance.
00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:47.039
I had to do a lot of that from from over here.
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:56.720
But uh, you know, I I like I said, I see that she was usually able to, whatever it was, she just overcome it.
00:31:56.880 --> 00:31:57.759
She fell one time.
00:31:57.920 --> 00:32:07.440
This was after she had, you know, come through the other part, and she was getting older then, and I think a lot of people thought, well, this will just be the thing that does her in.
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:16.160
And she had shoulder surgery, and she had, you know, she was in her late 70s, almost 80, and she went to rehab.
00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:24.720
This was a second time through rehab for her, and I think a lot of people would have given up, and she just she just kept going.
00:32:25.119 --> 00:32:52.000
Um, so I think that stubbornness, I think my in looking at my relationship with her and probably some other relationships in my life, it took me a long time to realize this, but something I've learned is that sometimes just because people aren't doing exactly what you think they should, or helping you in a way you think that they should be doing, sometimes they're doing the absolute best they can for that point in time.
00:32:52.319 --> 00:33:05.839
And I do look back at what all she dealt with and think, well, you know, she wasn't, she wasn't the PTA mom, she wasn't the Kool-Aid mom, but she was, I think, in many cases, doing the the best that she can.
00:33:06.559 --> 00:33:13.519
You know, I think uh in talking to women about their mothers and we're talking about mothers who have passed away.
00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:21.920
I think there becomes that realization as you go through the stages of your life that you're looking back that they went to through.
00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:22.480
Right.
00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:36.960
And you know, at 40 or 50 or 60, you can understand better where they were at 40 or 50 or 60 that just you you couldn't when when you were uh a child.
00:33:37.279 --> 00:33:44.480
I often think about, you know, there was only 20, 21 years between us, which made her a you know a little bit of a younger mother.
00:33:44.640 --> 00:33:52.000
And so there are a lot of times in my life I think back, I'm like, wow, my mom was, you know, this age when this happened.
00:33:52.640 --> 00:33:56.640
She was still growing up in in a in a way and having a baby.
00:33:57.680 --> 00:34:06.799
You have um you don't have children, but you have uh a lot of students that you work with that are very special to you.
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:10.239
Uh you've been at the university for 25.
00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:10.960
20 years.
00:34:11.920 --> 00:34:16.880
Um so there's been a lot of young people come through over that time.
00:34:17.119 --> 00:34:22.239
You've got other uh children and young people that are important to you and are important in your life.
00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:24.400
So what are you passing down?
00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:42.159
Is it you know, is there some advice that your mother gave you that you're passing down, or is there just uh what you learned through the years with her and through the transitions in her life that you are now passing that on, uh passing her legacy on and your legacy on as well?
00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:42.719
Right.
00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:45.599
I I can't think of too many things she said.
00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:51.599
She wasn't the type of person that sat down and had a deep meaningful conversation or anything.
00:34:51.679 --> 00:34:53.280
But there's not a lot of uh Diane.
00:34:53.840 --> 00:34:55.039
No, there's there's really not.
00:34:55.199 --> 00:34:59.679
There's not quotes or not things that I I remember her saying so much.
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:06.719
Uh, but but I think she passed on to me to, you know, a a certain strength.
00:35:06.800 --> 00:35:09.679
I guess that's you know, I've said that.
00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:22.000
And looking at being, you know, being open to people having, you know, doing the best that they can where they are.
00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:28.000
Also just that it's never too late to have a good relationship with your mother.
00:35:28.159 --> 00:35:33.360
Um, like I said, after after dad died, we had a very different type of relationship.
00:35:33.679 --> 00:35:46.800
Probably one thing that as I was going through, you know, the ideas before doing this uh session, I was trying to think of of things that I had or found after she died.
00:35:46.960 --> 00:35:51.679
And she wasn't always somebody to say, I'm proud of you.
00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:58.239
As she got older and got to be that little old lady, you know, you could tell she lit up when I came to to visit her.
00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:06.239
Um, she'd say, I've been looking for that little red truck all morning, you know, waiting for me to drive over from uh from Mississippi.
00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:12.639
But I did find a card, and it was obviously for a daughter, and so I'm the only one she had that I know of.
00:36:13.199 --> 00:36:23.920
And um said something on the front about, you know, those those uh my favorite, those three little words or whatever, and he opened it up, and the three words were that's my daughter.
00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:44.000
And that really hit me hard when, you know, because I think I think I could see that some in her, especially as she got older, that that she was proud of me and pleased that she just became a lot less judgmental about, you know, anything in my life.
00:36:44.159 --> 00:36:50.320
And now she still would tell me if I was wearing the wrong color or something like that.
00:36:50.559 --> 00:36:53.599
You could, you know, did you mean to do your hair like that?
00:36:53.840 --> 00:36:54.719
Things like that.
00:36:54.880 --> 00:36:56.639
But but that was that was a big thing.
00:36:56.800 --> 00:37:03.199
She never got around to sending that card, but I do feel like she got that card with the intention of giving it to me.
00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:04.639
That's neat.
00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:08.000
Um, yeah, in that way, I I'm good at buying cards.
00:37:08.800 --> 00:37:10.800
So I'm thinking about them at that moment.
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:13.840
She just stuck it somewhere.
00:37:15.199 --> 00:37:23.840
Um, so with that, are there some things that you saw that maybe you later you learned that she was proud of you?
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:24.960
She really was.
00:37:25.360 --> 00:37:26.639
Maybe she didn't tell you.
00:37:26.800 --> 00:37:28.079
She probably told other people.
00:37:28.239 --> 00:37:33.039
I mean, that's one of the things you see also that she's telling everybody else about her daughter, but she never tells you.
00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:33.760
Oh, yeah.
00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:52.639
Um has that informed how you relate to other people with whether it's students or young people or or whatever, and how you've seen the relationship that you have with her, has that affected other other relationships that you have or with your students or or anybody?
00:37:53.440 --> 00:37:56.000
Well, I I I feel like it has.
00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:11.440
Um I am one thing I think I try to really tell my students when they ask, I mean, when we're having some of these talking sessions, not just uh I often tell them they're much better than they think they are.
00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:15.199
Um but I want them to be confident.
00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:21.679
And these these are young adults that are going through veterinary school, which is very difficult.
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:28.320
And a lot of times their their confidence is just usually a little lacking.
00:38:28.719 --> 00:38:33.039
And in most cases, um like you're you're better than you think you are.
00:38:33.599 --> 00:38:44.800
And also you have, you know, you have us to fall back on to call if you need that kind of you know, mostly in a professional way, but sometimes in a little bit of a motherly way, you know, if you've got this.
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:52.159
And I feel like maybe my mother had that with me, but not always when I was younger.
00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:59.599
I I think she in her mind successful would have been me getting married and having a family.
00:38:59.840 --> 00:39:10.000
And I think she always, you know, she made me feel like that was a a shortcoming rather than, you know, the but I think she was proud of my professional, professional life.
00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:24.800
We had a uh a symposium a few weeks ago and we had a student panel, and one of the things that they said, because they were talking to faculty, this was a faculty training, and they said, Don't call your students kids, because they're not kids.
00:39:24.960 --> 00:39:25.280
Yeah.
00:39:25.599 --> 00:39:29.679
Now they're young adults, but they're new at it.
