I was a lamented mess.

In a text thread between ginger daddy and Markesa the other day we, per usual, throw out moves that we love and ask if each of us has seen them.  After Chris watched Places in the Heart, Mark and I threw out our lines that totally resolve the film to one line quips - "STEP DOWN" "I CAN'T, I'VE GOTTA' GET HOME"!  Then Mark brought up "The Trip to Bountiful".  I remember seeing this movie a lifetime ago but didn't remember anything Foote was trying to covey so I watched it last night.  I didn't remember the time that I saw it before or when or where or who I was with but I was taken down a different path of memories.

Mrs. Watts loved her son, Ludie.  It was painful to watch how much she adored him while at the same time hated that she had to live with him and his wife.  All Mrs. Watts wanted to do was to go home again and see where she'd spent the first 40 some odd years of her life with her family and the only life she'd ever really known.  One thing - she wanted to go home.  Secretly, Ludie wanted to go home as well but he had forged ahead to make a better life for himself and his family and moved his mother with those aspirations to the big city making an unsuccessful attempt to forget his past.  

My mother was a dreamer, an unrealistic dreamer.  If she had $4 she spent $4.25 on whatever was the shiniest.  At different intervals in her life she came into quite sizable sums of money but she died without enough in the bank to cover her own funeral.  I tried to help her create a structured financial system without completely understanding her propensity to squander everything she had - and she also was happy with having nothing.  

I moved away from my hometown after college in 2002 and came to Dallas in 2003 - I never looked back.  When my mother retired and told me she had "X" amount of debt to face if she stopped working I arranged a cash out refinance of her paid for home and gave her the proceeds to pay these bills, have money left over, and I also bought her a new car.  The structure of the mortgage was also so I was assured that the taxes and insurance would be paid on time - I toted the note.  After a few years it became clear that she'd spent all the money I'd given her and not only did I pay the mortgage (that I incurred) but I also sent her money every month.  I was glad to do it but I never got used to it being (what I felt) expected.

Over the next 10 years there were many homes that come on the market in my hometown, Camden, that were insane deals.  There was always a market for her home she that she'd built in 1988 on land just two lots away from the Big House her grandparents lived in for over 40 years.  From a financial standpoint, I wanted to sell her house, pay it off, take the profit and buy a larger home that would be a better investment down the road.  Also, mom's house was 1,500 square feet and had 3,000 square feet of stuff in it.  But, every time I would take her to see a larger, and in my view better, home she would't budge on accepting it to be hers - even homes that we'd admired my entire life that she'd said "I'd give anything to live there."  

I can't tell you now if I wanted her to live somewhere different because I wanted to provide more for her or if I wanted her to live somewhere that would be a better investment for me later on.  I feel it was a combination of both but one I never got to fulfill.  I didn't have many happy memories of the home she built and we lived in.  This was a difficult time in my life that I try not to remember but of course I do remember.  A fault (or blessing) my mom had was being oblivious to anyone or anything around her - she was the sun and everyone revolved around her.  This wasn't just in her own mind.  

Watching this movie last night, so many truths came up.  I tried to make someone do something they didn't want to do.  All she wanted was to be at home.  Her home.  Mom was luckier than Geraldine Page's character in that she lived where she wanted.  We had a lot of disagreeable moments in my life usually stemming from my wanting to do something she didn't.  I've learned a lesson that I should have a long time ago.  I can't change people.  I have to accept them for who they are.  I can change the way I react to them but I can't change them to suit me.  Maybe it's the pandemic and months of sitting and thinking - maybe it's getting to that age where things make sense because of LIFE, maybe it's Maybelline.  

The ending scene where Ludie tells his mother that he remembers everything about his childhood and he's sorry he didn't see things her way before then and make a better effort to appreciate her feelings - it was a moment that I'm jealous of.  I wish I'd have done that.