My Image of Mom, #99Word Stories

Posted on by Colleen M. Chesebro

The Carrot Ranch.com May 9, 2022, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a mom selfie — a story that creates an image of a mom. No one mom looks alike or fits a maternal mold. Who is she? Go where the prompt leads!

  1. Submit by May 15, 2022. If you want to be published in the weekly collection, please use the form provided on the challenge post. The Collection publishes on the Wednesday following the next Challenge. Rules & Guidelines.
  2. Carrot Ranch only accepts stories through the form below. Accepted stories will be published in a weekly collection. Writers retain all copyrights.
  3. Your blog or social media link will be included in your title when the Collection publishes.
  4. Please include your byline which is the name or persona you attribute to your writing.
  5. Please include the hashtag #99Word Stories when sharing either the Challenge or Collection posts in social media.

At night, in between dreams, I think of you often. What did you look like compared to the few black and white photos of a Russian dark-haired beauty I have tucked in my photo album?

My older sister once told me you had eyes the color of cornflowers. My older brother said you were always kind. I wish I had known you or had memories of you as my mother.

Yet, when I close my eyes, I imagine you holding me in your arms. I sense your love. You are the mother I’d always dreamed of. You’re inside me.

1942, my mother, Esther Irene Schwemmer Steinle, holding my sister Kathryn.

My mother passed away in 1962, when I was three years old. She was only 38 years old. 💜💚💛

39 thoughts on “My Image of Mom, #99Word Stories”

  1. I didn’t know your mother died when you were three, and she was so young, too. She looks kind and capable, like someone who handled things with a smile that showed in her cornflower-blue eyes. 💙

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    1. Aww, thank you so much, Merril. Here I am, so much older than she was, and I still wish I had known her. I don’t think that desire ever goes away. You just learn to live with the circumstances. I had a lovely grandmother who raised me until my father married my step-mother. She didn’t care for children, so you can imagine the rest. My sister died early as well. She was only 54. ❤

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      1. I’m so sorry, Colleen. I’m glad you had a lovely grandmother. I was so fortunate to have my mom for so long, and my dad lived long enough so my girls can remember him some. Both of my grandmothers died when I was a toddler. I remember one a tiny bit, but not the other.

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  2. Aw! That got me all up in my feelings, Colleen. I felt your longing through your words. A piece of her is definitely within you. But I get it – that just isn’t the same. Heartbreakingly beautiful piece! 🙂

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  4. Colleen, I’m sorry you lost your Mom so young that you have no memory of her. I lost mine at 17, 51 years ago and most of my memories are of her being ill. Your flash lets other people know what it feels like to not have that all important connection. I share your longing.

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  5. So sorry, Colleen. You’ve had more than your share of loss. Thanks for sharing this moving and so very personal story with us.

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  7. I’m so sorry to hear that you lost your mother when you (and she) were so young. And then to lose your sister at a young age as well. The photo of your mother with your sister is just lovely.

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  8. I’m sorry to hear you lost your mom. How difficult that must have been when you were so young. I lost my mom at 23 and she was only 54. Life deals us blows but that is what makes us what we are today. ❤️

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  9. Oh my… the nationality is different, but your poem could be about my own mother!
    Different sibling situation though. Even though I cannot tell my own mother’s eye color in the black and whites I have I would like to imagine they are the same hazel as my own…

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      1. Genetics can go back 17 generations on both sides. Hubby and I both have hazel eyes but our children’s eyes abeit different shades, are both blue. Indeed, genes are funny!

        I have two siblings, one older but not by much and a brother much younger by another mother, same dad.

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  12. Beautiful and moving Sis. I think you look a lot like your mom. So sad about some who long to know their mothers, and others like me who ran to steer clear. Sometimes life isn’t fair. ❤

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  13. This story was beautiful and left me feeling concerned for the narrator and wanting to ease that pain. The second paragraph… ;_; LIfe isn’t fair and thank you for sharing this.

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    1. Thanks Michael. It’s the sad laments of a child who never knew their mother. We all have something in life that we carry with us, and I know this is mine. Mother’s Day is always hard for me. I appreciate your kind comments. ❤

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  14. Your mother passed at such a young age, Colleen. She didn’t get much of a chance at life, just as you didn’t get a chance to know her. I’m pleased you feel her within you.

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