I am the world’s best at enumerating my mother’s failings—who, better than I, to know them? As her one and only offspring I have had a front row seat for the entire drama, but foibles are only one side of her story. For every cringe worthy account there is another juxtaposed as a delight.
She was determined to do her best as a mom and started off right hiring a registered nurse to come home with us and make sure nobody dropped me on my head. The photos of the nurse in full white cap and uniform are a fine memento of a brave beginning.
Mother bought a new Brownie Box camera that she exercised ad nauseum, cranking out hundreds of baby shots. She did the hard work of keeping up with them for a lifetime, and it was I who managed to lose them in a problematic state-to-state move. I’m glad that she had the fun of snapping that shutter with such obsessive joy.
Her favorite staging of reality was my doll house as background for every doll she had gifted me since birth. They sat in an eerie silence, row on row, attesting to how much she appreciated her only offspring. Each doll was dressed for the occasion, known and named by one of us. If I was silent on the subject, it was she who came up with the perfect moniker. On the back of the photo image she would list each doll ekphrastically by name. The march of the seasons could be marked and appreciated as the hoard swelled in number.
As soon as I could command a vehicle, a tricycle appeared. Unlike the congregation of dolls, which I pretty much ignored except to undress and disassemble them, the better to find out how they worked, the three-wheeled velocipede was a friend. Mother memorialized it in an iconic photo of our family lined up along the street: I on my trike, Mother on her blue Schwinn, and Daddy on his motorcycle. She treasured that shot, and I didn’t disagree.
As soon as I could hold on, she sat me on the back fender of her bike and we took off at speed. We went everywhere wheels could roll. When I got a new puppy for my birthday, she added a basket to the front and we were a threesome. We sang as we rolled, a brave example for The Sound of Music, yet to hit the air-waves. When she got tired of peddling, we stopped and conversed while we rested. I remember a stop where we enacted a lizard story: “There came a lizard to a wall, all on a summer’s day. He zipped it once. He zipped it twice. And then he ran away. The wall wasn’t sunny; the boy wasn’t funny; and the maid had no money. Isn’t it funny? But it’s true.” Memory may not reconstruct it just right, but it’s well remembered as a sweet and pleasant time of rest.
Even when there was no more bike or spaniel, we filled the time with bus trips around the 40’s Boston Metroplex. The one I most remember was a bus-then-walking tour of the Wellesley campus which Mother explained I was to someday attend. She pointed out the ivy covered brick buildings and insisted that the learning inside was just as beautiful as the lovely facades. That was the key to a learning that mattered.
Like most every upscale mother of a six-year-old girl child, she signed me up for tap, ballet, and acrobat lessons at the Stella Stevenson School of Dance, and she delivered me to the bar at scheduled intervals, tutu a-swirl and satin slippers a-shimmer. It was all for naught, due to lack of talent, but her devotion was noted and appreciated. She explained that I had inherited my father’s awkwardness as it relates to feet and their dis-artful mobility.
Mother was ever the crafter of art, and it was a great day when she offered to build a box to house my second grade class Valentine collection. At a time when women’s hats came in fanciful boxes of whimsical shapes, she chose a great heart of a box. With crepe paper cut in endless strips and glued to the outside, then finger stretched into a tangled swirl of pink, the construct exploded with Valentine adoration of love and all its implications. A slot in the lid accepted every child’s trove of greetings to be delivered to other students on the very day. That day arrived. It was a date to make my mother proud, and I proud of her. She was my Valentine sweetheart.
Mother fancied herself a poet and loved to mark special times with special words. When I graduated from first grade and was disconsolate over losing that first wonderful teacher, she wrote:
“I have a dear, dear teacher,
Who means so much to me,
And what I’ll do without her
Is more than I can see.
I want to go to second grade,
For it’s the proper thing to do,
But teachers like Miss. Chater,
I know there are but few.
And so, My dear Miss. Chater,
I know that we must part,
But please be sure to know,
You’ll be always in my heart.”
Mother taught me to sing before an audience, and to earn my place at the center of any and all attention. On Halloween, stalking the neighborhood for treats, she taught me to recite,
Hello! Hello!
I’m out to have some fun,
But never fear,
I’m here to cheer.
There’ll be no destruction.
When our church decided to produce a play, Mother was chosen as the lead actor. It was called “Mushrooms Coming Up” and featured a comedic confusion of toadstools being perceived as mushrooms. It was a hit, and I got to attend every rehearsal as well as the grand performance. When it came time for me to mount the stage and perform, it felt like a normal, acceptable thing for a person to do.
Mother was obviously multi-talented and reveled in a cacophony of artistic expression. You name it; she could do it. But of all her many responses to her muse, it was music she loved best. I can thank her for teaching me to love singing. She demonstrated at my life’s very inception the possibility of spirit as a vehicle of expression. I saw her as a living goddess of music, of beauty, of art, of everything filled with light and lust for life. When I was still a toddler, she began directing a community chorus called the Glad Girls Glee Club.
It was a gaggle of neighborhood urchins who agreed to come to our house, learn to sing as a harmonious group, and perform at public venues throughout the Ft. Worth, Texas area. The girls experienced the excitement of performing art, doing the hard work of learning, practicing, and disciplining their little-girl selves into a veritable choir.
They learned the fun of authentic formal dress-up, wearing “little ladies” white gloves and pearls to set off their long gowns. The whole endeavor was a celebration of spirit, and Mary’s personality breathed it into fire. It was an authentic example of 1940’s post-depression glee. At that time, I had passed birthday number two and was full of myself as I headed for number three. Mother installed me as official mascot for the group. I was handed from lap to lap, soaking up more than my fair share of the happiness. Every group photo shows me in matching dress and hair-ribbons, situated in one of the many singers’ arms. I never forgot how it felt to be treasured by all those lovely singers. It was a time to remember and never, ever forget.
I can remember my mother, even as a creaky old lady, sliding onto any available piano bench and belting out Melody in F. At her assisted living facility, the old folks refused to participate in a hymn-sing unless Mary was there to lead the singing. Whenever I picked her up for a day away from the institution, we would sing as I drove, matching my high tenor to her soprano—or if I sang melody she slipped into an alto harmony. As we sang I remembered all the other days, the other songs, the other adventures, and I determined to never forget how it feels to be important to someone as wonderful as Mary, Old Pal of Mine. Even the memories ring with the chords of that sweet treble harmony.
Like most 40’s women Mother was always cooking up something to challenge her oven. When we were still constituted as a family, she made pies from scratch that even today haunt my memories. No one makes coconut cream or lemon meringue like she did. I stopped trying out others peoples pies long ago, hoping against hope that they might be as good as hers. It’s not going to happen. The most successful reconstruction of that taste sensation has been in my own kitchen using the freshest of ingredients and applying every care, but even that is not quite as wonderful as a pie produced by Mary Opal’s own hands. I have determined that what is missing is the love—her love. That was what she added to the mix that made it the best, the very best. She added that too, to the making of me. I have no doubt that what she gave to me, that made everything else something that could be lived through with courage, was the certainty of her mother love.
morethanenoughtruth 
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