I have the last red pen Helen owed and wrote with….
My Mother Helen L. Hill always wrote in red pen. Helen was born in Ancaster, Ont. Canada, she was the daughter of a Dairy Farmer, the middle child of 3. Her parents where hungarian, her mothers mother my great grandmother, came from hungria when she was just 13 married and with child. She lived on the prairies of Saskatchewan, my great grandmother told me things i’ve never forgotten, she was a women the spoke hungarian always, she wore a dress that was 30 years old and you’d never know it, unless she showed you where she patched it, her home was the cleanest iv ever known. I looked up to her and still speak of her, driving across Canada, many times I’ve thought of her and spoke about where i came from as i drove… My mother was a horse rider, she had her own as a child, always road bare back. Helen would tell us when after a long day out she would lie on the back of her horse and say take me home and she would. From that we my brother and sister and i grow up loving horse, my mother said they where the smarts animals in the world. they can feel what you feel she would say, never be afraid if thrown off get back on. and that’s what I did, for real once, and throw my life it seemed, just got back on. I used to call it getting out of a ditch that was full of mud from a hard rain. I now understand my mother more and feel i know her better now that i have grown into a women and mother, Helen has been gone now for some years, passed of cancer as i sat with her that late night, holding her hand. When she was told there was nothing they could do fro the sickness, she look at me from her hospital bed and said lets get this over with fast, so i began to pray, my mother never believed in a higher power, her mother also died from cancer. So i asked god to take her fast, not easy but with out a tear i did day after day. My girls CountessSyanne and Glendaa Maisha remember her, Maisha called her Oddie, that was my Fathers nick name, Maisha was older then Countess when she past and had spent a lot of time !
with her and my dad, My mother called her Miss MY. Helen began to drink when her mother died, not having any one to love her she believed, she turned to the bottle. Until I was 13 that’s when she finally stopped by then i was lost to her, and we did not know each other i had grown up with out a mother, so to speak. My sister was there for my brother and i, and my dad the rock of the family. My mother never seen him, even with all he did for her. Helen did teach us kids to be proud and stand up for or self’s, when needed she was always there for us, Helen was a strong women. My father was native and mother hungarian so as children we where called names by the neighbourhood kids, like Red skin, wha hoo. you know the hand over the mouth calling out wha hoo.. so any way that made us strong, Helen would say show them what your made of, kick there ass. So we did, many years later my father would tell us how Helen would cry about that name calling, but it made us stronger and proud of who we where, she must know that now?? My mother gave us manners, pride self respect and strength, we stand strong now. Me with my own girls, loving them more then any one will or ever can , holding them always, telling then and showing then who much i love then, telling then how imported they are to the world. They travel a lot, like i did and their father did when we where younger, me for my reasons, they because i want them to see the world out there learn about them self’s and know that they can do and go as far as they want in life all they need to do is go for it and keep their dreams in front were they can see them, do their best and that’s good enough. I feel bad now that my mother and i never had the time together but, that’s just the way it goes some times, she had her demons and she dealt with them her way, I grow up and let mine go, when i got married and said I’d never let my kids see what I’ve seen in life and they have never seen me drink, and i stopped it all when i got married. My mother and Father where married for over 40 years up until my mother passed. I was Married on their 37 wedding anniversary, the same day they were married Dec 31.
Helen did her best and i love her for that we, my sister and i did not wined up like most of our friends, and we turned out good i think, even if we have had truobles along the way, my brother and sister with their drinking. I m the youngest but in most ways the oldest as all my friends would say… Helen’s words come from my mouth every day, as i tell my girls, they too one day will say the same thing when its their time. I heard a saying once by Mary J Blige. “I forgive my mother for every thing, and i blame her for nothing”, Helen had a brother Murray who died when he was 13, drowned in the fall, her mother she watched die from cancer just after her and my dad was married, her father killed her dog, shot it behide the barn, Helen hated her father, she was loved by one women her mother, when she lost her she fell, she did her best and that was good enough for me. I speak of her always and think of her every day and smile. I have become my mother expect for the drinking. LOL