Mary Had Six Little Lambs

I can't believe it's been a year since my mom passed away. It was more like fading away. That was how she lived her life, a stagehand rather than a star, quietly going about the business of keeping the show going. And when the show was over, she said goodbye to the players and walked away. No fuss. No muss. In fact, Mom was almost always behind the camera when we were growing up. Until we were adults, and my brother, John, came up with the idea of shooting us together, we never had a picture taken of all of us together. The pictures that remain today are a haphazard chronicle. Lots at Christmas time. My older siblings and I were lined up at Easter, facing the sun (that's what Kodak told Mom was best), and we were shot, squinting, in our church going finery. By the time my younger brother, Paul, came along, this tradition had ceased. (Which is why he is shown in his own photo, above.) Mom took a ton of photos of my oldest brother, but by the time we got to Paul, most of the pictures that remain of his childhood show him beside whatever the newest car was. A two-for-one. The point is, Mom was rarely photographed in those early days. And I realized, as I went through our pictures, that there are very few pictures of her and me.
This is one of the few...

Mom was really about putting family first. Her luxuries were few, but cherished. She took a bath after everyone else in the family was done. She would soak for a very long time in there -- sometimes we would knock on the door because we'd hear her snoring. Hints of the path not taken come from her creativity, which whispered rather than singing out. She did several paint-by-number projects when I was small. A large Jesus hung in our living room, its eyes following you wherever you moved, keeping you righteous. A trio of bird paintings in abstract woodland settings. And a Mother Mary (presumably, the companion to Jesus), that made an appearance in the back bedroom from time to time. Then there were her birthday cakes, which she would create to suit whatever theme you chose. The most memorable was my brother's guitar cake. And there was the time she read in a magazine that sponge painting was a great way to liven up a plain wall. We came home from school to find the hallway painted with large olive green splotches. We kidded her about it, but my Dad backed her up. Interior decorating was her job, and, to my memory, he did not get involved.

Then there was her garden. Forget green thumb, hers was a dream thumb. She got an amazing array of flowers and vegetables to bloom there.

On one visit to my mom, a number of years before she died, she confided wistfully that she sometimes imagined what her life would have been like if she had studied art. It was a glimpse, brief and fleeting, into the woman who was my mom. It's made me think more about her, who she was and who she never became because she was busy raising six kids. I suspect she wouldn't have done anything differently. She was very proud of her lambs. And she and my dad were crazy about each other, a love that lasted all their lives, and, I suspect, is still going strong.


Mom was born a few years before the Great Depression got started. Her mother died of tuberculosis two days before Mom's fourth birthday. Someone told Mom they were going to a birthday party, and they took her up to the coffin and made her kiss her mother's cheek. My grandfather married his second wife when Mom was six. Mildred got that family through the Depression. Mom didn't tell a lot of stories about her childhood. She would just say that it was pretty typical. She did say that she would (she shamefully admitted) play the stepmother card when Grandma wouldn't let her do something she probably had no business doing.

After graduating from high school, Mom went to work for Western Union. (She got an A on the test, I have the certificate.) She met my dad after the war in a bar (yes, Mom, it WAS a bar, even though you insist it "wasn't like that.") The two of them hit it off, got married, and, well, there came the six of us.

When we get together and talk about mom, we tell the usual stories...

How food was rationed at dinnertime (you got one pork chop, one baked potato, one scoop of corn, one brownie for dessert).

Her favorite phrase, "We'll see," which clearly meant "No."

Her ability to make you feel so guilty and awful that you would have gnawed off your own arm rather than disappoint her again. And the wooden spoon Damn the wooden spoon!

Those fabulous shoes from 1940-something, velvety black pumps that she had in her closet that smelled like cedar. (They had stories to tell, but I never heard them.) 

The time one of our pet gerbils got loose while we were away visiting my grandparents. Two days after we got back, I felt the bed moving and discovered the errant rodent running between the mattress and the bed covers. We returned the gerbil to its cage and discovered a sizable hole had been chewed in the mattress. Mom was upset, but she simply said, "This is one of those things we are NOT going to share with your father." (Since Mom did the bed making, this was a sensible course of action.)

Then there are the stories that belong to me... Her taking me to a Girl Scout meeting where they showed a film strip that talked about "becoming a woman." Of course, the film strip didn't cover the part about how how sex works. When asked about that, Mom simply said, "He puts his you-know in your you-know and then you-know." Then she changed the subject.

When I was living in Virginia, Mom and I corresponded regularly. She and my dad composed little bits of artwork to include with the news of the day. They were windows into the world of Tony and Mary, and I cherish them to this day.

My all-time favorite story is when I took Mom to play bingo at St. Columbkille. Everyone around us was supportive when they learned it was her first time (even the guy with the toy trolls lined up around him). Then Mom, sotto voce, said, "I believe I have a Bingo." I started waving my arms around, yelling "BINGO, OVER HERE, BINGO!" Mom sat quietly with her hands in her lap, while the gentleman came over and confirmed her card. For the rest of the evening, she had a satisfied smile on her face, and she patted the pocket that held her winnings.

Mom is still with me every day. Her presence is especially strong in the kitchen. As I try a new recipe and fuss over the ingredients, I can feel her and my grandmother standing over my shoulder coaching me.

I have a feeling she's watching me now. Which is why I left out some of the stories I was going to share. Even now, I don't want to piss her off.

I love you, Momma!