00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:32.159
They're learning how to be adults.
00:39:32.320 --> 00:39:37.519
Uh, and I think that influence on those young people that they're not children anymore, they're not kids.
00:39:37.679 --> 00:39:41.280
They really are adults, but they don't know how to be an adult yet.
00:39:41.360 --> 00:39:41.519
Yeah.
00:39:41.679 --> 00:39:49.920
And in the vet school, they're a little bit older than that, but still they're there's a lot that they're learning how to to do.
00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:55.679
Uh and and I mean they're in medical school basically, so it's a lot of responsibility.
00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:02.480
They're usually incredibly smart, they're very motivated, but but they are, they're having to learn how to do life.
00:40:03.199 --> 00:40:08.320
And sometimes that's where, you know, sometimes I get a chance to help with that.
00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:24.320
So as we wrap up, is there is there anything that surprised you when you look back that surprises you about your mother or uh that you think, you know what, I didn't realize that at the time?
00:40:24.719 --> 00:40:28.639
The one thing that comes to my mind, she was very witty.
00:40:29.440 --> 00:40:31.920
I don't think I would have thought that at all.
00:40:32.400 --> 00:40:38.159
And maybe it just came out so much more as she got older and loosened up a little bit.
00:40:38.400 --> 00:40:42.960
Loosened up, got out from under the influence of my dad.
00:40:43.360 --> 00:40:46.960
Uh maybe, again, she was very proper.
00:40:47.119 --> 00:40:49.039
She always, you know, did her hair just right.
00:40:49.119 --> 00:40:56.719
And I'm sure there was a, you know, she had a certain hold on, you know, saying things too quickly or whatever.
00:40:56.880 --> 00:41:01.760
But as her mind started to slip, I guess that little governor was gone now.
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:04.880
And she was a very witty person.
00:41:05.039 --> 00:41:06.719
I did not inherit that.
00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:09.760
I think I have a good sense of humor, but I am not witty.
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:15.199
But she would just pall off with something that was usually usually kind.
00:41:15.280 --> 00:41:19.119
She wasn't just throw, but it was a yeah, she was pretty quick witted.
00:41:19.360 --> 00:41:23.280
So have you have you ever talked to her Girl Scout friends about her?
00:41:23.519 --> 00:41:26.159
Did you have a chance to do that after she passed away?
00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:29.039
Because it'd be interesting to see how they described her.
00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:29.360
Right.
00:41:29.519 --> 00:41:32.639
Which might be probably very different than a daughter.
00:41:32.960 --> 00:41:33.280
Sure.
00:41:33.440 --> 00:41:33.760
Yeah.
00:41:33.920 --> 00:41:35.440
I've never spent a lot of time.
00:41:35.519 --> 00:41:39.760
There's one, one was her her best friend growing up, Dot.
00:41:40.320 --> 00:41:44.079
And I've talked with her just a little bit, but not so much.
00:41:44.639 --> 00:41:49.920
She, you know, she would say how reserved mom was and things like that.
00:41:50.079 --> 00:41:53.920
Just, you know, we'd love for your mom to come to that, but I'm sure she won't.
00:41:54.320 --> 00:41:55.840
You know, those type of things.
00:41:56.000 --> 00:42:04.159
Uh mom was very, again, into appearances in that time when she was really, really sick in the hospital.
00:42:04.320 --> 00:42:12.639
She had said she did not want anybody to come in there and visit her because mainly that she didn't want them to see her with her makeup off and her hair.
00:42:13.119 --> 00:42:16.719
And I I called Dot though, and I said, I think you should come.
00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:19.360
Because we really didn't think she was gonna live through that.
00:42:19.519 --> 00:42:23.039
That's when she was waving at dad outside the hospital window and all that.
00:42:23.280 --> 00:42:28.559
So um I said, I don't really care what she says, I think Dot should should come be.
00:42:28.719 --> 00:42:30.639
And and she did, she came and visited.
00:42:30.719 --> 00:42:35.119
And but that was that was about 10 years before mom actually passed away.
00:42:35.360 --> 00:42:36.880
So she came through that one.
00:42:36.960 --> 00:42:38.639
But yeah, she was she was very witty.
00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:45.760
So I only assume maybe as a child she was she was a little more that way, but I never saw that until she got older.
00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:50.079
Well, probably during the time that you're raising children, you don't there's not a lot of witty things.
00:42:51.679 --> 00:42:53.920
No, you're just trying to make it through from one day to the next.
00:42:54.559 --> 00:42:56.000
Uh well, thank you for being here.
00:42:56.239 --> 00:42:57.920
I think this has been a great conversation.
00:42:58.079 --> 00:43:01.360
Uh and I appreciate you sharing your story and your mom's story.
00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:02.239
Well, thank you.
00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:03.519
Thank you for doing this.
00:43:03.679 --> 00:43:12.320
This I hope is gonna reach a lot of a lot of people, the all these programs that you're doing, the continued podcast and stuff.
00:43:12.400 --> 00:43:17.440
I think it's a it's a really great idea, and you're an excellent person to be doing that.
00:43:17.760 --> 00:43:25.360
Well, the interesting thing you've said, and I think so far everybody I've talked to, they've said, Well, I don't, you know, my story, it's kind of boring.
00:43:25.519 --> 00:43:26.079
I don't know.
00:43:26.320 --> 00:43:33.280
But I think there's so many things in each story that people can connect to or go, yeah, my mom was like that too.
00:43:33.440 --> 00:43:43.280
Or maybe even people whose mother's still around that they can say, Oh, you know, maybe they get some insight even to the relationship as it is right now.
00:43:43.440 --> 00:43:47.039
So I'm hoping that it uh that it will resonate.
00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:52.800
So thank you also, listeners, for uh joining us on this episode of A Daughter's Inheritance.
00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:55.840
I hope something in this conversation stays with you.
00:43:56.159 --> 00:44:05.760
Maybe it's comfort or connection, uh recognition of Maybe a similar story that you have with your own mother, and you know, maybe a laugh or two here and there.
00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:11.519
If it did resonate with you, please follow the show so you'll never miss the next daughter's story.
00:44:11.679 --> 00:44:15.280
And if you have an inheritance story of your own, I'd love to hear it.
00:44:15.519 --> 00:44:36.559
Until then, in the words of my mother, be patient, be kind, and be fair, but I think that's a good idea.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:10.160
She told my grandmother one time, I'm just not sure apple pie motherhood is my thing, but she made it work and we became closer as she got older.
00:00:21.839 --> 00:00:33.520
Hello everyone, and welcome to A Daughters Inheritance, where we have honest conversations with daughters about the complex relationships they have with their mom.
00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:36.479
In this episode, I'll be talking with Dr.
00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:45.920
Diana Eubanks, who is a clinical professor of veterinary medicine with a specialty in dentistry here at Mississippi State University.
00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:49.759
But I've known Diana for a while.
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I will say I was in my 20s when I moved to Atlanta and we met shortly after that.
00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:56.880
So we've known each other at least 10 years.
00:00:57.039 --> 00:00:57.439
That's right.
00:00:57.600 --> 00:00:59.439
At least, yes, that's something like that.
00:00:59.679 --> 00:01:02.799
So um, and she she grew up in Smyrna, Georgia.
