AS I SEE IT
Bob Magee
Pro Wrestling Between the Sheets
PWBTS.com
As someone that lost his Mom years ago...I saw this on Mike
Foley's Facebook last week, and it broke my heart.
In past blogs including this past December, I've told the
story of my Mom going to the ER of Virtua Hospital back on
October 10 of 2014, telling us of shortness of breath while
sleeping. That visit involved a cardiac window being put
in to drain the fluid surrounding her heart that had caused
the shortness of breath, which saved her life. She came back
from that as chipper as an 82-year-old woman can, even
complimenting me on my clams and pasta I made for her and my
brother one of the first nights after she came home on
October 21...saying it was better than hers.
But she got sick again that Black Friday, and we took her to
Virtua Hospital. The tumor had grown, and she had a brief,
scary time of limited oxygen causing her brain to see things
that weren't there. While it was for only a brief time, I
experienced ever so briefly the kind of hell Foley went
through with his Mom.
My brother and I took her to the Hospital again and was
stabilized, but was told a week later that she had a
recurrence of her breast cancer, and that nothing could be
done. At that point, she told my brother when we arrived
that day at the hospital that she had enough...and was
willing to just be made comfortable. She was taken to
Samaritan Hospital in Mt. Holly, but after being given
morphine and an anti-anxiety drug (which she asked the
comfort care doctor for before transport), she pretty much
went to sleep; although she seemed to know where she was
during the ambulance ride to Samaritan Hospice, and didn't
much care for the bumpy ride, grabbing my hand
pretty firmly at one point, as I sat with her.
My younger brother and I went home after she was checked in
there; but less than 90 minutes later, her condition
suddenly worsened to where we were called to rush back to
the hospice. We stayed overnight... and she passed away at
about 5:55 am; always, always, the Mom to the end...trying
to be sure we got some sleep.
It bookended things, because back when she went to the
emergency room the first time...after being stabilized; she
was actually asking us if we'd eaten...again, Mom first.
She was a great Mom, always worrying about her two grown
sons; teaching us to believe, to not give up, to be patient,
to do the right thing and care about others.
So with all that, I wanted to share what Mick posted. No
doubt Mrs. Foley left this world this past week...proud of
her baby boy.
GOODBYE MOM
it is with a heavy heart I share the news of my mother’s
passing, following a long battle with dementia. My mother
was an intensely private person - so much so that I pleaded
with WWE not to show her in the crowd at a 1997 MSG show -
and I have struggled in trying to decide whether I should
make her passing public. Her will specified there would be
no visitation, no funeral; not even an obituary - but in the
end, we as a family felt it would be good for all of us if
there was a tribute of some kind to a remarkable woman.
Also, knowing I am far from alone in being a child of a
parent stricken with such a devastating illness, I am hoping
that by writing this tribute, other families in the same
situation will know they are not alone; that others out
there can feel their pain.
My mother was born on a farm in a small town in Western New
York in 1938. On the heels of The Great Depression, times
were tough, and the food on her family’s table was either
raised or grown on the farm, or procured by rifle. Out of
necessity, a dollar had to be stretched as far as it could
possibly go, and she carried the financial lessons she’d
learned on that farm with her throughout her life. In my
high school years, I would see my best friends practically
shivering in their winter coats when they came to my house,
and it took me years to realize that not many families kept
the thermostat at 56° in the winter or went without air
conditioning - either in the home or in the car - in those
scorching summers of my past.
I grew up in a 64 square-foot room in a 1200 square-foot
home with one small bathroom for the entire family. I
believe I was 12 years old when an extension was added onto
my room turning my 8‘ x 8‘ room into a 10‘ x 8‘ room - a
whopping addition of 16 square feet. My brother John and I
fondly recall the audible gasps my mother would make when
seeing the bill from the restaurant…any restaurant. She
simply knew what it was like to grow up poor, and did not
see any need to pay out any more than was absolutely
necessary. So if you’re wondering where the legendary Foley
thriftiness came from, it was from my mom - and those
lessons learned have served me well over the years!
My brother and I thought we had it made, though. We had
close friends in the neighborhood, our own neighborhood
wiffleball team (the Parsonage Yankees) and a delicious,
home-cooked meal on the table every night. While there is
not a drop of Italian blood in the Foley ancestry, I have
never tasted spaghetti and meatballs or lasagna that could
touch my mom‘s. Her Yorkshire pudding (a Christmas Day
tradition) was the Bret Hart of Yorkshire puddings; the best
there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be!
Until a couple years ago, my mother had never once mentioned
that she had been stricken with polio as a child. Had my
father not told me, I never would have known. Then one day,
shortly before my mother went into assisted living due to
the progression of her disease, she brought out a small
keepsake box with some yellowed newspaper clippings, and it
was in one of those clippings I read of her months long
battle with the dreaded disease. I may have done some
impressive things in my career, but my mother stomped a mud
hole in polio’s @ss and walked it dry, and grew into a
strong, independent woman who became the first member of her
family to attend college. Her quest for a college education
was met with much resistance from her father, who simply did
not see the need for a woman to have a college education.
Their relationship remained distant up until my
grandfather‘s death of dementia in the early 1990s. But my
mother persevered, got that college education she valued so
greatly - graduating near the top of her class - and landed
a job as a physical education teacher in the small Long
Island town of Setauket, New York. It was there she met my
father and gave up her own ambitions to become a full-time
mother to me and my brother John, encouraging us to chase
dreams of our own. When I was 15, my mother went back to
work for twenty plus years - always making sure my brother
and I had a home cooked breakfast before she began her
workday.
