Mothers

Mom was only about five when she went to live with her father’s sister and brother-in-law, eight when they moved west, and about ten when her mother died. Although she regarded her Aunt Blanche and Uncle Jap with the same closeness as parents, and they loved her and her brother like the children they could never conceive, Mom remembered her parents enough that she reserved the titles Mom and Dad for them. This picture was taken in front of their home in Klamath Falls, Oregon. For all the world, it reflects a mother/daughter relationship and the budding friendship that grown children often develop with their parents. Although this photograph was taken when Mom was still a teenager, it reflects their relationship the way I remember it. From the time I was little, Mom and I would go to Klamath for a week or two every summer. Mom would do things around the house to help Aunt Blanche and some afternoons we would go for a walk downtown or to visit Nana Ward down the street. But mostly they would laugh and visit, from early morning until 10:00 p.m. when we adjourned to our rooms for bed. The only break came after lunch when everyone took a nap. (The southern tradition of a siesta managed to survive their move to the West.)

This is me with Mom when I am about five. We are standing in front of the house that is connected to the back of the Liberty Theater in Condon, where my aunt and uncle on Dad’s side lived at the time. My dress is one of many that Mom made for me, and I suspect she made her own as well. My shoes are those blasted “corrective” oxfords that I was doomed to wear all through grade school because they had better arch support. (They corrected nothing, by the way.) Notice Mom’s stylish shoes, though. She didn’t dress this way for the picture; she did her housework and gardening in the mornings in pants or a housedress, made lunch for us, took a nap, and then took a bath and always dressed up like this by about 2:00 in the afternoon. She learned this from Aunt Blanche.

I hope my children have positive images and memories from their childhoods, as I do from mine. I used to lie on Aunt Blanche’s bed and watch her in the mornings put on her make-up and comb her long hair before twisting it up onto the back of her head. She wound it in a figure eight, securing it with long, wide wire or tortoise shell hairpins. It fascinated me how she could do it so easily without being able to see what she was doing. Her hair was thick and wavy and she would comb the top of it with her fingers to loosen it just enough to let the wave show. Mom’s morning routine was much the same; predictable, systematic, and comforting to a child. Both of them wore jewelry, most of it costume pieces, which I loved to browse through and now cling to because of the memories they evoke.

Aunt Blanche made a loving home for my mom and Mom made the same for me. We were steeped in traditions, rules, and faith enough to keep us safe, build our confidence and sense of belonging, and equip us with the strength to venture out on our own. There was never any question but that we were incredibly loved and special. It is an amazing power that the mothers in our lives can wield. We want to become separate from them, and that is actually what they prepare us for, but then we find ourselves coming right back to take up new residence as more of a co-equal; a friend, as much as an offspring.

I admire these two women; they are very different and yet, the same. Both are generous and kindhearted to a fault, but as stubborn as the day is long. One loves to cook and the other only tolerated it, but they both loved children and animals intensely and constantly took in strays of either. Aunt Blanche rented her rooms to borders to pay the bills and nursed Uncle Jap for twenty years after he became an invalid with first Polio and then a stroke and Mom took care of Dad when he suffered from Emphysema and Dementia. Aunt Blanche took care of Mom when she was little and Mom reciprocated when Aunt Blanche was older. Through their examples I learned compassion, kindness, and fortitude, when and how to ask for forgiveness, when to stand up for myself and draw a line in the sand, and the difference between service and slavery. Neither had a career beyond the home, yet they were definitely equals in their marriages. Humor got them beyond tough times without the taint of bitterness and helped them deal with life’s incongruities. I am not exactly like either one of them, but I am who I am because of them.