I Remember my Mom
My first memory is of my mom on her bed, bare and open. I don’t remember the other people who must have been in the room, and what I can recall is a mashup of a dream and the truth. I remember the egg-shaped poop ball that somehow was also the dark-haired, baby-sister, best-ever early Christmas gift.
I remember when she took me to the bakery on State Fair to pick up cupcakes for my kindergarten class. She knew how envious I was of the kids who had birthdays during the school year and wanted to give me the chance to treat the class with a sugar crash.
I remember being able to look her in the eye only from the top of the slide–she was so tall.
I remember seeing only her long legs as I played under the kitchen table while she did the dishes.
My mom was beautiful. She told stories of using an actual clothes iron to straighten out her hair (it was the 70’s), but she didn’t know what to do with me. She wouldn’t let me pull my hair back in a headband because my forehead was big. I had a cowlick that couldn’t be tamed. In fifth grade, she put my hair in the required pigtails and ribbons for the cheerleading event at the Silverdome. It might have been the only time she managed to make my hair look cute.
When she drove me to school, she would sing “little red caboose behind the train, train, train, train” any time there was a train on the bridge. Once we moved she no longer took us to school.
Sometimes she would be so engrossed in a book I couldn’t get her attention. She would read anything, including whatever I was reading in English class. She hated A Separate Peace but loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Of all my siblings, I’m the only one who still reads actual books.
You’ll never see me give anyone the bird because of that one time I flipped her off and she saw me through the living room window. I felt such shame because I hadn’t really meant it.
Sometimes she embarrassed me. She told my Uncle Norm that I asked her to buy pads just in case because I was scared of getting my first period. I was, but come on!
I remember long talks, mostly when she’d had a few drinks, when she told me things a mother should probably not tell her teenaged daughter: she talked openly about her sexual past (and sometimes currently). After my dad had a vasectomy, she openly wore hickies that rivaled the ones my fifteen-year-old self was trying to hide! Thinking back on it now, I wonder how openly showing the scars on her wrists to Sarah and me affected our future choices.
We had such loud “discussions” about serious topics that our neighbor once came by to tell us to shut up!
I could talk to her about anything.
My mom could talk to anyone; people were drawn to her. She worked for a time in collections and was proud of the friendly conversations she’d have with people who owed money, even the enemy (an Ohio State fan).
She always compromised with me when I wanted something we couldn’t afford, like the letterman’s jacket I wanted in high school and then proceeded to leave in the closet.
My mom volunteered with me at the Triangle Foundation’s Pride fair, which opened her up to a new community. She loved her lesbian friends from softball. They changed her life, I think, by giving her a community that was filled with joy and fun.
Somehow, she still managed to pay for my college education while raising three other children on dad’s meager salary. After getting a tattoo and my tongue pierced in college, she vowed to never send me spending money again. But she always helped me out when I really needed it.
She encouraged me to choose Hiram College–I think because of the “Hiram Hi”--and she was right. She was so proud when I finished my Master’s Degree that she and Dad drove to Kentucky for the ceremony. My education was important to her, perhaps because she left community college to have me at 19, a year after getting married.
It took me until a couple years ago to realize just how young she was, both in birthing me at 19 and dying at 48. She had only ever been an adult who had other people, mostly children, dependent on her.
“To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing—I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.”
She did the best she could raising the four of us, babysitting my cousins, and being a second mom to my brothers’ friends who ended up calling her mom. We were all so loved.
She, too, was loved. When she was in the hospital, so many people came to visit and say goodbye. Conny was even going to fly in from the Netherlands just to see her one more time.
Mom, I’ve been trying to write about you for so long. Now I’m sitting here crying while the memories come flooding back. What I wouldn’t give to have another water fight with you and Sarah in the kitchen. Or to read a book while floating in Lake Michigan with you while everyone else stayed on the beach. Or to see you dance your signature dance at a wedding. Or to just sit on the couch arguing. I used to have dreams about arguing with you. Lately, when you are in my dreams we are laughing.
I like that better.
