As I continue this journey of people who have impacted my journey along the way, I realize I don’t mention my mom much. I think it is due to the fact she died when I was 17, almost 40 years ago.

Eight years ago, I was coming back from a long run with my dog, Thompson, on the Kipton Bike Trail. Thompson did well for the first 3.25 miles but the last 3, not so much. He would just stop, lay down, and roll around on his back. I decided to stop and get ice cream on the way home to medicate treat myself after a long, frustrating run.

The lady at the ice cream place asked me if I was Heidi Strickler. I was freaked out a bit until I realized she had my debit card. She went on to ask if I was the Heidi Strickler from Vermilion. I answered “yes”. She responded with “I know your mom and dad. I used to hang out with them.” She used the present tense. At the time, my mom had been gone 31 years and my dad 9.  I proceeded to tell her both my parents were gone. She asked about an uncle and other family members. I had to watch her expression as I told her each family member she asked about had died. I think I relived five family deaths in the span of three minutes. That moment stayed with me. It made me think a lot about my mom.

I asked the lady if I could ask her a question. I never knew my mom as an adult and there are so many questions I have. I asked her what my mom was like. I knew her only as my mom: not much of a cook, but a bingo lover and Cleveland Indians fan who made sure we had hot breakfasts, played outside, and grew up loving books. On the first day of school, she would hang out the American flag and declare it the real Mother’s Day—after spending the summer in a 730-square-foot house with three kids born within five years of one another. She made sure our birthdays were special. One year (it was after she had her second stroke) she bought me a really cool comforter for my birthday. That night as I turned off my light to go to bed, I saw this big, glowing thing on my bed. Freaked me out. Unbeknownst to my mom, she had bought me a glow-in-the-dark comforter. I am one who must have complete dark to sleep. I did not get much sleep that night. We laughed a lot about that comforter.

My mom had her first stroke when I was in the 6th grade. It was a mild one. She had her second one my freshman year. It left her hospitalized for two months. She never fully recovered. She passed away suddenly the summer before my senior year. I was just 17. I just have so many questions that will never be answered. I also had a lot of anger.

She married my dad, who was 20 years older than her. I always wanted to ask her about that. My dad was an alcoholic. I always wondered why she stayed. I wondered what her childhood was like, where she and my dad got married, did she want to be something more than a housewife? She lost her father when she was 11. My dad lost his mom when he was 15. I have questions about menopause now that I am in the full throes of it. I also have some other, private questions.

I couldn’t ask my grandma. She died 15 months after my mom of Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS). Her speech was the first to go. She never fully recovered from my mom’s death.

I am told that I look like my mom.

My love for the Cleveland Indians stems from my childhood. Cleveland Indians baseball playing in the background was the soundtrack of my childhood summers. My mom would sit on the back picnic table listening to the game on the radio, drink Pepsi, chain smoke while keeping box scores of EVERY. SINGLE. GAME. Every year she would say, “This is the year the Indians win the pennant.” And she believed it.

The names Herb Score, Andre Thornton, Joe Charboneau (remember the song, “Go, go Charboneau…he’s Cleveland’s rookie of the year”), Mike Hargrove (the human rain delay), Len Barker, Joe Carter, Julio Franco, Toby Harrah, Brook Jacoby, Duane Kuiper, Rick Manning, Pat Tabler just to name a few were common names heard in my house. Buddy Bell was her all-time favorite player.

Mom always made sure we had books in the house. The only prized piece of furniture we have from her is a beautiful glass door bookcase that my sister Penny has. It was full of encyclopedias and books. We may have struggled financially but we had encyclopedias.   My mom encouraged me to write. I have wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. I was convinced I could write a mystery better than Agatha Christie or Carolyn Keene. At the age of 9 or 10 I wrote a 10-chapter book that mom typed for me. She did not discourage me from sending it to a publisher though it was awful. I received a rejection letter. I cried. She comforted me, telling me how brave I was.

She needed to be a bit more honest with me. If she would have been, I would not have sung “You Light up My life” in front of the whole city of Vermilion at the Fish Festival. Or wore roller skates on the stage. The only reason I was not gonged was because I was only 8 and two of the three judges were my brother and sister’s teachers.

There is a lot I learned from my mom; lack of cooking skills, love of reading, the ability to make good memories during turmoil, and her optimism. She brought stability to my childhood, and I took it for granted.  During the 2016 World Series, a family friend from childhood said to me through Facebook, “your mom is keeping score”. I miss my mom. I am sad she missed my high school and college graduations, the birth of her grandkids, and seeing all her kids happy and thriving.  I am grateful for the love of baseball she instilled in me. And the optimism. She really did believe every year was THE year.