Mom

 

If I’m calculating correctly (and I’m seldom sure that I am) this would have been our Mom’s 82^nd birthday. If she were alive, that would make her as old as Nanny ever got to be. I think. I suppose one of these days I’m going to have to write a complete post dedicated to her; you can’t really know any of us kids (perhaps especially this 61-year-old kid) without knowing something about her. It is a daunting task; it is a hard job to describe the details and nuances of any character, especially one so close to you. And even then, there will be things you will never, ever know.

If you were to comb through the posts on this blog, plugging Mom into the search bar, you could probably come up with a sort of Impressionist portrait of her. There are even a few of the anecdotes she would tell us, on nights we would all settle down to listen to her recount her life, especially of before she got married or when we were tiny little kids. How I wish we could have had a tape recorder running then! Though it probably would make her self-conscious and hinder the tale.

And how she could weave a story! She had an epic style, full of digressions and asides, one story interrupting another story, until we begged her to get to the point. I think she enjoyed the attention she was getting. Strangely enough, my niece Kelsey seems to have inherited her discursive talents along with her looks, although I would think she was too young to catch her style.

Mom had plenty of idiosyncrasies, some of which I may have alluded to in a glancing manner already. One was her devotion to her odd selection of heroes. For a period, Andre Agassi, the tennis player, was one; not only did she try to record all of his matches, she had merchandise, a calendar and a diary/planner. When she passed away, we had to figure out what to do with all of her tapes.

But perhaps her most inexplicable idol was Tammy Faye Baker, one of the founders and stars of the PTL network. Inexplicable yet understandable. Tammy was basically a middle-class housewife who had suddenly somehow hit the big time of celebrity. As such she glammed herself up into a candy-colored caricature of what she imagined glamor to be, and had a ‘singing’ career because they owned the means of production and could sell to her enamored audience under the guise of supporting her ministry. Tammy did appear to have a very solid faith, and Mom responded to that. I think Mom thought she and Tammy could be friends, and over the TV, they were. And, in her isolation during the last years of her ill-health, Mom needed all the friends she could get.

In her last years she was confined more and more to her recliner and hospital bed. I remember almost endless Skip-Bo games with her propped up on the edge of the bed, her huge water cup on at one elbow and a can of corn nuts on the other, with one of the chihuahuas snuggled at her side. I remember just before Kelsey was born, we repainted the kitchen, and Mom sat in her wheelchair and read me The Lord of the Rings to keep me from being bored out of my skull.

But the most poignant memories of Mom come from the early years. In those days Mom was always singing, playing records, noodling on the organ, and even dancing while she cooked and cleaned. And she had courage. She was always plainly afraid, but willing to face anything for our safety when necessary. I remember when she swooped down to defend me from Mrs. Davenport, who was claiming I was too day-dreamy in class. Mom defended dreaming, as the only way anything new could be done in the world. I thought then and think now that her fierce eyes and patrician nose looked like an eagle swooping down to defend her ‘chicks.’ And even when she could not protect us physically anymore, she always prayed for her angels to come and watch over us.

Lest you think this is too much of a hagiography, Mom had traits that could be annoying as well. A certain stubbornness, a certain judgemental attitude. I think all us kids have it. Few people shine out gold all the time, but I think Mom had more than most people I know. She was a person who was always trying to do the right thing, not just what would suit her. I love people just as much for their flaws as their virtues. When I tell any scurrilous tales about my family (I might point to several stories about Mike) it is because I love them for being so them, even when annoying. 

When she died, I felt like throwing myself off the top floor of the hospital. But she certainly wouldn’t want that. I did fall into a torpor out of which it took the enormity of 9/11 to shake me. Life, it seemed, was real, and I’d better start paying attention. But for sometime after that, I could still hear her calling out “BB! BB!” as she would when she needed me for anything. Sometimes I would jerk up out of my sleep with it ringing in my ears.

Well, that was twenty-five years ago. New family has been added, and besides my nephew Kameron who was born not long after Mom passed away (and niece Morgandy), there is a new generation of great-grandbabies who will never now know her except by a few random stories. She would have so loved to see them. But I do believe, that is, I have faith, that she is watching them from Heaven, ever ready to send her angels should the need arrive.