Remembering Mom

A memorial service to honor our deceased family and friends was held last week. I often think of my mom, but never with such a sustained respect as last week. Lighting a memorial candle and watching the wick spring to life with fire made me think of HER life, and all the wonderful things she had done, always with a smile on her face and never with a complaint. Tears slid down my cheeks and were wiped away silently, inconspicuously. How is it that after all of these years her memory can still cause such emotion?

In her honor, I decided to treat myself to a day at the mall. I hadn’t been in a while because, unlike when I was younger and had children to buy for, my own wardrobe was overflowing with clothes and I had nothing to shop for. Or so I thought.

Entering the mall, decorated for Christmas with festive frills and lights, the atmosphere welcomed me, and I felt a spring in my step and cheer in my heart, just as if my mom were by my side as in “olden times.” I meandered into Macy’s, being the first store I came to, looking for the magnificent bargains like mom and I did. We had a knack for finding something spectacular at a deeply discounted price, and this trip was no different. Humming to myself as I browsed the numerous sales rack, my radar led me to the 50% off the 50% off discounted price. My kind of sale! There were many awesome clothes from which to choose, and soon I was purchasing a blue and green sweater for only $4.49. Pleased with my purchase, (something comfy to wear in the winter,) I smiled brightly leaving the store, feeling like the Cheshire Cat.

It was after noon and my stomach led me to the food court. I couldn’t help but buy myself some General Tsao’s chicken, our favorite meal. The ironic part was, my mother always told me she would “have just a little bit of mine” instead of getting her own order. I resented this at the time because I would always walk away unsatiated. Then, I sneakily learned to order double the chicken so she could still share my order without realizing more chicken had been added. She was happy because she wanted to be frugal for lunch and not spend any money, and I was happy because she was happy! On this date in the mall, it made me a little sad that I didn’t need to order extra chicken, but I did think of her as I wolfed down the meal, smiling between bites in her memory.

I walked by Bath and Body Works, a store into which I had to drag her. According to her morals, a bar of soap was the best thing to wash with, so why waste money on frivolities? It was difficult to convince her that the Sweet Pea or Vanilla Cinnamon scents were relaxing for me, and I would feel so much sweeter after using them in the bath. So, I only took her in when I had a coupon and there was a deeply discount sale. Trying to get her to take a bottle to try, she always gave it back and said she was fine, thank you, soap did the job just as well. On this date, I purchased several new holiday body washes, and I didn’t even have a coupon!

Walking slowly by the stores window-shopping, the tinkling of the piano keys was heard from the middle of the mall. Coincidentally, the pianist was playing live music, and I sat to listen. If my mom had been with me, she would have swayed to the music, and sung the words to the old songs. Often, she would got up and dance enthusiastically. Most children may have been mortified if their parent did that, but my mom was not just ANY parent, she was special in so many ways. She exuded joy, and if that joy inspired her to get up and dance, then so be it. It was that joy that inspired my life so dramatically, and continues to let me appreciate seeing the sunbeams streaming brightly through the clouds and the love when my grandchildren come running to me for a kiss and a hug. It is the kind of joy that makes your heart tingly and the sides of your mouth turn into a smile. I was so fortunate to have had her inspiration.

*****

To read about our hilarious and warm relationship, or to read about the success of my 5 children with disabilities, please purchase my book, The Apple Tree: Raising 5 Kids with Disabilities and Remaining Sane

 

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Good Luck or Bad Luck Can Be in the Perception

My father was an artist/architect/carver.  He designed beautiful buildings that to this day are still city centerpieces, painted flattering portraits that still hang proudly in people’s homes, and carved a large variety of creative items.  His favorite, and my mom’s least favorite, was a statue of a Tiki god.  A squat, dark man with wild pointy hair, red eyes and a huge, pure white, toothy grin that was almost as big as the body itself.  My mother said it looked evil and it gave her the creeps.  My dad proudly sat it on the fireplace mantel “for good luck”, he said.

Shortly after he placed the statue there, he fell down the basement stairs and broke his leg badly in three places.  He recuperated slowly, but managed to get back to work.  Because he had just returned to work, he ignored stomach pains because he was trying to get caught up on a project.  He finally had to be rushed to the hospital and almost died because his appendix had burst and he had become septic. Whether he was going to live was up in the air for days.

