My parents are the best people I know. Mom was amazing and I want to be just like her. Like most kids, I didn’t always think this way. I’m lucky enough that by the time I started to realize how much smarter she was than I ever will be, and I had a good 20 years since then to appreciate her. We built a house together and picked out wallpaper, flooring, and paint… we cruised the Caribbean and panama canal, and we toured Ireland and Thailand, and she had the chance to meet and give me her assessment of the various men I dated on the way to meeting Wayne. Thank God she met him before her memory disappeared. She and I had the chance to interview her aunts and record information about her family history. In learning about her and enjoying her as an adult, I learned that she was more hip during her time than I will ever be.
Apparently she did not speak until she was 4 years old, because as the youngest of 7, raised with many aunts and uncles nearby, she did not need to speak. They were worried, but need not have, she was just smart enough not to speak when everyone else was speaking for her. When she started talking, she used full sentences and shocked everyone at her ability. And once she started, she never stopped. Apparently, great grandma did not approve of smoking, so my great aunts decided to send Mom out to the front sidewalk in Portsmouth to look out for grandma while they smoked … but Mom was not the best lookout…, so when her grandma came home and asked what was up, Mom pantomimed that they were smoking, and tattled. The girls learned that Mom, COULD talk, but she clearly could not be manipulated! Her father died when she was very young and so Grandma started a boarding house, and each of the kids was given a job. Mom’s job was not cooking, so she was not allowed in the kitchen, so Mom ended up clueless about cooking. She once had to make cookies for a bake sale for her girl scout troupe, and the results were so useless that her brothers used them as missiles in their mother’s dining room.
She was by no means dumb… she graduated high school at the age of 16, and with no opportunity for college, she moved to San Diego & became a teletype operator. This began a lifetime of adventure. She had as story about the time when she & her roommate decided to have a martini party and weren’t sure of the proper formula for making martinis, so they mixed up a batch & tasted, mixed & tasted, until they were quite well into their own party by the time their guests arrived. When I hear stories of her life before I was born, I swear it sounds like she lived in an old Doris Day movie!
To move back to Virginia, she took a test to be a secretary at the Pentagon… not knowing how to type, but having been a teletype operator, she knew about how important accuracy was, so rather than rush through the timed test, she took her time, hunting & pecking, and passed the test based upon her accuracy. She taught me that being the fastest was sometimes not the secret to success.
She worked at the pentagon and golfed on the weekends… back then, the boys, who were working, would have weekend tee time and women (the wives) were expected to golf during the weekdays. She got special dispensation to golf during weekends because she was a working woman. Apparently, the “good ol’boys” at the Pentagon were put off by her being permitted to golf during THEIR time, all the way until they figured out that she really knew what she was doing … at which point they would welcome her into their foursomes. Back at a time when the “good ol’ boy”network was in its prime, she managed to get their respect. As hip and independent as she was when she met Dad, she took on the job of being housewife with the same enthusiasm.
She was our family’s manager, planning school, social events, finances, meals, vacations. She made it all work. She maintained a notebook where she kept all the details of each party they ever had, the guests, the menus, whether or not a particular recipe worked and where she found the recipe. As usual, she would have us helping in the organization, cleaning, cooking and serving at the parties, teaching us all the social graces without us even knowing we were learning important lessons. She explained to me repeatedly that part of her cooking skills were from organization… because she was not allowed in the kitchen when growing up. My grandmother shoo’d her from the kitchen, so Mom did not learn to cook from her mother. Mom’s story about her first cooking experience would be surprising to anyone who knew her as an adult, as she took to cooking like a duck to water. When she got married, she threw herself into learning to cook… Julia Child and the Galloping Gourmet being her favorites… I don’t know whether it’s the similar background, the era that they were raised in, the singsong voice, the height, the fact that they married a little later than expected for their moment in history, or the adventuresome spirit, but when we went to the Julia Child movie a few years ago, I was sure that Julia must have been channeling my mother, so many similar mannerisms… such an adventurous, enthusiastic approach… I can still hear Mom singing away in the kitchen.
Since Mom was a self-taught cook, she was not limited to the cultural recipes of her Irish & German heritage, and for one party she decided to go Swedish… making Gloog as the special drink for the party. Now I don’t know if everyone here knows what gloog is, but it’s traditionally a combination of wine & vodka infused with fruit. And that’s how she made it. Apparently, there is an Americanized version where the liquid portion includes fruit juice… but Mom was a purist and wanted to do it just like the original. Everyone had a very good time.