Her thirst for knowledge never ended. In time she earned two
different masters degrees, and was like a walking
encyclopedia. Night after night, I would look on in
amazement as my mother watched “Jeopardy” - answering
question after question, usually faring far better than the
actual contestants. I never once heard her say “I don’t
know” in regard to one of my questions, whereas I say those
three words to my children almost every single day. Up until
just a few years ago, when the disease had really taken its
toll, she was still polishing off two good sized novels a
week. She loved reading to me and my brother, sparked my
imagination and nurtured my own love for reading and
writing. Although I did not realize it until years later,
when I sat down with my notebooks to write “Have a Nice
Day”, I was not doing it all on my own; my mother’s love was
guiding me - all those years of encouragement allowing me to
believe I had the necessary tools to write my very own book.
Following the book’s release, my mother carried it with her
everywhere - and that 570-page behemoth wasn’t light by any
means. Chris Jericho even used the hefty tome to score a
questionable victory over me in St. Louis in 1999. I do
believe her proudest moment as my mother was seeing my name
on the cover of a book I had written. There’s no way I could
have done it without her.
My mother first entered the pro-wrestling lexicon in April,
1997, after a sitdown interview with Jim Ross where I talked
about my reaction to my first experience in the bizarre
subculture of Japanese “Death Match” wrestling by saying,
“Mrs. Foley’s Baby Boy is finally home!” Had JR not taken an
interest in that phrase, the mention probably would have
been one and done. Instead, Jim really sank his teeth into
the moniker, and through his words, my mom became part of my
character. With the exception of The Rock’s mother Atta (and
perhaps Shelton Benjamin’s) I can think of no other mother
who has been so closely associated with a child’s pro
wrestling journey. I guess Buff Bagwell would have reason to
disagree but my mother’s intense privacy cost any
possibility there would ever be a “Mrs. Foley on a Pole”
match.
The phrase “Be kind: you never know what struggle someone is
going through” took on a great deal of added meaning
following my mother‘s dementia diagnosis. To see such a
brilliant, strong woman slipping away so rapidly was the
most difficult thing I’ve ever been through. The decision to
put her into assisted-living was heartbreaking, but by that
point, she was no longer capable of taking care of herself,
and had taken to wandering off with increasingly greater
regularity. After catching her about to wander off into the
night at 3 AM in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, I sadly
realized that the trip we planned to see the “Radio
Christmas Spectacular” and the play “Chicago” on Broadway
would not come to pass. Wandering off in the small town of
Setauket was one thing. I knew if she wandered off into the
night in New York City, we might never see her again. I
remember the helplessness in her eyes when my brother and I
asked her if she knew our names, and she came up with wrong
names for both of us. Sadly, she needed to leave the home
she’d lived in for 60 years - a devastating blow to the
entire family.
Sometimes, when faced with the type of dark cloud a dementia
diagnosis brings, you need to look for the slightest hint of
a silver lining. For me, that silver lining was knowing that
even as the disease progressed rapidly - even as we knew
there was no chance of a happy ending to her life story -
for a short window of time, there was something of a
childlike wonder in her eyes, especially when she would
watch certain movies, or “Outlander” on Starz - her favorite
television series of all time. Her dedication to the show
became well-known among some of the cast - so much so that
when I met “Outlander” star Sam Heughan at New York Comic
Con, his first words to me were, “How’s your mum?” Though my
first book represented the accomplishment my mother was most
proud of, a close second had to go to my role in “Star Force
II”, one of those shoestring budget pandemic movies, where
actors would record their dialogue on their smart phone and
send them in, at which point the clips would be edited in
wild and wonderful ways. For my mother, seeing her baby boy
in the do-it-yourself movie starring both “Outlander” leads
Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe (not to mention James
McAvoy) was a crowning achievement for her as a very proud
parent. I ordered four different Cameo videos for her from
the cast of “Outlander”, and hearing those stars she admired
so much talking about her own son would cause her to beam
with pride. Since her passing, I’ve been binging her beloved
show, and feel her presence with me as I watch the tight-
knit Fraser clan navigate an uncertain future in colonial
America.
Just two weeks before her passing, my children and I all had
the chance to say our final goodbyes. We took turns holding
her hand, telling her how much we loved her, and what a
special part of our lives she was. She only spoke a few
words that day, but her eyes were open, she was alert, and
I’d like to believe she heard every loving word we spoke
that day. I returned to visit her just two weeks later, and
the light was gone. There was no sign of recognition. I held
her hand, told her I loved her and that it was OK to let go.
A few days later, she was gone.
I hope and pray one day this terrible disease will be
vanquished, and one day, no one will have to go through the
same experience my family did. Until that day, I encourage
all of you to appreciate the little things, tell your loved
ones they are loved, and never take a single precious moment
for granted. I owe a debt of gratitude to my brother John
and his son Jake for their constant presence in her life
during such a difficult period of time.
Goodbye Mom. I love you very much and will always be proud
to be Mrs. Foley’s Baby Boy.
Until next time...
If you'd like to contact me, you can do so at my
bobmagee1@hotmail.com account or to through Facebook
Messenger at https://www.facebook.com/bob.magee.180, direct
message me at https://twitter.com/BobMage70323520, or
contact me at BlueSky at
https://bsky.app/profile/bobmagee940.bsky.social
