She is from
a white clapboard house with a wraparound porch, claw foot tub and Dove soap
smack in the middle of Macon, Georgia.
From the
streets of Madison and Carling, up and down Coleman Hill, where she walked to
Whittle School and the Public Library, and boldly asked for a library card at
the age of 5.
She is from playing under fig and pear
trees, soft scented pines and shiny leaf magnolias, red clay staining her bare
feet and the smell of paper mills filling her nostrils.
She is from Berry and Sallie Belle, Wiley,
Sister, Doris, Roger and Jimmy.
She is from strong as oxen Shero aunts who
farmed cotton and worked in pants plants in Wrightsville, Georgia.
She is from the Depression and
Tuberculosis and a family that took in folks who were down on their luck. From
fish on Friday and First Street Methodist.
She is from picnics on Stone Mountain,
Finchers BBQ, NuWay hotdogs and LaVista Catfish.
She is from poise lessons and perfect
posture and words dripping honey sweet from her mouth.
She is from a hair-brained idea involving a
midnight double date rendezvous to Aiken, SC, a half drunk justice of the
peace, and a 4th of July celebration that included one very busy rotating fan.
She is from moves to Indianapolis, Indiana
and then St. Louis, Missouri that took her from her beloved South.
She is from north of the Mason Dixon line where
she took it upon herself to soften the edges of every nasal accent in the
Midwest.
She is from bacon grease on the back of the stove and dog bowls at the back
door
and champagne bottles that toasted births all
lined up in a row. She is from Boston Ferns and summer deck parties.
From coffee and cherry chip birthday cake
and hands that smelled like onions.
She is from chuck roast in the electric
skillet, onion soup mix brisket, Jello salads, massive pots of spaghetti, liver
and onions, green enchiladas, asparagus disguised as green bean casserole,
sweet tea and Hallelujah banana bread.
She is from “I love you a bushel and a peck” and “Gimme some sugar” and,
perhaps most famously, “Tim Smothers,
you will nevah, nevah, evah drive that Aspen Station Wagon again!”
She is from Herb Albert and the Tijuana
Brass, the Johnny Mathis Christmas album, Dionne Warwick, George Carlin, Flip
Wilson, Bill Cosby, Cheech and Chong, Fiddler on the Roof, James Taylor and
that Classical Music in the background.
She is from You Are My Sunshine and
Everything Is Going to be Alright.
She is from “To Thine Own Self Be True”
and “It’s Your Mama.” From “All Is Well” and “It Is What It Is Grandma” and “Live
Well, Laugh Often, Love Much.”
She is from dancing jitterbugs across
linoleum floors and slapping her knee at every guffaw.
She is from birthday cards and notes in
school lunches and throwing kisses and standing at the door until your car was
out of sight.
From “psspsspsspss” and “chum on” and
“doodlebug” and “Honey Bob.”
And forever and ever and ever, she will
always be from shooting stars and fireworks and every smile shared by those
that loved her best.
++++++++++
There you have it. The world as we have
known it, all the days of our lives. We were molded and shaped and created from
that celestial brew of whimsy and joy and strength.
We have never known ourselves
or our world without our mother in it. I am here, my brothers and sisters
are here, because of her. We are who we are, because of her.
Our mother was a curator of
a welcome life.
To live in the orbit of our
mother was to always be invited, received, entertained, accepted.
But perhaps above all, to
have known my mother was to have been loved.
Her life was a lesson in loving.
What she taught us all was to always run hard
after love. In
all circumstances, by every means necessary, even when we screw things up or we
do the exact right thing--we need love to be what is standing between us and
everyone else. When love is what we choose to weave
in among the fibers and snags of our everyday life, when love gilds the
edges of tired joy or stretches across the chasms of unspoken fears then we
become Love lived on purpose and that breathes life and one can catch glimpses
of glory come down.
In the wake of my mom’s death, we are sad,
yes. We feel carved out and empty and the truth of what we are left with
actually aches in ways deep and long, yes.
But this, too, is also true:
There is still life, despite
the loss. There is still love in the world, despite the severing.
There is still light, despite the darkness.
And that gives me hope.
Because, if it is true, that we are who we are
because of our mother...
then it means that this whole dance, all of
the goodness and light spun dizzy with all of the defiance and angst,
all of the ways that we continually fall down and help pick each other up, all of the beautiful and mundane, the
fascinating and the trivial, the whole and the half?
It's part of us too, now, tucked away in the
obvious and secret places, planted in soil made rich with her love and care for
us.
It is through loving and singing with our own
children or grandchildren, by partnering with kindred souls or living alongside
people that challenge us...all of it ripples on and on and on.... people are
continually made and remade because we are in their lives...which means that
our mother lives on.
And I pray that one day,
when the pictures are pulled out and the chronology of our becoming is on
display, the one thing that will have leaked out all over, dripping from the
corners of our eyes and the edges of our smiles, is the amazing truth...
that we were loved by her.
