1937-2007

I begin with the quote by J.M. Ledgard, from his novel entitled Giraffe :

"Only occasionally, when the light strikes their enclosure in a certain way, as an equinoctial sun struck an Icelandic volcano in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and revealed to explorers an opening to the core of the planet, will the pupils of the giraffes dilate in some contrary fashion, betraying in a clinically observable way, even to a hemodynamicist, a memory of something more than the walls that contain them."

When I think of my mom, I find myself at a loss for words that are adequate enough to express not only what she meant to me, but what she was. The quote above picks up a little bit on this, in describing a glimpse of the interior life of the creatures in question as being larger than the walls that surround them. In many ways, I believe all human beings are like this. That our souls are actually bigger than the bodies they inhabit, or the parameters of our lives while on this planet. In my mother's case, I am certain of it.

Though a talented and promising artist and teacher as a young woman, she turned her back on all those possibilities because she believed that being a mother to her children was the most important thing she could do with her life, and she wanted to devote herself fully and without distraction to that purpose. Just before she died, she had signed up for a watercolor class, though she never had the opportunity to attend it.
She was intelligent, morally sensitive, and terribly witty, with a black humor that I loved, and that my brother and sister and I all share. We used to laugh often at the absurdities of life, and found great humor in our own or our family member's eccentricities.
As a child, I remember some of the later civil rights issues playing out on television. I clearly remember my mother's concerned scowl as we saw the injustices that were taking place, and I listened earnestly as she shaped my own sense of morality, carefully admonishing me that I must treat all people with respect and kindness, and as equals, regardless of the color of their skin.
As a young person who never quite fit into the social structure made available to me in public schools, I had a mother who valiantly carved out a space in this world where it was o.k. to be who I was. She affirmed me, and made certain that I knew that if I found no perfect niche for myself in society, then it was society that there was something wrong with.
I have a portrait I did of her, but I have chosen not to display it here because she didn't like it. It was drawn from a photograph of her that was taken in her early twenties. She was sitting in the back seat of a car, and it was likely taken by my father. She does look somewhat angry or at least annoyed in the picture. But I liked it because when I saw it, I knew instantly that I was seeing a woman who existed before me, who had a life apart from mine. I wanted to capture and acknowledge, and in so doing honor, this person whom I knew as a mother but who was much more than that, really. She was a woman, who had a boyfriend, and a temper, and dreams and aspirations that she eventually chose to set aside for the sake of three children.
When I looked at her in the hospital, after her heart had stopped beating and she had left us, I couldn't stop. I felt as if I was trying to engrave her features on my soul, because I would never see them again in this world. But as I looked, I kept seeing more. I kept seeing, and still see, all the things that weren't visible. I saw an artist, and a writer, and a professor of English literature. I saw that she had loved, and been romanced, and that she had been a young woman with hopes and dreams of her own that had nothing to do with me.

I saw a soul that had gladly set all those things aside for my sake.

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The following is the closing passage from a book that my mother used to read to us as children.  It is from the story Miss Suzy, by Miriam Young, about a squirrel who loses her beloved home in an old oak tree, only to have it fully restored to her in the end.  

"That night, when she went to bed, she was very tired.  But she looked through the branches and she could see a million stars.  The wind blew gently and rocked the tree like a cradle.  It was very peaceful, and Miss Suzy was very happy once more."