Mom had a song for every occasion, and if there was no music playing, she would supply it. We’d often hear Bali Jai coming from the kitchen when no other song came to mind. But usually, she’d find an appropriate song for any event. She’d sing in the morning about how we had to get up and she’d sing about rainy days. She’s sing while cooking, cleaning and sewing. She encouraged us to sing, and to learn to play instruments. When Alan asked me if there were any favorites of hers for this service, of course there was Ave Maria, but really, every song was her favorite…. More so if it could be sung in a soprano voice, but every song could be her favorite… happy songs more so, but no one favorite.
Mom was always involved in some charity work. She was a lector, an ecumenical minister, and of course she was often in the music ministry. But outside of the church, she was also involved, always doing some kind of big sister activity, on the board of the YWCA, involved in the local Symphony, the Welcome Wagon, the Democratic party and League of Women Voters. I happened to meet the REAL first black presidential candidate because of Mom… Shirley Chisolm came to our house during her campaign and we were part of history when we hosted her.
While most people of her generation were backwards about computers, she was more on top of the times than I was. She was one of the first to get connected to the internet, back when it had only started to expand beyond the use of university professors and students, and when aol was pretty much the only user-friendly option. She kept that aol address for more than 15 years, stopping her avid internet communications with family and friends only after her short term memory made it impossible.
We never knew she had an interest in going to college, but after Alan left for school, she decided to take a few classes for herself. … just a little something to distract her from the empty nest thing. Before you know it, she as throwing herself into college with the same enthusiasm as she threw herself into everything else, and as a result she finished her 4 year program in 3 years, graduating on the DAY of the 40th anniversary of her high school graduation.
Suddenly, she was officially a teacher… something she had been doing anyways for 40 years. And then when the Democratic party called to ask if Dad would run for office to get his name out in local politics, he suggested that he was not interested in switching parties to do that, but he happened to know of a good Democrat with the last name of Lindquist…. She kept that job for a few rounds, and was one of the few Democrats I ever heard of who was able to stick to a tough budget… having had all those years of keeping our household budget under control. She felt it was irresponsible for politicians to plan to spend more than the government would take in, when ordinary individuals raising families had to do so.
I save the fun stuff for last… the adventuresome stuff. Vacations were always the best with her. When we were kids, she did all the planning. Dad would take off early on a Friday and we’d be off for the weekend, visiting Dad’s mother (5 hours away) or hers (10 hours away)… When I was in law school in Boston, they’d take the 13 hour drive there in time to take me to lunch on Saturday, then turn around so they could be home by Sunday evening… amazing. The longer vacations were even more amazing. She would plan a month every summer. I felt so deprived at the time, watching my friends as they were shuttled off to summer camps, and I’d be stuck driving around the country with my PARENTS, camping most of the way. We got to where we could put up a tent in the rain in 10 minutes or less… I actually started to appreciate this part of my upbringing much earlier than I appreciated the rest of it… as the first year I missed the vacation, I MISSED the vacation. Our adventures while travelling could fill a book, and the last few decades, after their retirement, probably more so. She’s cruised the Mediterranean, taken the Concorde across the ocean and the QE2 back, cruised through the panama canal, drank me under the table at pubs in Dublin and even peed while standing up over a hole in a moving train in Thailand….
4 years ago, she got sick. A little polyp removal turned into a cancer diagnosis, chemo, and somehow a total disruption of her short term memory. She was frustrated and suddenly she was no longer independent. I guess her journey had finished. And hopefully we have learned all that she needed to teach us, whether it was sewing, reading, cooking, financial planning, singing community activism or simply to have an adventurous spirit.
When I wrote this, I worried that I was missing some really important things, and I worried that it should be perfect. It’s my chance to say goodbye to the perfect mother. But one of the things she thought me best was that I did not have to be perfect in order to be loved. So I guess I will not worry too much that this is not perfect. I leave with many stories of her past waiting to be remembered at some later date… Life with Mom was always an adventure, and if she taught us well, the adventure will continue.
Dad, you made Mom so happy. I’m wearing her favorite color today… blue… the color of the eyes of the man she loved and who loved her. You did right by her. Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment