My mom loved to can. In the summer we would drive to the farms near the delta to buy flats of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and all manner of fruit. I would watch as she transformed the kitchen into a factory filled with steam from the boiling water and the smells of cinnamon, dill and vinegar. She was amazing. Quart jar after quart jar would color our garage pantry shelf. Red, greens, oranges, yellows and deep purple for our family favorite: prune butter. By the end of the summer our shelves were filled and it was a source of pride for her survey her efforts reflected back in the glass of those beautiful jars.
My mom was a nurse. She went back to school to finish her nursing degree when my youngest brother went to to Kindergarten. I was around 12 and her determination to fulfill her dreams was my first glimpse at feminism; how a woman can have family and career and rock them both. She was so smart and my whole family wanted her help. There isn’t a person I can think of who did not call my mom at some point to ask about a rash or a pain or the color of baby poop to see what it all meant. And she loved it. She loved helping and healing people. She revealed to me an inner strength that I would not see or know I would need until years later. Picking up the pieces of my life after my divorce I frequently repeated the mantra, “My mom did this; so can I”. And I did. And I know the roots any success I have lead back to my mom.
My mom was a singer. She loved to sing. She sang in chorus in high school. She sang in church choirs, at masonic functions, weddings and parties. She closed her eyes while she sang and you could hear in her voice the smile spread across her lips. She made a song for each of my girls when they were born. She sang them that song so often that even when I sing it now she will join me, though she cannot form complex sentences. Her favorite songs were for the Lord and her conviction and faith were as vibrant as her notes. I believe she was closest to God during those choruses of Halellujah.
My mom was a seamstress. In almost every photo I have of me as a little girl I am wearing a dress my mother made me right up until Jr. High when I started to feel the peer pressure of labels. She made me beautiful formal gowns for Rainbow girls. She made my dad silk shirts and Pendleton coats. She made all of us (dad, her, me and my two brothers) matching turtle tank tops that we wore on vacation to the Grand Canyon.We proudly posed for a family photo in them. She made my daughters dress after dress for them and their dollies. She could sew anything. She sewed because we didn’t have money and it was cheaper to make clothes back then, but I know that when someone complimented our outfits she was proud to say,”Oh, I made that.”
My mom began to die about 10 years ago. At first everyone thought she was just tired or stressed. Her words were mixed up frequently and sometimes she would be right in the middle of a sentence and look at you with blank eyes and say, “I have no idea what I am going to say”. A year later she was forgetting dates and times, forgetting to pick up her grandchildren for babysitting. Forgetting to set the car in park. She was diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimers. All the books I read made me so angry. Nothing was good. There was no cure. There is no treatment besides mild prolongation. It has been what I call, ‘A 10-year Funeral’ and every few years I breakdown completely as my dad and our family mourn another piece robbed by this hellborn disease. I hate what I know will come. I hate how she knows what is happening to her still. I hate that she was robbed of her words and her songs. I hate being helpless to do anything. I hate that each Mother’s Day I can’t help but reflect back to who my mother was.
My mother is a nurse, a singer, a chef and wife. She is a healer, counselor, friend and partner. She is a Nana, a seamstress, a PTA president, a carpool driver, a water-skier, a bologna sandwich roll-up maker and a prayer warrior. I won’t forget that. I won’t let anyone forget that. Just like her famous tomato sauce and apricot jam. I promise you that mom. I promise you that.
