I have wondered, for the last few months, if I should write this diary. But today, I felt that my flip, short comments on dailykos were too much of a contradiction to what is happening in my heart.
I've written a few semi-autobiographical diaries here, but this one is very personal and I have hestitated to share it. It's not because I fear ya'll won't honor it, but perhaps it's because it seems so very personal to me and I am a little surprised at how much I need others' support right now.
My mother is dying. So more than anything...I think I want to just write about her, if I might.
continued...
When I was young, my mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. No really. She was graceful, good for a laugh and this <> short of being a concert pianist. And...she was beautiful. I adored her. Her hands, her high cheekbones, her delicate build, her lovely legs, her chestnut hair, her laughter, her smile.
She's still the best looking 84 year old I've ever seen. Dimples and bright eyes, not a line or wrinkle on her face even her doctors are even amazed. And she's always gotten away with bloody murder.
I remember her laughter the very most. When my parents went to a party, which was often, and I had to call her for some reason, when the phone picked up I could hear her lively laughter in the background. Parties were big in our house, too, and my mother, who had been raised in Anchorage, Kentucky had grown up attending the Kentucky Derby. She always had a Derby Day party that was the envy of her friends. Of course, there was a bar where one could get the best Mint Julep made with the freshest mint there ever was, plucked right out of our backyard. She served breakfast, lunch and dinner and hired a bartender, two cooks and a maid. The party was an open house and her guest list was 200 people long. No one missed it, except me. I was shipped off to a friend's house the night before and allowed to return at supper time, the night of the party. I couldn't wait to see what they were up to.
My parents met in West Palm Beach right after the end of WWII. My father had returned from India and was flying planes into the Bermuda Triangle. My mother was living with her two sisters and they all had a ball entertaining the returning troops. My mother and father fell in love while dancing. She said she married him because he was the best dancer (I can attest to that) and he said he married her because she had the best knees he'd ever seen in his life (also true). When they married, my father had just entered law school at Washburn, University in Topeka, Kansas and my mother went to work for Roy Menninger at the Menninger Foundation.
My strongest memories of her..hmmm. The first would have to be this: When my parents were first married and they had me, they were still short on furniture but they had a grand piano. I remember sitting under that piano, listening to my mother play. Schumann, Liszt, Chopin (she could really play Chopin), Rachmaninoff, Debussy and Sleepy Time Down South or some other little bluesy number. She could swing. She really could. I remember listening to Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, Lena Horne, Miles Davis and Mahalia Jackson. My father was totally in love with her. He'd come home from work. Get out of the car and whistle from the driveway. My mom would holler, "Daddy's home!" and I'd run to meet him. He'd come inside and go to the kitchen where my mother was making dinner. There, they'd embrace and I'd wedge myself between them.
I remember when we moved to Hagerstown, Maryland. We were near her grandparent's house in Frederick and Braddock Heights. She was more comfortable there. In those days it was more southern. When school let out after my first year in kindergarten, my mother enrolled me in art lessons that were given in City Park. After my lesson, she would come and pick me up but before we would go, she and I meandered, arm and arm, through the park where we would eventually end up at the pond to visit the swans. One day she told me the story of "The Ugly Duckling".
I wanted to be her. When she visited my class at school my schoolmates would whisper, "WHO is THAT?" and point to my mother. I swelled with pride for she was mine, all mine. I wanted her hands, her size, her smell. I wanted all of her.
I have so many visual memories of her. They swirl before me like picture postcards from the '50s. The good life. The beach and bathing suits. Sunlight. Christmas presents.
When "Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood" came out I could really relate to that movie. (Actually I read the book first). I suppose it was
so popular because the experience is somewhat universal. But...I really felt my mother and Vivi were twins. My mother had relationships with her friends that were so similar. What really got me was the casting, Ashley Judd was my young mother and Ellyn Burstyn like my mother in her 60s. I went with her to see it. Typical Vivi, she couldn't understand what I ever saw in that movie.
There were many sorrows in our relationship that didn't start until I around 10. I didn't understand the change in the weather in our house.
But I am for remembering the good things for now.
My mother had gall bladder surgery a few years ago. Do you know what the first thing was she said to me when she came out of the anesthesia? "Are my eyelashes on?" Just yesterday, with her kidney's failing and her cancer growing rapidly throughout her adbomen, she asked if I could have someone bring her her perfume and body lotion.
She says of death, "I just can't wait to get this over with".
I love you, momma.
And thank you all for listening.