He finally recuperated and returned home from the hospital, although he was still not entirely healed.  He had to get up every few hours to take pain pills.  Late one night when he got up to take medication, he found the kitchen of the house engulfed in flames!  He woke everyone up and managed to scoop my brother out of his bedroom next to the kitchen before the flames reached him.

The fire trucks arrived quickly and more than 1/2 of the house was damaged.  The house was burnt from the back bathroom, the laundry room, the kitchen, my brother’s bedroom, and all the way down the hallway up to the mantle of the fireplace in the living room where the fire damage had stopped.  After the firemen put the fire out and surveyed the severe smoke damage, they were struck by one oddity…the smile of the Tiki god was glowing bright white.  Everything around it was burnt or blackened by smoke, but the statue appeared to be untouched!

Our local newspaper did an article on this phenomenon and we were local celebrities for our 15 minutes of fame.   My mother insisted the Tiki statue was bad luck.  My father fell down the stairs and broke his leg.  His appendix had burst and he’d almost died.  And 1/2 the house burned down!  My father had another take on the situation.  The Tiki god was GOOD luck.  When he’d fallen down the stairs, he could have broken his neck instead of his leg.  When his appendix had burst, he could have gotten to the hospital too late and died.  And if his appendix had not burst, he would not have gotten up in the middle of the night to get medication and the whole house, including his family, could have burned!

The statue remained a fixture in my parent’s house as long as my father lived.  When he passed away ten years ago, my mom got rid of the statue, or so I thought…

Some of you may know that I have been dealing with the recent death of my mother. Cleaning out her house these past few weeks have been the saddest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.  How does one begin to decide what to keep, what to give away and what to throw away?  Cleaning the kitchen I found the grinder she used to make bologna salad with.  Cleaning the bedrooms I  tenderly sorted through pictures, mementos, costume jewelry and I not so tenderly threw away her clothes that had become threadbare and worn.

I had managed to finish cleaning most of the house except for the basement.  I put that off until last.  In a family like ours without any wealth in “things”, I could only expect to find in the basement “memories” not worth keeping, but too sad to throw away.  All of the old Christmas decorations, the threadbare sheets, blankets, chenille bedspreads and curtains that my mother thought might “come in handy one day”, old televisions with rabbit ear antennas,  8 track tape recorders, posters from the 60s that had faded and crumbled with the moisture,  and a whole lot of other worthless “junk” that would cause me further sadness.  I was dreading cleaning it out!  As a working mother with kiddos who I have to drive back and forth to doctor appointments, soccer practice, friend’s houses and such, I did not really have the extra time I needed to devote to this depressing task.  Plus, I hated cleaning my OWN house and I resented the fact that this task lay ahead of me.

At work my husband called me frantic!  The water heater had burst in my mother’s basement and there was 2 inches of water everyplace!!!  I had no time to be bothered with yet another unpleasant task, I thought as I left work early to take care of the situation.  As I opened my mother’s basement door, I could hear the water gushing, and see items floating freely in the water.  “UGH!!!!”  I thought, as I started to cry, overwhelmed by the task ahead of me.  Now I not only had to clean, but I had to mop up the mess! When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I surveyed the damage…everything was dank, dripping wet and depressing.  Then, a familiar face smiled out at me through the dampness…the Tiki statue!  It was up on a shelf on a wall way across the room, but even through the darkness I could still see its smile!  I stopped crying in amazement.  It made me think.  I finally realized that this was NOT bad luck, as my mother would have said, but GOOD luck, as my father would have said.  With my mom’s basement flooded, her homeowner’s insurance company would pay to have it cleaned up!  I called them and they sent over a cleaning crew right away. With everything ruined, it would have to be thrown away, not by ME, but by the company which would haul it all away.  Suddenly the dismal vision of me standing in a foot of water and bagging after bag after bag of old, wet memories disappeared, replaced with a sense of giddiness! I don’t know why, but just the fact that this huge daunting task of cleaning her basement had been taken care of by this flood lightened my mood. Isn’t life strange?

Although some of our old stuff MAY have been salvageable, I knew it would just sit in my basement and become more junk for me, so I asked the clean up crew to clean it entirely because everything was “moldy from the water. They went in and scooped everything away and cleaned the basement spotlessly!  The thing I saved from the basement was the Tiki god.  Not that I “believe” in him, but I believe that sometimes luck is all in how incidents are perceived, and life is a whole lot less stressful if you can look at the lucky side of things!  I know my spirits were lifted that day…