Growing up I wouldn’t describe my mother as either very conservative or very liberal. She was just her. When she went to work, she never wore anything suggestive. Actually, she never really dressed in any way provocative as far as I could remember. However, we had a pool, it was nothing fancy, just an inground vinyl lined pool. It was nice enough, but you wouldn’t see it in a rich person’s back yard. Mom was a sunworshipper and when she sunned by the pool, she wore next to nothing bikinis. She was a small woman, maybe 5’4 and might be 105 lbs. I never really paid much attention to what she because I was used to seeing her wearing those itty bitty bikinis.
My dad passed away during my junior year of college. I dropped out of the spring semester to go home to be with her during that time. My parents had a very good marriage. They occasionally argued but I never heard either of them yell at the other one. They were very affectionate to each other and to me. We were a hugging family. Dad’s death was very hard on both of us. If I hadn’t dropped out that semester, I am sure she would have lost herself in a deep depression. Taking care of her also kept me from depression as well.
We spent a lot of time together. We watched many movies that spring while either snuggled up on the couch or even on her bed. Me being there was also a stimulus for her to remember to eat. Mainly she just remembered that I needed to eat and she would join me. If I weren’t there, her 105 lb frame probably would have withered away to nothing.
Spring turned to summer. I figured out how to prepare the pool for the summer season knowing that nothing was better for depression than sunshine. At first it took some convincing but soon mom was spending a lot of time swimming and soaking in the sun in her itty bitty bikinis.
When I felt like mom was through the worst of her depression, I decided to get a job. It wasn’t out of necessity; my parents had saved wisely, and dad had a pretty good insurance policy. Mom would be fine. It was more about I needed to put some money back for college (my mom said she would take care of those costs but they had raised me to be responsible for myself). I also just needed to get out of the house on a regular basis or I was going to go crazy.
After a few weeks of working it seemed both of us had settled into a routine. My boss was always offering me more and more hours because of the work ethic my parents had instilled in me. In the short time I was on the job there was only one other person that was in my class as far as being dependable and industrious. Even I admired his dedication. It’s not like our jobs were overly complicated, we were material handlers in a large distribution warehouse, but our boss at least appreciated those of us who showed up on time (showing up was a plus compared to some of the others) took our job seriously, and rarely screwed it up.
Even though I felt better about mom’s emotional state, I still felt the need to spend most of my non-working time at home with her. Being a helicopter son ended up changing our relationship in a surprising way.