BANGOR — “I love you.”

Those were the last words my mom said to me and was how we always ended our phone calls. She passed away Aug. 8 after 92 years. She wasn’t rich or famous or well-known but she was my mom and this is a short story about her life.

She was born in Brownville on June 4, 1925. Her family was very poor and she grew up sometimes not knowing where the next meal was coming from … luckily her family could shoot deer year round and they had a garden which sustained them but sometimes …

Through it all she got good grades in school and eventually came to Lewiston to attend nursing school. She met my dad at a homecoming party for him after he was wounded in Africa during the war. They married and settled in Auburn. It wasn’t a big or fancy house, but it was what they could afford and this is where they raised five children. Mom and Dad raised us the best they could with mom working nights at St. Mary’s Hospital and dad working days at the Auburn Highway Department so we always had someone home with us. Mom liked the simple things in life and she worked hard to support us.

Mom was a good cook and she canned and preserved food from the garden and from the berries we picked in the fall. She loved to play cards and Scrabble with my aunt, Julia, and uncle, Lean, and sometimes I would watch as they played. She loved to knit and one time she knitted a king-size bedspread for me that took two years to make that I still have. It’s really amazing to look at knowing the time and patience it took to create. She of course had her favorite chair where she would knit and watch TV. Some of her favorite shows back then were “Merv Griffin,” “Sanford and Son” and “All in the Family.” She and my dad would watch them and I watched also. How we laughed!!!

There were also some rough times for Mom. She had cancer in the ’70s and was in the hospital for a while, but the best thing was she was hospitalized where she worked so the nurses joked with her and made her stay more bearable. She suffered from migraines that at times really made her miserable. But through it all Mom never made much of a fuss about her problems and always made family her priority.

Later in life, they sold the house and moved to East Corinth where they lived until after my dad died. She moved to Hampden after his death and lived there with her friend, Arlo Tyler. This is where she spent the last years of her life. She never had a care or want while living in Hampden. She lived in the country and had birds and deer and the occasional bear come by. She always told me that she didn’t have a want or need and that everything was provided for her, for which I have to thank Arlo.

Mom was predeceased by my dad in 2001 and my sister, Anne, in 2009.

She is survived by her friend, Arlo Tyler, by my sister, Judy, and her daughters, Kelly and Jessica and by Ann’s daughters, Christine and Sue and by me, Tim Poor of Auburn and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I also had two brothers but they were abducted by aliens years ago, never to be seen or heard from again.

That’s the short story about my mom …

“I love you.”