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So if you're not familiar, that's just outside Atlanta.
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Went to the University of Georgia for undergrad and vet and uh vet school.
00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:12.319
So thank you for being here today.
00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:14.079
Well, thank you for asking me.
00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:18.879
And and let me just start by saying I think this is an amazing thing that you've been doing.
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So well done.
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Thank you.
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Feel free to add in any other things about yourself as we go along.
00:01:24.799 --> 00:01:27.200
That was just a quick uh quick intro.
00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:41.760
But let's start with you telling me about your mom, uh, who she was just as a woman before she was a wife and a mother, a little bit about her backgrounds, just so we can uh kind of frame uh who she was.
00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:46.319
Okay, well, I was named for her, and perhaps a little bit too closely.
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My name is Diana with an A, and hers was Diane with an E.
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So that caused a lot of confusion as I was growing up.
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But uh she was born in 1943.
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Uh she was my she was raised by my grandmother and her stepfather.
00:02:02.879 --> 00:02:06.000
Uh my grandmother's first marriage didn't last very long.
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And uh she grew up in a household with two half siblings.
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She has a sister and a brother.
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She shared a room with her sister, and so that came with some of the normal sibling rivalry type of things.
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And she was very protective of her baby brother.
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Um, her baby brother was about eight years younger than her, and I think that was a big uh big thing in his life was he had his had his uh sister die that looked after him.
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She went to secretarial school out of high school.
00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:42.719
She married my dad when she was 20.
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She had me when she was 21.
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So she just took off, right?
00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:48.240
She did.
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She she took off.
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Um I'm not sure she was she was quite ready for all of that.
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I know that you've talked to a lot of people that talk about how motherly their mother was and how wonderful their mother was.
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And I think as I talk about her, you'll find out that I I do think she was wonderful, but I feel as a young mother, she was she was not quite ready.
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And I think she would tell people.
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Uh she told my grandmother one time, I'm just not sure apple pie and motherhood is my thing.
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But she made it work and we became closer as she got older.
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Actually, in one of the other episodes, somebody said, My mother didn't know what she was doing.
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She was 22 years old, and she'd have told you, I don't know what I was doing.
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So I, you know, I think that may be a a common thing as well.
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You were also named for your father, right?
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So I was my name.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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So I they they were either fairly original or unoriginal, however, you want to, however you want to say it.
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One or the other.
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Um, so what was the relationship that she had with her mother?
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My grandmother was she was a wonderful woman.
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She was a wonderful cook.
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Uh, she was a wonderful grandmother.
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She was a little bit of a stern woman.
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She wasn't exceptionally compassionate or nurturing.
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And and I think, you know, that probably shaped my mother a little bit.
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My mother was very independent, and I think she instilled that in me.
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I'm very independent, can kind of take care of myself kind of person.
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But she certainly didn't have that more motherly figure.
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Yeah.
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Similar to her mother.
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Right.
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Uh Aura May.
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That's right.
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I mean, you gotta love that name.
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Aura May and Oscar.
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Oscar.
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That's just yes.
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Yeah.
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And you had a great relationship with with him, even though that wasn't her father.
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I did, I did.
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And I heard her say one time that uh, you know, growing up with two step siblings in a household with a stepfather, she always felt a little different.
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Um, some of that may have been what she created, some of that, I think it it just was different.
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And she didn't feel exceptionally close to him, but she said that where he maybe wasn't terribly successful as a father, he sort of made up for it as a grandfather because he was just the sun rose and set on him when I was a child, and I think it was a mutual feeling there.
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He was a very influential person in my life.
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Now, your grandmother was a great cook.
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She was.
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Your mother?
00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:28.480
My mother was not, not at all.
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My dad traveled a lot, and mom often did fish sticks, takeout, pizza.
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Yeah, she and as she got older, she made no excuses for not liking to cook.
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She wanted a very fancy mixer, one of those KitchenAid fancy looking.
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She wanted that simply because it looked very good on her granite countertop.
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She never ever turned it on.
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It was never used, but she she liked that.
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But uh, she was not a good cook.
00:06:02.639 --> 00:06:08.720
My dad was uh, we'll get into that probably in a few minutes, but he was he could be a little critical too.
00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:09.680
So I don't blame her.
00:06:09.839 --> 00:06:13.680
Part of learning to cook in most cases is trial and error.
00:06:13.839 --> 00:06:21.600
And I remember one time she cooked some green beans and didn't string them, and you would have thought she was trying to serve cat food or something the way my dad acted.
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So he wasn't he he wasn't one of those that pretended like, oh honey, that is so good.
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No, not at all.
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And I grew up being, for some reason or other, very, very protective of her.
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And so I remember a few dinners I just wanted to choke him and say, you know, she's she's trying.
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And then you couldn't blame her for not trying again when you know when there wasn't a lot of grace there for for error.
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So she had two step siblings.
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She did.
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And your father had uh he was he was an only child.
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He was an only child.
00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:54.399
And you were an only child.
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Correct.
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Uh so not a huge family, not at all.
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When I was small, we would often have my dad's parents over to my mother's parents' house for holidays.
00:07:07.839 --> 00:07:15.040
And I can't remember there ever being more than maybe nine or ten individuals there with, and that was with both sides of the family.
00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:21.759
So very small family, and as I've gotten older, that family's even smaller.
00:07:22.319 --> 00:07:26.560
Uh of her siblings, her sister did not have a child, her brother had one child.
00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:30.560
So I really just have one, one amazing cousin.
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Yeah.
00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:33.680
And she also has one only child.
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So we're not a real proliferative family.
00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:39.600
Um, so what did your mom like to do?
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She was she didn't necessarily like to cook, but what what brought her joy?
00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:49.040
She did like to garden and she passed that down to me.
00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:51.519
I think I take it a little level up.
00:07:51.680 --> 00:07:57.040
She mainly did little containers and stuff, and I love to do all kinds of yard work.
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I think her her job brought her joy.
00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:07.680
She stayed at home with me when I was small, but by the time I was in first grade, I think she got a secretarial job.
00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:14.959
My dad was a typical man of the time and did not think that his wife should have to work.
00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:20.639
And I remember when she did go to work that he made her get a separate checking account.
00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:26.879
And all of her money was to go into that, and absolutely none of it was to be spent on any household items.
00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:28.000
That was his responsibility.
00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:28.800
That was.
00:08:28.959 --> 00:08:34.080
So he was very, you know, very much the the provider in that way.
00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:41.360
And I think the very first thing I remember her buying from her special checking account was a nice set of patio furniture.
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And I think it very much hurt his pride to actually even sit on the furniture at first.
00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:47.840
There was some battle with that.
00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:52.399
But but I I think she enjoyed getting out and doing that.
00:08:52.559 --> 00:09:00.960
Now, when I say getting out, she was not a real people person, or I get so many of my traits in that that regard from her.
00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:03.039
Very introverted.
00:09:03.360 --> 00:09:07.759
I don't remember her spending a lot of time with friends.
00:09:07.919 --> 00:09:16.720
I mean, occasionally the girls from the office would go out to lunch or something, but she was always, you know, coming home right after work to to be home with.
00:09:17.519 --> 00:09:25.519
Like I said, my dad traveled some, but she was either getting home to be with me or just be at home, or certainly be at home if he was there.
00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:39.120
So that that trait I think is similar between the two of you, like like you said, because you have really close friends, but you don't have a ton of them.
00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:39.519
Right.
00:09:39.679 --> 00:09:39.840
Right.
00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:40.240
Right.
00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:43.679
And she had, I've heard you talk about her Girl Scout group.
00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:49.039
Talk about that a little bit, because that was, I mean, they've been friends for a long, long time.
00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:53.360
I don't think you could talk about Diane without bringing up the Girl Scouts.
00:09:53.759 --> 00:10:01.279
There was a group of about a dozen of them that knew each other from I think before the time first grade started.
00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:08.720
They all grew up in the same community, went to some of the same churches, and they were in a Girl Scout group together.
00:10:09.039 --> 00:10:15.279
And even though mom did not, in my opinion, spend a lot of time outside the home.
00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:21.279
She wasn't, as an adult, she wasn't active in church or her community or anything like that.
00:10:21.519 --> 00:10:29.440
At least about twice a year, the Girl Scouts would get together, usually for lunch, sometimes at someone's house.
00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:31.600
And those were very important.
00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:34.559
That was a very important group to her.
00:10:34.799 --> 00:10:39.600
In fact, when when mom got older, she developed dementia.
00:10:40.399 --> 00:10:46.080
I had an 80th birthday party for her, and she was getting quite confused by that time.
00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:50.000
So I worried a lot about whether I was doing the right thing.
00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:56.559
Because, you know, there's always a little risk throwing a surprise party for an 80-year-old, even under the best of circumstances.
00:10:56.799 --> 00:10:59.919
So I had a lot of worries about it.
00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:05.039
And we had it at the assisted living place where she was.
00:11:05.279 --> 00:11:07.600
We had a lot of the people from assisted living.
00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:09.519
We had family friends.
00:11:09.679 --> 00:11:17.600
I had a few friends I had grown up with, real mixture of people there in the in the little community center area.
00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:19.600
And I had the Girl Scouts.
00:11:19.679 --> 00:11:21.519
I think at the time there were about eight of them.
00:11:21.679 --> 00:11:23.840
A couple of them had already passed away.
00:11:24.159 --> 00:11:28.000
And I had been praying that this day would go well, but I wasn't sure.
00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:32.799
And I walked in, she was in front of me, and everybody said surprise.
00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:35.519
And she looked a little panic stricken.
00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:39.919
And for about five seconds, I thought, oh Lord, what have I done?
00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:41.600
This is not gonna go well.
00:11:41.759 --> 00:11:46.000
And then her eyes fell on the group of Girl Scouts.
00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:51.279
She took a deep breath and a big smile on her face, and she starts heading over to the Girl Scouts.
00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:53.840
And I think that it's always been that way with her.
00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:58.879
That's just was her home group, even though she wasn't real outgoing.
00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:07.600
That was just, you know, they were friends that had been friends from literally cradle to grave and had always been there in each other's lives.
00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:16.960
You know, I think that's something that is, I'm sure it's important with men, but it seems like that is such an important thing for women.
00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:19.120
Yeah, just I mean, it was for my mom.
00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:20.320
She had friends.
00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:22.080
Now my mother was a lot more outgoing.
00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:22.480
Right.
00:12:22.639 --> 00:12:23.120
So motherfuckers.
00:12:23.279 --> 00:12:23.759
As you are.
00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:25.759
She was so much more outgoing than I am.
00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:33.519
So, you know, she knew everybody in Ashoba County, and they were, you know, but she had her really close friends also that they did their quilting and stuff together.
00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:34.399
I remember.
00:12:34.639 --> 00:12:58.960
Um, other people we talked about in another one, in another episode, about their sisters, where they would invite their best friends with the sisters and and uh how important those connections really are that kind of stay with you throughout the ups and downs, and maybe when your spouse is getting on your nerves or you know, whatever you have that that tight-knit group.
00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:01.919
Well, one one other story I'll tell about the scouts.
00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:04.399
Uh, my mother was not a big outdoorsy person.
00:13:04.559 --> 00:13:09.919
I mean, just she was always dressed nicely, she was a very pretty woman.
00:13:10.080 --> 00:13:18.720
She took a lot of time to do her hair, to do her makeup, to, you know, she just didn't didn't go out in public without that.
00:13:18.799 --> 00:13:21.120
Uh, and again, just not real outdoorsy.
00:13:21.679 --> 00:13:28.799
I was probably about college age, and she came to me one time and asked if she could borrow my sleeping bag and maybe some camping stuff.
00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:32.080
And I thought, where is my mother and what have you done with her?
00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:33.120
Who is this?
00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:38.960
And the scouts had rented a couple of cabins up in North Georgia and they were going for the weekend.
00:13:39.120 --> 00:13:42.320
And that was very out of character for her.
00:13:42.399 --> 00:13:43.679
I think she had a good time.
00:13:43.840 --> 00:13:54.879
She didn't often go off and do something for herself, but that's probably the only group that could have drawn her out to something, and then especially with being an outdoorsy type of thing.
00:13:55.279 --> 00:13:57.600
And they probably did the same things they did when they were little girls.
00:13:57.759 --> 00:13:58.080
I'm sure.
00:13:58.240 --> 00:14:02.159
They sat around, they told stories, they giggled, they stayed up later, you know.
00:14:02.559 --> 00:14:03.200
I'm sure.
00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:04.000
So yeah.
00:14:04.559 --> 00:14:11.519
Um did she change over time with she had to wear the perfect clothes, have the makeup, the hair?
00:14:11.759 --> 00:14:13.519
Was that something that kind of stayed?
00:14:13.759 --> 00:14:15.919
Or that that stayed.
00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:16.240
Yeah.
00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:29.759
Even as her mind went as she got older, she uh now sometimes she applied the lipstick a little too thick, a little too much, a little, but you could tell it was it was because she still thought that was important.
00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:35.840
So uh did she skip some of the Girl Scout badges, like the cooking and the thing?
00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:39.519
Yeah, I cannot imagine the woman got a cooking badge.
00:14:39.679 --> 00:14:40.720
So or a camp.
00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:42.879
Well, she might have gotten the camping one later.
00:14:43.039 --> 00:14:52.960
Um, you mentioned that, but you do like the outdoors, and you talked about that she passed on to you um the love of of gardening and planting.
00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:56.720
You you have 14 acres, 15, yeah.
00:14:57.759 --> 00:15:01.759
Tell tell us a little bit about that because you have lots of animals out there.
00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:02.720
I do.
00:15:02.960 --> 00:15:09.600
I would say that's my kind of passion in life is taking care of that uh that little hobby farm out there.
00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:19.600
Um I share it with a very dear friend of mine, and we have horses and a pig, and we've got many rescued dogs.
00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:24.320
That's that's really what's at the heart of what I love to do is is dogs.
00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:31.279
Uh I've got chickens, I plant a little vegetable garden, I spend a good bit of time on my little hobby farm.
00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:37.440
Now, having grown up in Metro Atlanta, that little 15 acres seems like a ranch to me.
00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:37.919
Right.
00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:45.360
You know, it's it's it seems big from where I came from, but in a lot of people's minds it would be just a big yard.
00:15:45.679 --> 00:15:55.120
So as uh as a little girl growing up in your home, as an only child, what what was your mother like as a mother?
00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:00.320
I think she she tried.
00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:07.679
I think that's something as I've looked back, I realized that for the situation she was in, she tried.
00:16:08.879 --> 00:16:11.600
She wasn't uh she wasn't like your mom.
00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:13.519
She wasn't the PTA mom.
00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:24.399
She wasn't on all the church committees, she didn't usually offer to bake the cupcakes or serve for Bible school during the summer or anything like that.
00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:26.799
Uh children made her nervous, really.
00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:28.720
She wasn't the Kool-Aid mom.
00:16:28.799 --> 00:16:30.879
All the kids in the neighborhood didn't come over.
00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:32.000
No, I did have that.
00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:40.399
I had some friends down the street, and they were a lot, you know, their moms were a lot more likely to have all the kids over and things like that.
00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:42.559
But she was she was good.
00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:57.519
She, you know, she came to most of my um, you know, school things, and I played basketball not nearly as well as you did, or as, but you know, she came to things like that, and uh she she made an effort.
00:16:57.919 --> 00:16:59.759
She was present, she was present.
00:16:59.840 --> 00:17:00.399
That's a good thing.
00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:01.759
Attentive, yes.
00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:04.480
Uh but not necessarily overly nurturing.
00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:05.680
Right, right.
00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:09.200
I I think she grew I I grew up very independent.
00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:23.839
Um I know for a lot of kids things like going off to college is a big thing, and the parents go with them and they cry, and everybody's I think I packed my car by myself, said I'll see y'all in a couple weeks and drove off.
00:17:23.920 --> 00:17:25.200
You know, she said okay.
00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:30.160
Yeah, I mean, you know, that was just kind of how we, you know, how we did things.
00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:34.240
You said something interesting that that surprised me a little bit.
00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:37.279
You said your mother was independent.
00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:38.240
Yes.
00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:45.039
That's not what I saw because of the relationship with your with your with your dad.
00:17:45.279 --> 00:17:45.599
Right.
00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:48.960
Because she seemed very dependent on him.
00:17:49.519 --> 00:17:52.000
So what what's your kind of take on that?
00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:58.160
I think I have kind of dissected my mother a little bit over the years.
00:17:58.319 --> 00:18:05.519
And I understand things a lot more, I think, now now that I'm older and having seen what she went through.
00:18:05.759 --> 00:18:07.440
My dad was an alcoholic.
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:11.599
He was a good provider, he always had a job.
00:18:12.079 --> 00:18:18.480
He um any of his spare time, as you know, was usually working real estate or flipping houses.
00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:25.519
I mean, he was he was a hard worker and he he and I did not have a wonderful relationship, especially as I got older.
00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:28.799
But he did instill in me a good work ethic.
00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:38.319
And he was uh, you know, in some ways good to me, but his drinking, I think more than anything else, probably defined our family life.
00:18:38.960 --> 00:18:50.079
And my mom was the typical codependent wife that constantly felt like her biggest job was to run interference for him in so many regards.
00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:53.200
And so that really defined who she was.
00:18:53.839 --> 00:18:57.279
I felt like when I was growing up, I saw her as kind of weak.
00:18:57.440 --> 00:19:02.880
You know, I was like, she just does whatever dad says or she just folds whenever, you know.
00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:08.480
Um, I had high aspirations to go to college and become something professional.
00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:24.160
And and maybe I looked at what she did and thought, well, you know, you didn't really make any huge, you know, huge contributions to I I don't want that to sound sound bad, but you know, I don't know that I looked at it as something a route I wanted to go.
00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:31.839
And then I look back and uh realize a lot of the strength I think I have comes more from her than than from my dad.
00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:36.480
Um I've always felt like I'm pretty strong and I'm very stubborn.
00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:40.480
I always say that my best and worst qualities are the fact I'm stubborn.
00:19:40.640 --> 00:19:47.519
I think uh, you know, I can be irritating as all, you know, as the day is long to work with.
00:19:47.839 --> 00:20:00.880
But also I feel like the things I've accomplished in my life are because not necessarily because I'm incredibly smart or because of any great talent, but just the fact that I don't I don't give up, but I'm very stubborn.
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:04.960
Um I think I'm stubborn believing in people and and everything else.
00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:08.240
But uh I think I got that from mom more than dad.
00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:12.640
And I I think that was a big realization as I got older.
00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:14.799
When did you come to that realization?
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:17.759
Because I remember you saying, my mom doesn't even know how to put gas in the car.
00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:18.079
Yeah.
00:20:18.319 --> 00:20:25.440
So when did that happen that you started seeing your mother in a different way than you had when you were growing up?
00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:30.400
I would say probably not really, even well, I guess it began.
00:20:30.559 --> 00:20:32.799
My my dad got very sick.
00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:37.839
Um, pancreatitis was in the hospital for almost an entire year.
00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:54.559
And my mother, who couldn't put gas in the car, who I felt like, you know, yeah, she had stayed alone a lot as he traveled, but he was always coming home to fix something, or, you know, I just wondered about her life skills.
00:20:54.960 --> 00:21:10.000
And that year that he was in the hospital, I think at first she saw her world crumbling, and then after a week or so, and she realized this was going to be more of a marathon than a sprint, she sucked it up and went back to work.
00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:14.160
She'd work every day, then she'd go to the hospital and sit with him for about two hours.
00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:17.279
She'd go home and rest and get up and do it again.
00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:26.960
And and I I think that was I was in vet school at the time, so I came home as much as I could on the weekends, but I wasn't there on a day-to-day basis.
00:21:27.759 --> 00:21:35.440
And I think I started to kind of see then, I was like, you know, dang, she's kind of tougher than I ever gave her credit for.
00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:42.079
And then, you know, I don't know that I that was a total epiphany though at that point.
00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:51.920
I think it was, you know, probably even after my dad died later in her life that I really looked back and thought, you know, she was the she was the stronger one of the two of them.
00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:53.759
And that really showed up.
00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:57.039
Because when you were talking about the sickness, that's not when your dad died.
00:21:57.279 --> 00:21:58.160
No, no, he did not.
00:21:58.480 --> 00:21:58.880
He rallied.
00:21:59.119 --> 00:21:59.759
He rallied and
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:03.119
Then he died about ten or eleven years ago.
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:06.000
He died in two thousand fifteen, I guess.
00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:08.880
Did you see her change after that?
00:22:09.039 --> 00:22:24.400
Um because I think a lot of times women uh maybe there is a codependency or or sometimes I wonder if women don't do stuff because they just want the man to think that they don't know, you know, uh-huh here, honey, you do this, it makes you feel good about yourself.
00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:28.960
Um so how did she change after your phone?
00:22:29.440 --> 00:22:31.680
She changed a lot.
00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:34.319
Uh, and our relationship changed a lot.
00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:37.519
We had always it had always kind of been stressful.
00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:48.319
I feel like there were times I know I talked to you at times back then when um, you know, you said you gotta realize she's got to live with him on a day-to-day basis.
00:22:48.480 --> 00:23:01.440
I think a lot of times she chose whatever was the path of least resistance, whatever to keep him happy, keep peaceful, even if it didn't really meet meet my needs or my expectations at the time.
00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:06.319
But uh I think it changed a lot when he passed away.
