Chapter 23: What traits do you share with your mother?
Originally written May 24, 2021
My mom was a sweet, caring woman who loved and dedicated her life to her children and grandchildren. I would like to think I share those traits with her. Except the woman part, of course.
I am a man, and a very manly man.
And I just saw her roll her eyes at that last part, even though she’s been gone for more than eight years now. [Note from 2024: Now it’s more than 10 years.]
Mom raised my brother Jack, my sister Mary and me as a single parent — with assistance from her parents, with whom we lived for nearly all my childhood.
That’s another trait we share: Both of us had two bad marriages that produced children. The thing is, she was a single parent back in the era when being a twice-divorced woman basically was scandalous.
Neither of us married a third time. In fact she hardly ever dated when I was growing up.
There was a brief period when she was going out with this guy named Harry, a well-dressed fat guy who showed up in Santa Fe in the early ‘70s about the time that the Downs at Santa Fe race track was opening. (I think he and mom knew each other from high school or college.) Harry kind of looked like Big Pussy from The Sopranos.
His relationship with my mom ended abruptly one day in the spring of 1970 (I’m not really sure of the date) when Harry was shot dead in the streets of El Paso.
Mom told me she found out from a mutual friend, a local Santa Fe political sleaze who used to own a strip joint off Cerrillos Road called The Pink Pussycat. She said this guy tried to avoid telling her the cause of Harry’s death. He made up some dumb story that poor Harry had a heart attack.
I’m not sure when Mom found out the truth that Harry actually was gunned down in the street. But the whole thing seemed to amuse her. She didn’t seem to grieve the passing of her erstwhile boyfriend. I think she considered herself lucky to dodge a bullet — which you can’t say about Harry.
I guess I inherited Mom’s sardonic outlook on life.
One of Mom’s greatest traits was her creativity. She always us encouraged to draw, to make things, to perform. She loved helping with school projects, especially artistic things. Sometimes I had to tell her to back off so I could do some of the work on whatever I was making for school.
She always was the den mother when Jack and I were in Cub Scouts. A theater student when she was in college, she loved directing us Cubs in little skits we’d perform for the monthly pack meetings. She’d choose the music, paint colorful signs and basically script these skits.
One I remember in particular started with one of us placing a large colorful cardboard sign on an easel that said “A Den Mother’s Dream.” The first scene involved all us Cub Scouts playing nice, cleaning up after ourselves and being good boys while gentle music played in the background.
But then suddenly someone would change the sign, the new one showing the face of an astonished woman with the word “NIGHTMARE!” The music changed to some jaunty jazz tune and all us Cubs would start raising hell, tearing stuff up, throwing things at each other.
We were the actors, but it really was mom’s show.
Mom always encouraged us to pursue our creativity, to make our monster models, to learn guitar, to try out for that play.
She gave me my first Bob Dylan album (Bringing It All Back Home.) She’d take us concerts: The Beach Boys, The Dave Clark Five, The Everly Brothers, Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs.
She let us skip school one afternoon so we could go greet Herman’s Hermits at the airport. And she took us to their concert at Wedgwood amusement park that night. When we saw Johnny Rivers around the same time, Mom raved about him like a teenage fan. (I think she had a crush on him.)
I tried to emulate this side of Mom with my own kids, encouraging them to express themselves creatively.
I’m sure there are negative traits I share with my mother. She often seemed consumed with self-doubt and get frustrated when something was out of her control. I see that tendency in myself sometimes.
As she aged, Mom became more and more withdrawn, shucking off any semblance of having a social life. On some lonely days since I retired I worry about myself going down that route, though I think I’m still a long way away from that point.
In the last decade, or probably more, she struggled with dementia. So now, every time I misplace my glasses, every time I can’t remember a name, I have a tinge of fear that the same thing might happen to me.
But all in all I’m proud to share those positive traits with my mom. I just regret I didn’t share that with her enough.
Like me, Mom was not religious, though she loved Elvis, including his gospel songs. This is one of the recordings I played at her funeral:
