Mother's Day

Me and my mama

I love this old picture, taken in the mid-1940s, judging by my age, somewhere around two. Leave it to Daddy, the photographer, to make sure our car was also in the frame. Is that an old Studebaker? He was probably as proud of the car as he was of his family. My sister Norma Jean was born two years and eight months after me, so Mama was probably already pregnant with her, but otherwise it was just me, the apple of their eye and obviously quite spoiled, believing that I am the center of the universe.

Mama was only nineteen when I was born, so she was very young and beautiful at this time, and a very good mother to me. I suppose it's normal when a baby grows up in a secure and loving environment to believe that everything was created just for her enjoyment. My childhood was a very happy one, and that was due mostly to my mother's efforts. She ended up bearing seven children, with me the first and my sister Fia the last, twenty years later. She had one pregnancy that she didn't carry to term; at seven months gestation the baby didn't have lungs developed enough to breathe on her own. These days that baby would have lived, but back then (I was a teenager at the time), she didn't make it.

The remaining six of us were raised by our parents to become productive and relatively happy members of society. My sister PJ died at 63, from complications of heart disease and diabetes. Mama herself only lived to be 69, so I wasn't born into a family destined to become centenarians. I've already lived longer than either parent, so that's one reason I take health and exercise seriously: to be more fit and active in my old age than my genetic heritage would suggest I've got coming to me.

Daddy was in the Air Force when I was growing up, so we moved often. Mama would always create a home for us wherever we were living, and I didn't suffer so much from the experience. Norma Jean did, however; she decided when she grew up that she wouldn't do that to her children and would raise them in a secure home in one place. It's interesting how differently two siblings can experience the same events, isn't it? I loved the experience of going to a new school with new friends. She was shy and would make one dear friend who she would have to leave behind when we moved. I, on the other hand, never made close friends like that, preferring to have lots of acquaintances who were interchangeable. Of course, I always had my sister, and we were very close when we grew up. We still are, and it occurs to me often that she's the only person still alive who shares my childhood memories.

My mother never felt like she accomplished much in her life, since she never brought home a paycheck, never worked outside the home except for volunteer work. I think she had the idea back then that somehow her life was lacking an essential ingredient because she never developed a career. But she was so wrong: the career of motherhood at the center of her life gave every one of us the best possible start in our own lives. And we all end up having our children grow up and away from home in any event.

There are moments from my childhood that stand out in my memories, and almost without fail they involve my mother. I remember once when I was very sick and she was taking me to the hospital. I was feverish and felt awful, but she put my head in her lap (someone else was driving) and she stroked my forehead with such love and devotion that I remember it to this day. Once a child from a large family no longer needs that kind of care, it's memorable when it happens again. Mama loved me, and all of her children, I have no doubt whatsoever.

She was an avid reader all her life. I'll bet Mama read just about everything in the local library, and I remember her going in with a box of books she had read and leaving with another full box. She'd sit on the couch surrounded by books and make her way through each one. I don't remember if she preferred any particular type of book, but I do know she devoured an enormous number of them. Norma Jean and I are the same way, having inherited the love of reading from our mother.

Mama had so many illnesses to combat in her life. She developed breast cancer in her forties, and the treatment they gave her back then, cobalt radiation after a radical mastectomy, scarred her heart and caused her numerous heart attacks over the years. She always rallied, and we began to think she would continue to fight back forever. But she had a final heart attack in 1993 that she knew was the final one. Although she lived for a few weeks afterward, giving all her children a chance to say a final goodbye, she gave away all her possessions and we knew she was ready. She slipped into a coma and for about a week she lingered before finally breathing her last.

I was privileged to be with her in her final moments. After the last gentle breath slipped away, we took all the flowers that were in her room and arranged them around her face. She was simply beautiful and her face was filled with peace. Although it was a hard time, it was one I will always cherish, having been able to be with her when she took her last breath, as she was with me when I breathed my first. We came full circle together.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face. --George Eliot

And so, on this Mother's Day, I remember my beautiful mother with love and happiness. I'll go out to my regular places and carry her memory in my heart and spread love and joy as far as my being allows. Until we meet again next week, I wish you all good things. Be well, my dear reader. Happy Mother's Day.