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:13.920
She had a pretty quick, in less than a year after he passed away, she had a uh health scare.
00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:20.400
She ended up in the hospital after a surgery went wrong, and she just about died.
00:23:20.559 --> 00:23:28.960
In fact, she a few times said she saw dad standing right outside the hospital window, and I thought, well, she there she goes, you know.
00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:40.880
But um she ended up going, you know, through a physical rehab, physical therapy, and went to an independent living.
00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:47.680
It was a retirement community, but was in an independent side, and she really blossomed there.
00:23:47.839 --> 00:23:49.440
She made friends.
00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:58.079
She, I think, always missed dad because despite the fact that he could be a royal pain, he he was good to her.
00:23:58.240 --> 00:23:59.599
They loved each other.
00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:06.240
Um, I've heard people remark they might be the only two people that would have put up with, you know, either each other of them.
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:16.720
And I said several times, my mother deserves her angel wings for living with my dad for 51 years, I think, but uh that's a whole other story.
00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:28.480
But she went to the independent living side of a retirement facility and really just she made very typical the way I would probably be.
00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:36.559
She made a couple of very good friends, and she sat with them at dinner and still kept to herself a lot.
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:51.119
She did a lot of, you know, reading and word search, and she liked her coloring books and things like that, but she was still able to drive, and she went to Belk and went to the grocery store and things like that.
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:53.359
So she settled into that pretty well.
00:24:53.599 --> 00:25:01.759
But I'll tell you something that really changed the whole thing was COVID.
00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:08.960
Uh, they were in lockdown for almost an entire year, and I worried a lot about her.
00:25:09.119 --> 00:25:12.319
I had things delivered via Amazon.
00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:16.559
The building she was in, they took incredibly good care of them.
00:25:16.720 --> 00:25:20.160
They made sure they, you know, had whatever they needed.
00:25:20.319 --> 00:25:23.440
And mom made a lot of friends during lockdown.
00:25:23.599 --> 00:25:26.079
They were just forced in there together.
00:25:26.319 --> 00:25:31.440
I used to call her and could usually predictably tell when she would be in her apartment.
00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:40.880
I knew she'd be at, you know, breakfast or dinner, but you know, the normal thing before COVID was she would be by herself for the afternoon or something like that.
00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:44.240
Well, then it got where I would call and she wouldn't be there.
00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:48.400
Well, she'd call me back later and say, sorry, we were bowling in the hallway.
00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:50.640
Or we had a of course you were.
00:25:50.799 --> 00:25:51.039
Yeah.
00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:55.519
Yeah, we had a um cornhole tournament out in the lobby.
00:25:55.759 --> 00:26:08.240
Um, or they had a you know, a singer or some type of music musical uh entertainment that came in for the afternoon, and she went to all of these and just became a real real participant in it.
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:12.799
Now I also think her mind was starting to starting that gentle slide.
00:26:13.119 --> 00:26:24.160
I was gonna say, was that part of a personality change that happened with or was it just more freedom or yeah, it's I mean, more freedom after dad died.
00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:32.160
I think by the time they were out after COVID, though, she was probably starting to have a little personality change from Yeah.
00:26:32.319 --> 00:26:34.160
My my dad's personality changed.
00:26:34.240 --> 00:26:37.279
He had uh Alzheimer's in he was like that.
00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:39.200
He didn't didn't like people.
00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:46.000
Uh he had his very few people and he was funny and enjoyed them, but he was not a people person at all.
00:26:46.240 --> 00:27:01.440
And uh when he was in the um uh nursing home, he loved for people to come by and they they would uh when they were doing tours of the nursing home, they would take people to my dad's room because he was so hospitable.
00:27:01.519 --> 00:27:03.039
And I'm like, really?
00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:04.000
Where's my dad?
00:27:04.240 --> 00:27:04.880
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:27:05.039 --> 00:27:06.720
So I think that does happen sometimes.
00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:14.960
I was incredibly blessed in that my mother, for the most part, as she progressed through dementia, she was she was very sweet.
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:23.759
Now she got toward the end got anxious and you know that that side of it that I think a lot of people don't see until they actually live through it.
00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:27.279
But uh she was had a lot of anxiety toward the end.
00:27:27.359 --> 00:27:32.480
But she was she was pretty sweet and easy to mostly easy to deal with.
00:27:32.640 --> 00:27:32.960
Yeah.
00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:38.559
So I'm gonna ask you to uh put yourself in your mother's place for a minute.
00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:45.839
If she were sitting here and I said, How did your relationship with Diana change over time?
00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:47.279
That's a good question.
00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:49.279
What what would she say?
00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:51.359
Would it do you think it would parallel?
00:27:51.599 --> 00:27:59.359
Do you think it would be like, well, I was doing the best I could with the, you know, uh my family, my spouse trying to make that work?
00:27:59.519 --> 00:28:01.279
What what do you think she might?
00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:11.279
I'm not sure if she would realize quite the magnitude of times she, I think, chose my dad over me.
00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:14.400
I think she would think she had done the best she could.
00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:28.799
But yeah, I I definitely think she would have seen that at times she had to try to do whatever was going to keep the peace with him and let me be, you know, I I like I said I was you could take care of yourself.
00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:29.359
I could.
00:28:29.440 --> 00:28:42.799
I you know, I look back and and I think a lot of people look back on their childhood and they have things that they think damaged them or and you know, and some people deal with horrible things that I can't even imagine.
00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:50.319
But uh, you know, for the most part, a lot of times those things just kind of make you who you are and you can you can choose to make those good things.
00:28:50.640 --> 00:29:02.160
Um and I think they get they gave me a lot of uh you know, a lot of freedom and a lot of um I was an only child, but I wasn't just handed things left and right.
00:29:02.240 --> 00:29:05.680
Uh like I said, they instilled a very good work ethic, I think, in me.
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:15.200
But I did grow up with, you know, money to go to college and opportunities that, you know, might not have had had there been six children or something like that.
00:29:15.359 --> 00:29:16.720
So I understand that.
00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:18.319
We've talked about or may.
00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:21.920
Uh your father also had a very interesting mother.
00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:25.119
Uh, what was your mother's relationship with her?
00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:31.920
Um, I think she just tried to keep the peace and tried not to get too involved.
00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:37.759
I I think my dad's mother could have been a little overbearing with stuff.
00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:42.559
I think it was probably a typical, you know, typical kind of relationship.
00:29:42.720 --> 00:29:59.680
I know when I was small, she would get aggravated because they would want the her in-laws would want to pop down at eight o'clock at night and see the baby while the baby was asleep, you know, and my mother, I'm sure, was exhausted and you know, they didn't understand why we don't just wake the baby up.
00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:01.200
We're we're here.
00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:01.519
Yeah.
00:30:01.759 --> 00:30:05.200
And they were community leaders uh in Smyrna?
00:30:05.599 --> 00:30:06.000
They were.
00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:12.559
My grandfather was big in the civitans and historical society and things like that.
00:30:13.119 --> 00:30:16.880
So I think they could they could be kind of irritating.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:23.920
I don't think she had a particular adversarial relationship, I think it was just there, yeah, just there.
00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:31.920
You've talked a little bit about some of the ways that you're like your mother.
