It still hurts, 12 years later.

        There isn't a day that passes that I don't think about my mom, Irene Mueller, who died in the fall of 1996.     It might be a favorite dish of hers that I suddenly get a hankering for (she didn't write down many of her recipes, so a lot of her kitchen secrets went to the grave with her).     It might be me, parroting one of her lines to my own children (almost always, it's something I swore that I would never repeat to my own offspring, but with age comes the realization that your mom was pretty damn smart).     

        And then there's that day when we all think of our moms--Mother's Day.

        What I'll remember this time around is something a friend just wrote me in an e-mail this week.     We were going back and forth about events of the day and trying to set up that get-together that too often gets blown off.       The subject was parents, and he told me that he'd always considered my late mom a role model because she taught him to respect the "everyman".      If there ever was an "everywoman", it was Irene.       "Common as horse s--t" was one of her favorite descriptions of herself.        She was beer, sheepshead, and home-cookin'.      Butter was in or on EVERYTHING.      She worked hard.    She played hard.      Her first-impressions of people were dead-on.       She was my harshest critic.       She was my biggest fan.

       Irene Mueller went through life with just eight grades of education, but had more wisdom than most people I've met since.     A product of the depression era, she wasted nothing and didn't take chances.      She worried herself sick when I quit college two years in, and with every job change that followed.      She'd back me up, but she couldn't help wondering if I'd made the right choices.      What parent doesn't?

        Life with my dad wasn't easy, and it got no better when he died in 1970.        Left with practically nothing, we got by on what little he'd left us before Mom had to head out to work.        We got by on what she made working in the produce room at a Sheboygan grocery store.      Irene didn't drive, so she'd often walk the mile or so to work, at least at the start.      It wasn't long before co-workers started making sure she had a ride both ways--not just because they were good people, but because Mom was so damn likable.       While the job wasn't glamorous, it gave her something to do after my dad was gone and my sister and I had left the house.      The store became her new family.     I knew more about her co-workers than I did about the people I worked with.      It kept her young.     It no doubt kept her alive.

         The spunk and fire that had been so much a part of Irene faded when she retired.     Her health started to falter, and the woman who'd go to any Brewers game I could get her to started to beg off more and more, opting instead to be close to home.      My sister, saint that she is, took care of Mom down the stretch, doing her grocery shopping and checking in daily to make sure all was well.

         It wasn't a surprise when Irene died--lingering illnesses almost made it a relief that she wasn't suffering anymore--but that doesn't diminish the hurt or the sense of loss.      My brother in law put it best when he said, "When you lose you mom, you lose your home."     No matter where Irene lived after I left the house, it was always home, wherever she was.    That's gone.    Has been, for 12 years.

         The loss never goes away.     Nor do the memories.    Almost all are pleasant.     Most are hilarious.     The sadness returns when you realize there won't be new ones.

        So, you cling to the memories you have.    To those of you going through that first Mother's Day minus Mom, I feel you.    For those of you who have a Mom to visit or call, do it.      Savor every day.      If there's been a split, mend it.      One thing we should all cull from the day's headlines is that life is short, random, and occasionally very, very cold.       Make amends.      Step up.     

        Make it a Happy Mother's Day.