Her name was Betty Jo. She grew up in the Great Depression as the youngest of seven. Her father was a farmer, and their family struggled to make ends meet. Some nights there was no dinner, so they would go milk a cow and drink the milk, just so their little bellies weren’t empty as they tried to go to sleep. In high school, she fell in love with a boy named John Supernaw, and they got engaged before he left to serve in WWII. Because her family was so poor, she moved in with John’s family to wait for her beloved to come home from the war and marry her. I’m sure the day that the telegram arrived at their front door was horrific. I can only imagine the screams of John’s mother, realizing her boy was never coming home. I imagine Betty cried too. Maybe they held each other, desperate for some comfort. Both of their lives changed forever.
Eventually, the Supernaws sent Betty back to her family, since she was now no longer to be their daughter-in-law. The next summer, at a church camp, she met Manuel Ramirez, a handsome Mexican boy. Her family wasn’t crazy about her marrying a Mexican boy, but since her first fiancé had died in the war and she was getting older, they figured they better get her married off somehow, so they allowed it. By all accounts, Betty and Manuel loved each other deeply. All Betty wanted was to be a wife and mother. It seemed her dreams were finally coming true.
After they got married, she tried for over 10 years to have a baby, but it wasn’t meant to be. They applied to adopt a baby, but even that was hard, as Manuel was Mexican and there was an unfair bias against him. Finally, in December 1961, they got a call that a baby girl was born outside of Tulsa in a Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers to a teenage girl that wasn’t able to keep the child. This baby girl was half-Mexican, so she might be the perfect fit for them to adopt. I remember my Aunt telling me that Betty was SO excited that maybe, just maybe, her dreams of becoming a mother might be finally coming true!
“Don’t get your hopes up, Betty Jo”, my aunt told her. “They haven’t agreed to let you have her yet.” Two long months went by, and finally on Feb. 13th, 1961, the phone call came in. “She’s ready for you to adopt now. Can you pick her up tomorrow?” I became the daughter of Manuel and Betty Jo Ramirez on Feb. 14th, 1962. The headlines were in the Shawnee paper “Local couple gets extra special Valentine’s Day gift!”, along with a picture of the three of us.
Happy ending, right? Well… yes and no. The relationship between me and my mother was complicated at best. I’m sure there were many days she wondered if she might be able to return me to the adoption agency… lol… and there were many days I swore I’d never speak to her ever again once I could grow up and move away. We had many, many fights, with my poor Dad trying to referee as best he could. I just thought she didn’t understand me and she didn’t care about my wants, hopes and dreams. Looking back, I see now that I didn’t care about hers. Well, it wasn’t that I didn’t care… I just didn’t understand.
I was strong-willed and razor focused on moving out of our small-town to pursue my music career. I couldn’t see that her inability to support me in that wasn’t because she didn’t love me or believe in me, but more about her own mental health struggles with depression. No one talked about mental health back then. No one had therapists on speed dial like many of us do today. She had zero support in working through her depression, insecurities, and difficult emotions surrounding her deep loneliness as her husband was happy and thriving in his job as a University Professor and her daughter was planning more and more each day to move away to pursue her own dreams. She was getting completely left out and left behind. And the worst part is - no one really noticed. No wonder she was so miserable… and often mean and hurtful, both to me and Dad. You know the saying, “Hurt people hurt people”? Well, she was hurting and she passed that hurt on to me and Dad on a pretty regular basis. I’m not saying that Dad and I didn’t deserve some of what she gave us. Looking back, we were both pretty caught up in our own lives and didn’t give her the support she clearly needed at the time. However, we also didn’t know HOW to help her. Again, mental health issues just weren’t discussed back in those days.
I tell you this long story for two reasons today. First off, because it’s been 10 years since Mom passed away and it feels good for me to write about her. She was a complicated woman, but deep down, very sweet and caring. Now that I’m older, I see that she, Dad and I all did our best with what we had at the time. In their last years on earth, I got to spend a lot of quality time with them as their main caretaker, and I finally got to understand so much about my Mom. Things that I didn’t even realize I desperately needed to know. We were both able to forgive one another for all the hurt we imposed on each other. And I’m happy to say that the last thing we both said to one another was “I love you” - something that was never said between us until the last few years of her life. Sad, isn’t it? How could we have misunderstood each other for so many years?