00:30:32.799 --> 00:30:44.640
If if you're looking now at this is what I've inherited from her, and not the financial stuff or whatever, but this is what I carry forward that she gave to me.
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:46.640
Uh, what would that look like?
00:30:46.880 --> 00:30:50.000
Like I said, probably my stubbornness.
00:30:50.720 --> 00:31:00.240
Um she was someone who could, I think, look at a situation and not let it get her to bog down.
00:31:00.319 --> 00:31:03.119
She just figured out a way to to do it.
00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:28.960
Um she I I think just my relationship with her, looking back, and and one of the things I can say, if I can go back just a minute to uh after my dad died and then she got sick, I feel like immediately things changed a bit for me and that I was sort of in a caretaker position.
00:31:29.119 --> 00:31:38.880
Not necessarily daily, not necessarily, but her ability to look after herself changed sort of suddenly because of the illness.
00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:44.480
And I just became a little more of a, you know, caretaker from a distance.
00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:47.039
I had to do a lot of that from from over here.
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:56.720
But uh, you know, I I like I said, I see that she was usually able to, whatever it was, she just overcome it.
00:31:56.880 --> 00:31:57.759
She fell one time.
00:31:57.920 --> 00:32:07.440
This was after she had, you know, come through the other part, and she was getting older then, and I think a lot of people thought, well, this will just be the thing that does her in.
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:16.160
And she had shoulder surgery, and she had, you know, she was in her late 70s, almost 80, and she went to rehab.
00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:24.720
This was a second time through rehab for her, and I think a lot of people would have given up, and she just she just kept going.
00:32:25.119 --> 00:32:52.000
Um, so I think that stubbornness, I think my in looking at my relationship with her and probably some other relationships in my life, it took me a long time to realize this, but something I've learned is that sometimes just because people aren't doing exactly what you think they should, or helping you in a way you think that they should be doing, sometimes they're doing the absolute best they can for that point in time.
00:32:52.319 --> 00:33:05.839
And I do look back at what all she dealt with and think, well, you know, she wasn't, she wasn't the PTA mom, she wasn't the Kool-Aid mom, but she was, I think, in many cases, doing the the best that she can.
00:33:06.559 --> 00:33:13.519
You know, I think uh in talking to women about their mothers and we're talking about mothers who have passed away.
00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:21.920
I think there becomes that realization as you go through the stages of your life that you're looking back that they went to through.
00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:22.480
Right.
00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:36.960
And you know, at 40 or 50 or 60, you can understand better where they were at 40 or 50 or 60 that just you you couldn't when when you were uh a child.
00:33:37.279 --> 00:33:44.480
I often think about, you know, there was only 20, 21 years between us, which made her a you know a little bit of a younger mother.
00:33:44.640 --> 00:33:52.000
And so there are a lot of times in my life I think back, I'm like, wow, my mom was, you know, this age when this happened.
00:33:52.640 --> 00:33:56.640
She was still growing up in in a in a way and having a baby.
00:33:57.680 --> 00:34:06.799
You have um you don't have children, but you have uh a lot of students that you work with that are very special to you.
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:10.239
Uh you've been at the university for 25.
00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:10.960
20 years.
00:34:11.920 --> 00:34:16.880
Um so there's been a lot of young people come through over that time.
00:34:17.119 --> 00:34:22.239
You've got other uh children and young people that are important to you and are important in your life.
00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:24.400
So what are you passing down?
00:34:24.480 --> 00:34:42.159
Is it you know, is there some advice that your mother gave you that you're passing down, or is there just uh what you learned through the years with her and through the transitions in her life that you are now passing that on, uh passing her legacy on and your legacy on as well?
00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:42.719
Right.
00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:45.599
I I can't think of too many things she said.
00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:51.599
She wasn't the type of person that sat down and had a deep meaningful conversation or anything.
00:34:51.679 --> 00:34:53.280
But there's not a lot of uh Diane.
00:34:53.840 --> 00:34:55.039
No, there's there's really not.
00:34:55.199 --> 00:34:59.679
There's not quotes or not things that I I remember her saying so much.
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:06.719
Uh, but but I think she passed on to me to, you know, a a certain strength.
00:35:06.800 --> 00:35:09.679
I guess that's you know, I've said that.
00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:22.000
And looking at being, you know, being open to people having, you know, doing the best that they can where they are.
00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:28.000
Also just that it's never too late to have a good relationship with your mother.
00:35:28.159 --> 00:35:33.360
Um, like I said, after after dad died, we had a very different type of relationship.
00:35:33.679 --> 00:35:46.800
Probably one thing that as I was going through, you know, the ideas before doing this uh session, I was trying to think of of things that I had or found after she died.
00:35:46.960 --> 00:35:51.679
And she wasn't always somebody to say, I'm proud of you.
00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:58.239
As she got older and got to be that little old lady, you know, you could tell she lit up when I came to to visit her.
00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:06.239
Um, she'd say, I've been looking for that little red truck all morning, you know, waiting for me to drive over from uh from Mississippi.
00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:12.639
But I did find a card, and it was obviously for a daughter, and so I'm the only one she had that I know of.
00:36:13.199 --> 00:36:23.920
And um said something on the front about, you know, those those uh my favorite, those three little words or whatever, and he opened it up, and the three words were that's my daughter.
00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:44.000
And that really hit me hard when, you know, because I think I think I could see that some in her, especially as she got older, that that she was proud of me and pleased that she just became a lot less judgmental about, you know, anything in my life.
00:36:44.159 --> 00:36:50.320
And now she still would tell me if I was wearing the wrong color or something like that.
00:36:50.559 --> 00:36:53.599
You could, you know, did you mean to do your hair like that?
00:36:53.840 --> 00:36:54.719
Things like that.
00:36:54.880 --> 00:36:56.639
But but that was that was a big thing.
00:36:56.800 --> 00:37:03.199
She never got around to sending that card, but I do feel like she got that card with the intention of giving it to me.
00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:04.639
That's neat.
00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:08.000
Um, yeah, in that way, I I'm good at buying cards.
00:37:08.800 --> 00:37:10.800
So I'm thinking about them at that moment.
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:13.840
She just stuck it somewhere.
00:37:15.199 --> 00:37:23.840
Um, so with that, are there some things that you saw that maybe you later you learned that she was proud of you?
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:24.960
She really was.
00:37:25.360 --> 00:37:26.639
Maybe she didn't tell you.
00:37:26.800 --> 00:37:28.079
She probably told other people.
00:37:28.239 --> 00:37:33.039
I mean, that's one of the things you see also that she's telling everybody else about her daughter, but she never tells you.
00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:33.760
Oh, yeah.
00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:52.639
Um has that informed how you relate to other people with whether it's students or young people or or whatever, and how you've seen the relationship that you have with her, has that affected other other relationships that you have or with your students or or anybody?
00:37:53.440 --> 00:37:56.000
Well, I I I feel like it has.
00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:11.440
Um I am one thing I think I try to really tell my students when they ask, I mean, when we're having some of these talking sessions, not just uh I often tell them they're much better than they think they are.
00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:15.199
Um but I want them to be confident.
00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:21.679
And these these are young adults that are going through veterinary school, which is very difficult.
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:28.320
And a lot of times their their confidence is just usually a little lacking.
00:38:28.719 --> 00:38:33.039
And in most cases, um like you're you're better than you think you are.
