Although there’s a lot of comedy in The Simpsons, there have also been a couple of sad stories, among those the one about Homer’s mother, Mona – here’s what happened to her. The Simpsons have been around since 1989, though the famous family made their debut two years earlier in a series of animated shorts in The Tracey Ullman Show before becoming a proper TV series. Since then, the series has expanded to other media, and it shows no signs of stopping soon, as it still has a lot of stories to tell.
The Simpsons follows the daily adventures of the title family and other notable citizens from Springfield, and over the course of more than three decades, the series has introduced other members of the title family. Viewers are more familiar with Grandpa Simpson, who lives in a retirement home and visits the family from time to time, and they have also met Jaqueline Bouvier, Marge’s mother. One family member who appeared a couple of times and has been mostly shown in flashbacks is Homer’s mother, who had one of the saddest stories in the show.
Mona Simpson is the mother of Homer (though not of his brother, Herbert), and she left him and Abraham Simpson when Homer was nine-years-old. The reasons for that vary, but it was mostly to protect her son and because she couldn’t stand Abe’s intolerance anymore. She was an activist in the 1960s, which got her in trouble with Montgomery Burns and thus had to run away. In order to protect Homer from the truth, Abe told Homer his mother died, and even showed him a grave (which actually belonged to Walt Whitman). Mona returned many years later after hearing of Homer’s death, which he faked in order to avoid work. After spending time with the Simpsons family, Mona was spotted and recognized by Mr. Burns, which forced her to leave again.
She returned sometime later and reunited with Homer with the help of a hidden message in a newspaper. However, she was caught and sent to prison this time, and Homer tried to break her out of there. Although she apparently died when the bus she was in drove off a cliff, she managed to escape and sent another hidden message to Homer. She returned a third and final time, but Homer refused to reconcile with her due to her constant leaving, and when he tried to apologize to her, he found out she had died sitting in front of the fireplace. After that, Mona Simpson has only appeared in dreams, hallucinations, photos, and flashbacks, and the episode of her death is still one of the saddest storylines in The Simpsons.
Homer’s family backstory explains a lot of why he is the way he is in the present day, and it’s especially heartbreaking that he didn’t get to properly reconcile with his mother. Mona Simpson’s story will forever be one of the most tragic ones in The Simpsons, and she will surely continue appearing in flashbacks and other memories Homer might have.
