I have been wanting to share with all about my mom, who I praise God every day for giving me.She is one of the strongest women that I have ever met.When my mom was a small child,her mom left them,6 children at that time.I didnt know this for years cause my mom loved her mom and never wanted us to know about this.But when I was 21, my aunt,moms sister told me the whole story. I didnt believe her and drove like a whirlwind to my moms where she finally confided in someone after all those years. I thank her and thank God for letting me share her story.
My mothers dad was quite a few yrs older than her mom and their marriage was an arranged marriage. Once when my grandmother was a baby in her crib,my moms dad walked by and commented on what a pretty baby she was? Her mother,my great grandmother,told him that when she got old enough,13, that he could marry her. He waited and when she became 13, he went and got her and they were married.They had 6 children together. Elmer,Jim,Archie,who died as a toddler,Mom, Jean,and Donna.He moved her into the home when they married with his mother and this was very hard,two women in the same home. My moms dad,Ace Passmore,had a bad leg that they think was caused from blood poisoning now and one leg didnt grow past the age of 12 so he walked with one crutch. Anyway,when my mom was still very young,her mom left them,asking only to take Jim,one of the boys.Her dad told her no,that he needed the boys to help on the farm but he felt that the girls needed her.None of the girls wanted to go with her except my mom.She cried and begged but her mother wouldnt take her. There was a long gravel road leading away from the house and my mom hung onto her legs as she walked that road,being dragged across the gravel, crying and begging to go with her. Their dad and grandmother raised them. Moms grandmother had a gift of discernment from God. She told them once to get their Sunday clothes on cause she had a dream and their brother,Elmers baby girl had died and a man was going to come tell them about noon,describing exactly how he would be dressed and every detail. They all laughed at her and told her that they had just visited them the day before and the baby was fine. But she insisted so they obeyed her putting on their good clothes.At noon,a man dressed just like she had told them came across the field to their house and informed them that indeed,Betty Jo had died! There was a time that the girls were in town,at Mt View at an auction and they saw their mother. My mom ran up to her begging once again to go with her. Finally her mom told her that if she didnt go away from her,she would put her on the auction block and auction her off! This hurt me and made me so mad cause my grandmother had always been a very important part of my life. My mom had never told us any of this because she had understood as she got older and didnt want us to not love our grandmother because through all, she still loved her. So I couldnt imagine my grandmother ever doing any of these things. None of the other kids ever quite forgave her but my mom did. Mom said that it was very hard to be in an arranged marriage,having 6 kids so young and the home was controlled by moms grandmother, Her mom had no say in anything. Once my moms brother was kicked by a horse and broke his leg. They had to take him in horse and buggy from Mt View Arkansas to Little Rock to have it set. On the way back,Jim was running a high fever and was thrashing about.He accidently kicked their dad on his bad leg.The strange part is as they were all standing watching them leave for Little Rock,my moms grandmother told the other kids that their dad would come back with Jim alive but that the next time he left there,he would be dead. Infection set into the leg after he was accidently kicked and he did make it back home but died very soon after. The next time he left the house,he was indeed in a coffin.The day that he died,all the kids gathered around his bed,praying for him. All of a sudden,he called out the lights,all these bright lights,where are they coming from? He drew his last breath very soon after that and my mom knows that he had seen the light from Jesus that had come to take him home.Anyway,after this they were more or less orphans,their oldest brother was married and had children of his own.My mom was the oldest daughter,became engaged to my dad before he went into WWII. During this time,she had her younger sisters to take care of so she took them and went to Calif,obtaining fake ids to work in the shipyards.Her other sister,Jean,had married at a very young age,having a stillborn child at 13,weighed almost 13 pounds. They came out and told the family that my aunt and the child were both dead and they started digging both graves. My aunt was put in the morgue,where she came to several hours later and almost scared everyone to death.She then became pregnant again and had a daughter Rosa Lee. This marriage ended and they went to Calif to work in the shipyards.My mom became pregnant and married David Alfred Shores,the uncle of Dinah Shores.Let me rephrase that.Everyone thought they got married for many many years,even his parents and hers but my mom never would marry him.When the war was over,she left my brother with his grandparents and came back to Arkansas to see my dad. They immediately married and he went with her by train to Oklahoma where Jiggs was and my dad pretended to be my moms brothers to keep from hurting the grandparents more than they already were.They had been told that mom and their son had divorced.My dad adopted my brother and raised him as his own. None of us kids knew that he wasnt our full blooded brother and always thought of him as that even after we found out.There are so many secrets in my moms family that some doesnt want told but my mom told me that she wasnt ashamed of anything that she had ever done,that she was an orphan and did what she felt she had to survive. My dad loved my mom with all of his heart and they were both very successful in their businesses.She has 3 beauty shops for awhile and he owned a salvage business.They were both very hard workers,my dads family had always been fairly well off,working hard to have what they had.His mother never accepted my mom because of her having my brother so this caused friction between my dad and his family.I dont know if we would have ever found out about Jiggs if my grandmother