00:38:33.599 --> 00:38:44.800
And also you have, you know, you have us to fall back on to call if you need that kind of you know, mostly in a professional way, but sometimes in a little bit of a motherly way, you know, if you've got this.
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:52.159
And I feel like maybe my mother had that with me, but not always when I was younger.
00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:59.599
I I think she in her mind successful would have been me getting married and having a family.
00:38:59.840 --> 00:39:10.000
And I think she always, you know, she made me feel like that was a a shortcoming rather than, you know, the but I think she was proud of my professional, professional life.
00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:24.800
We had a uh a symposium a few weeks ago and we had a student panel, and one of the things that they said, because they were talking to faculty, this was a faculty training, and they said, Don't call your students kids, because they're not kids.
00:39:24.960 --> 00:39:25.280
Yeah.
00:39:25.599 --> 00:39:29.679
Now they're young adults, but they're new at it.
00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:32.159
They're learning how to be adults.
00:39:32.320 --> 00:39:37.519
Uh, and I think that influence on those young people that they're not children anymore, they're not kids.
00:39:37.679 --> 00:39:41.280
They really are adults, but they don't know how to be an adult yet.
00:39:41.360 --> 00:39:41.519
Yeah.
00:39:41.679 --> 00:39:49.920
And in the vet school, they're a little bit older than that, but still they're there's a lot that they're learning how to to do.
00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:55.679
Uh and and I mean they're in medical school basically, so it's a lot of responsibility.
00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:02.480
They're usually incredibly smart, they're very motivated, but but they are, they're having to learn how to do life.
00:40:03.199 --> 00:40:08.320
And sometimes that's where, you know, sometimes I get a chance to help with that.
00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:24.320
So as we wrap up, is there is there anything that surprised you when you look back that surprises you about your mother or uh that you think, you know what, I didn't realize that at the time?
00:40:24.719 --> 00:40:28.639
The one thing that comes to my mind, she was very witty.
00:40:29.440 --> 00:40:31.920
I don't think I would have thought that at all.
00:40:32.400 --> 00:40:38.159
And maybe it just came out so much more as she got older and loosened up a little bit.
00:40:38.400 --> 00:40:42.960
Loosened up, got out from under the influence of my dad.
00:40:43.360 --> 00:40:46.960
Uh maybe, again, she was very proper.
00:40:47.119 --> 00:40:49.039
She always, you know, did her hair just right.
00:40:49.119 --> 00:40:56.719
And I'm sure there was a, you know, she had a certain hold on, you know, saying things too quickly or whatever.
00:40:56.880 --> 00:41:01.760
But as her mind started to slip, I guess that little governor was gone now.
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:04.880
And she was a very witty person.
00:41:05.039 --> 00:41:06.719
I did not inherit that.
00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:09.760
I think I have a good sense of humor, but I am not witty.
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:15.199
But she would just pall off with something that was usually usually kind.
00:41:15.280 --> 00:41:19.119
She wasn't just throw, but it was a yeah, she was pretty quick witted.
00:41:19.360 --> 00:41:23.280
So have you have you ever talked to her Girl Scout friends about her?
00:41:23.519 --> 00:41:26.159
Did you have a chance to do that after she passed away?
00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:29.039
Because it'd be interesting to see how they described her.
00:41:29.199 --> 00:41:29.360
Right.
00:41:29.519 --> 00:41:32.639
Which might be probably very different than a daughter.
00:41:32.960 --> 00:41:33.280
Sure.
00:41:33.440 --> 00:41:33.760
Yeah.
00:41:33.920 --> 00:41:35.440
I've never spent a lot of time.
00:41:35.519 --> 00:41:39.760
There's one, one was her her best friend growing up, Dot.
00:41:40.320 --> 00:41:44.079
And I've talked with her just a little bit, but not so much.
00:41:44.639 --> 00:41:49.920
She, you know, she would say how reserved mom was and things like that.
00:41:50.079 --> 00:41:53.920
Just, you know, we'd love for your mom to come to that, but I'm sure she won't.
00:41:54.320 --> 00:41:55.840
You know, those type of things.
00:41:56.000 --> 00:42:04.159
Uh mom was very, again, into appearances in that time when she was really, really sick in the hospital.
00:42:04.320 --> 00:42:12.639
She had said she did not want anybody to come in there and visit her because mainly that she didn't want them to see her with her makeup off and her hair.
00:42:13.119 --> 00:42:16.719
And I I called Dot though, and I said, I think you should come.
00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:19.360
Because we really didn't think she was gonna live through that.
00:42:19.519 --> 00:42:23.039
That's when she was waving at dad outside the hospital window and all that.
00:42:23.280 --> 00:42:28.559
So um I said, I don't really care what she says, I think Dot should should come be.
00:42:28.719 --> 00:42:30.639
And and she did, she came and visited.
00:42:30.719 --> 00:42:35.119
And but that was that was about 10 years before mom actually passed away.
00:42:35.360 --> 00:42:36.880
So she came through that one.
00:42:36.960 --> 00:42:38.639
But yeah, she was she was very witty.
00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:45.760
So I only assume maybe as a child she was she was a little more that way, but I never saw that until she got older.
00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:50.079
Well, probably during the time that you're raising children, you don't there's not a lot of witty things.
00:42:51.679 --> 00:42:53.920
No, you're just trying to make it through from one day to the next.
00:42:54.559 --> 00:42:56.000
Uh well, thank you for being here.
00:42:56.239 --> 00:42:57.920
I think this has been a great conversation.
00:42:58.079 --> 00:43:01.360
Uh and I appreciate you sharing your story and your mom's story.
00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:02.239
Well, thank you.
00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:03.519
Thank you for doing this.
00:43:03.679 --> 00:43:12.320
This I hope is gonna reach a lot of a lot of people, the all these programs that you're doing, the continued podcast and stuff.
00:43:12.400 --> 00:43:17.440
I think it's a it's a really great idea, and you're an excellent person to be doing that.
00:43:17.760 --> 00:43:25.360
Well, the interesting thing you've said, and I think so far everybody I've talked to, they've said, Well, I don't, you know, my story, it's kind of boring.
00:43:25.519 --> 00:43:26.079
I don't know.
00:43:26.320 --> 00:43:33.280
But I think there's so many things in each story that people can connect to or go, yeah, my mom was like that too.
00:43:33.440 --> 00:43:43.280
Or maybe even people whose mother's still around that they can say, Oh, you know, maybe they get some insight even to the relationship as it is right now.
00:43:43.440 --> 00:43:47.039
So I'm hoping that it uh that it will resonate.
00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:52.800
So thank you also, listeners, for uh joining us on this episode of A Daughter's Inheritance.
00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:55.840
I hope something in this conversation stays with you.
00:43:56.159 --> 00:44:05.760
Maybe it's comfort or connection, uh recognition of Maybe a similar story that you have with your own mother, and you know, maybe a laugh or two here and there.
00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:11.519
If it did resonate with you, please follow the show so you'll never miss the next daughter's story.
00:44:11.679 --> 00:44:15.280
And if you have an inheritance story of your own, I'd love to hear it.
00:44:15.519 --> 00:44:36.559
Until then, in the words of my mother, be patient, be kind, and be fair, but I think that's a good idea.
