It is virtually impossible not to think about your mother on your birthday.
Most of those of you who are lucky enough to have your moms still with you in this world can look forward to either a visit or call from her on this day. Those of us who have lost ours can only remember and reflect and speak to her in our hearts.
Virginia’s birthday was four days ago. Virginia would have been 87. If she was still here, I would have gotten two cards from her yesterday…one would be really funny and most likely really risqué, and one would be so sweet that it would make me cry.
Back in the day, a German Chocolate Cake would magically appear on April 9th, without fail, every year. One from the best bakery in Chattanooga, as cooking was not her forte. Everything else; however, was.
Virginia’s talents lay in many other arenas. A wicked and thoroughly original sense of humour, and an ability to make everyone around her feel comfortable, loved, and valued. A sheer natural beauty all her life, she had men buzzing around her like flies. After her divorce when I was 5, I was spoiled like a little prince, not only by her, but also by the succession of “uncles” in my life, all vying for my acceptance and approval. They knew that this was the key to my mom’s heart…to have an affection for and an affectation of fatherly-figurativeness for me, her little ray of sunshine, punk ass son.
I am remembering Sundays at my great-grandmother’s house in Rock Springs. My great aunts Maude and Edith would be the warm up acts as they made their appearances. Then around 1:00 or so my mom, the headliner, would come in, and all hell would break loose. She just had this uncanny way of lighting up a room, giving my uncle John or my great-uncle Ralph some funny miscellaneous grief and hell, then heading in to the kitchen with all the other female members of the family in tow, holding court and getting those old hens cackling. The volume in those old rooms rose considerably when my mother walked in.
She raised me as a single mom, which I can assure you that with my energy, tangents, independent spirit, and rebelliousness was no easy task. I was a prince, and was treated as such. Every single creative and intellectual whim I had was nourished and celebrated, even when they were well beyond her means. Virginia constantly maintained a conventional “real” job, some sort of irregular second job, a class or two, and occasionally stood in as a substitute teacher…at times at my school.
As I grew up, she was insightful enough to know that I was “gonna do what I was gonna do”. Heading a household chock full of Aries personalities teaches you that, I suppose.
Crafty as I thought I was, she always found my baggie of weed I thought I had well hidden in my room. She would always confiscate it, not making the first move and sitting back to wait for me to eventually ask about it. A sound lecture, a good round of questioning as to the reasons I as was playing around with the stuff in the first place, and a strict demand that I smoke it at home or in a safe place without setting foot in a car would follow.
Drinking was treated in the same manner. She, nor anyone else in my family drank. She made it clear that she did not approve of, but at the same time established certain boundaries…don’t get near an automobile, don’t drink at football games or in public places, etc. Drink because you enjoyed it and were in a safe, social environment, not to escape.
From the time I learned how to write and draw, she kept all my efforts in scrapbooks that piled up in the cabinet under the Motorola console. She always carried the current one down to Great-grandma Sarah’s house every Sunday, embarrassing the living daylights out of me.
Stunningly beautiful, vibrant, strong, and funny as all get out. You would have loved my mom....good lord..everybody she came into contact with did.
She slipped away in a coma suddenly in August of 1998. She slipped completely away on October 30th, 1998. The legacy of her sense of humour and love will never slip away as long as I live though.
Peace, T.
******The Supremes "Someday We'll Be Together"
(If I heard her play this song once, I heard it a million times. I remember my mom playing this over and over on the Motorola when I was a kid. She loved the Supremes. I'll be listening to them most of the night tonight I imagine.)
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We knew when the drummer turned his cymbals upside down Mick Fleetwood style and the lead singer belted out some Eddie Veder-esque vocals, that we were gonna dig this band.