hadnt told us in a very cruel way.She called and invited all of her grandchildren to a steak dinner. When we all got there and was sitting down,I asked her why she hadnt cooked enough steaks? She replied that she didnt know that Jiggs was coming,that she had just invited HER grandchildren? Them she proceeded to tell all of us the story that Jiggs wasnt dads son,etc,etc.We all got up and walked out but this caused the beginning of many years of friction between my brother and my dad. Yet,when my dad died at age 57,Jim and he were closer than any of us and I praise God for that.I married and had 2 sons.As most of you have read or know,my oldest, Shane,was killed in 1995 and my mother flew in that night.I almost lost my mind and she made 13 trips to Arkansas for me in the next year.Five years ago,I talked my stepdad into moving back here because all of us kids had already had open heart and she was having to fly so much.Three of us had open heart in 2 months,causing her to have to make 3 trips back here in those 2 months.So finally after pop had surgery,he agreed to move back here where we were.He didnt realize that their place would sell to the first buyer that looked at it.LOL! He backed out several times during this trip causing me to have to fly to Las Vegas 3 times in 4 months to convince him. They moved back here 5 years ago.As soon as they got here,my mom had been experiencing pain in her left arm,which is the one that hurt me thru my heart problems.I almost had to pick her up and carry her to make her go to the dr but as soon as we got there,they did an EKG and found out that she had already had 2 previous heart attacks and was having one right then! Even then she kept saying that she couldnt go to the hospital because of pop being sick,etc,etc.The dr told her that if she didnt go in,that she wouldnt be alive to take care of anyone.They rushed her to Jonesboro because I wanted my heart surgeon to take care of her.She was given a cath and was told that she needed a 7 way bypass! They did a 5 way,same as mine and then blocked off the other 2 arteries.She came through this better than any of us kids,We were all so blessed that she had moved back here because she had been in another state for many years.She had been back here almost 2 years when Jiggs fell to his death.Them my brother,Fred was diagnosed with cancer and she spent almost 3 years feeding him through a stomach tube in his stomach.She stayed with him at all times.Half of his last 3 years was spent in a hospital and she never left him.During all of this,I was having heart attacks more frequently and she was also there for me.My brother,Bud,had a massive heart attack and was told that there was nothing they could do for either of us,that the damage was too extensive.Right after Fred passed away,the drs told me that I had to have someone with me at all times so I moved in with mom.I thank God for her.He blessed me beyond my wildest dreams with a mom that has so much strength and courage.I cant imagine her heartbreak at losing my 2 brothers.I know when I lost Shane,I thought I would die.I was born on her birthday,Feb 10th,and she was 84 this year.Everyone says she could pass for 60,including her dr.I just praise God for this wonderful woman.The first part of tis dedication was wrote several years ago and I am just gettin around to finishing Mom's life story. Mom lost 2 sons, Jim and Fred, her sister, Jean and her husband, Bill in less tan 5 yrs time. Jim fell from a tree equivalent to a 7 1/2 story building and lived almost 10 days though he broke and crushed every bone and organ in his body. He was terminally sedated though we didnt know this til after he died. My other brother, Fred was diagnosed with terminal cancer wile Jim was in ICU, fighting for his life. The day of Jim's funeral funeral, Mom & I came straight home and got our bags and left with Fred to go to Little Rock for escophagus removal. We were there 31 days, staying in the waiting rooms , never leaving the hospital. Mom was never allowed to cry or grieve for Jim because it upset Fred so much to see her cry so she held all of her tears inside. She fed Fred thru the feeding tube until he passed away also at St Bernard's Hospital in Jonesboro. A short time later Pop, my stepdad became very ill and was hospitalized. The drs advised us to put him into a nursing home as Mom and I were too sick to take care of him like he needed. We did admit him for several weeks but he kept asking to come home so we had them discharge him and brought him home. However, on Christmas Eve, Pop had a stroke and was taken back to the hospital, then later put back in the nursing home. The nursing home was only a half mile from our home and Mom went daily and sometimes 2 or 3 times a day to see about him. She knew they wasnt taking care of him like they should and told them this daily. We received a call at 5 am on June 6, 2004 and was told that Pop had passed away. Mom is one of the most strongest women I have ever met and I thank God daily for her. She became very ill about Sept of last yr, 2006 but wouldnt let me take her to the hospital. Finally in Sept, she woke me up and said she was dying and needed to go to Er. They kept her in Er 12 hrs that day, doing nothing but giving her pain meds. Finally about 7 pm that evening, they put her in a room and a surgeon came in and told me Mom wouldnt live an hour without surgery and probably wouldnt live through surgery. Then her primary care physcian came in and told me that he didnt think I should agree to surgery on Mom cause at that time she was 83 and he thought her time had come? I told him to get out of my face and get on the phone to call an ambulance to take my Mom to a hospital that knew what they were doing. An ambulance rushed her to Little Rock in one of the worst storms we have ever had. The did surgery on her discovering an ulcer that had eaten a hole in her intertines and a major impaction. She came through the surgery fine but immediatedly after she had a horrible reaction to all the pain meds they were giving her. A woman dr started givin her hue injections of psychotic meds,causing her to become extremely aggitated, convinced everyone was trying to kill her. I requested they not give her any more of these meds but found out they kept giving them to her the whole 16 days we were there. She doesnt remember even being in this hospital to this day. to be cont