Thank you for your kind words, TerryL. I’m sorry to hear of your loss, too.
Yes, I was adopted and she was my birth mother. Apparently her problems were quite severe. My adoptive dad turned out to have the same illness, but I only found out after he died. He self medicated with alcohol. I was never very close to him, in all honesty, but there were various reasons for that, most of them out of my control.