In talking with many of my friends, I have found that Mother’s Day often brings much more pain to women than it does feelings of being celebrated. There are many different reasons for this. Some women are grieving the passing of their mothers. Some are estranged from their mothers or estranged from their children. Some women are desperately wanting to be a mother, but with no luck. Some women have chosen not to be a mother and feel judged or ostracized for that decision. Some women know that they will not be acknowledged by their grown children in a way that makes them feel seen and valuable, and that hurts too. Some women are grieving the loss of a child. I would say that most women are dealing with one or more of these complicated emotions surrounding Mother’s Day. I know I have, and do.
So, for anyone struggling with grief, pain and/or hurt on this Mother’s Day weekend, I have researched a few things that should help us all get through this complicated, emotional day.
Add in a little extra self-care. Get enough rest, eat healthy food, plan a fun activity with friends. Take care of you. When we are tired and stressed, our emotions are harder to manage.
Lower your expectations. That will help us with disappointment when things don’t go as we hoped.
Shift your focus. Do something for another women who might be feeling grief or hurt this Mother’s Day. When we help others, we always feel better.
Change your traditions. Sometimes a fresh perspective can help us. Forcing old traditions and expecting them to feel the same won’t work.
Express your feelings. Find someone to let it all out with! Either a trusted friend, a spouse, a counselor etc… Sometimes we just need to say the hard things out loud and then we feel much better.
And one more thing that I think is super important:
Give yourself grace. For those of us who are feeling regret and wish they could go back and be better daughters or better mothers, I’d like to pass on what my therapist told me one time in a session. It wasn’t long after Mom had passed, and I was telling her how much I regretted not taking the time to understand her more when I was younger and feeling shame for all the mean things I said to her when she would hurt me. My therapist looked at me and said, “You need to let yourself off the hook. You were doing the best you could at the time with the emotional maturity you had at the time. If you knew then what you know now, well of course you would do things differently - but you didn’t. You didn’t know. Give yourself grace.” I think that’s really valuable advice. With our Moms AND with our children. Lord knows I would do things differently AS a Mom if I could go back now - but I can’t. We can only go forward. Reminds me of the Maya Angelou quote: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” That statement can be applied to almost every area in life - work, parenting, hobbies, friendships, and life in general.
All that being said—- I don’t want to diminish the beauty of the day completely — so HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all the wonderful Moms out there that bust their butts for their families! You DO deserve a big round of applause for all that you do for your family! I think it’s sweet that we take a day to celebrate something specific, but I think we should also normalize the complicated emotions that come along with this holiday (all holidays really) and acknowledge them. That way we don’t all feel so… weird. Trust me, you are not alone in the complicated feelings department. We’ve all got them. And we can get through them, together.
Much love… M
What I’m loving this week:
BOOK: I had surgery this week so I’ve been laying around reading a lot. One book I have loved this week is Love Poems from God by Daniel Ladinsky. My dear friend Ramona McKenzie gifted this one to me and it has soothed my soul lately! I highly recommend!
TV: Because of the above mentioned surgery, I’ve also been laying in bed watching A LOT of TV. I gotta say, I’m hooked on “Love and Death” on HBO, which is the true story of Candy Montgomery, the suburban housewife accused of murdering her lover’s wife with an ax. I’m so bummed because I have to wait for the last few episodes as they come out one week at a time now. I thought I could watch the whole thing, but nooooo… now left I’m on the edge of my seat! It won’t be for everyone, but I’ve become a sucker for a true crime story, and Elizabeth Olsen is captivating as Candy.
MUSIC, THEATRE, FILM: And before I had surgery, I took a quick trip to NYC with my sisters to see “Hamilton” and my GOSH I can’t tell you how brilliant it is! I’ve seen it a few times on the Disney+ film version but I honestly wasn’t prepared for how powerful it would be in person on Broadway!! I was a sobbing mess by the end! If you are a Hamilton fan, I can’t express how much you should go see it on Broadway. There is nothing quite like it!!!
I’m with you on the Love and Death Series…I watched the first 3 episodes in one session and then realized I was going to have to wait a week for the next one!! Haven’t gotten to watch last weeks yet, but it really does present the reality of that era.
And Happy Mother’s Day to you also!
Thank you. Writing about our parents and the complex relationship surround them can be so hard and vulnerable. This was such a beautiful view into your story. <3