I really hate Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving week in 1999, I watched my mom die. My mom was a great lady. She was not only my mom, but my champion and my heroine and my guidance and my confidant. I've been thinking about her a lot lately, so this one is for you, Mom.
My mom was the oldest daughter of ten children. One of three daughters in all. Her father was an off the boat Italian immigrant and her mother Hazel was a true blue blood who married far beneath her. Hazel's family basically had nothing to do with her when she married into her husband's very Catholic family and started having children every year.
Hazel died in childbirth. My mom's father, Dante, was a dyed in the wool drunk. He was also a considerable craftsman. He worked in wrought iron and was a true artisan. When he got his groove on and stayed away from the grappa, that is.
After Hazel died, Dante basically fell apart. He had a newborn child he had no idea how to take care of. That fell to my mom. She was all of 12. My mom cooked and cleaned whatever shitty rental shack they had. Took care of her siblings. Two of her brothers were killed in the Korean War. Dante further fell apart.
The newborn, who at that point was two years old, ended up being placed for adoption. My mom's youngest sister, Adelle, started exhibiting some alarming behavior. Dante further deteriorated.
To make a long really depressing story short, Dante placed all the remaining kids with Catholic Social Services that were still under 18. My mom was 13. She was petite with dark red hair and freckles and looked very Irish even though she wasn't. She was smart and very devout and very well-behaved and always hoped she would get adopted but she was just too old. She went through a lot of foster homes. Got raped by her foster brother in one. Got spit on by her foster mother who thought she had hired a maid in another. The list was endless. She finally ended up in an orphanage at 16, where she was finished high school.
My mom was determined that she would be able to always support herself and take care of herself. After she finished high school, she drifted to Detroit, where one of her remaining older brothers lived. (She had kept in touch the best she could with all of her living siblings.) She got a job working as a secretary for a draftsman at Ford Motor Company and started taking classes at Mercy College. She was living with her brother and his wife, but that wasn't working out as her brother (big surprise) was a raging alcoholic and knocked his wife around on a regular basis.
My mom starting looking in the paper to find somewhere to board. Her funds were very limited and she knew she would have to save up so she took a second job at a diner. Bear in mind, she was working full time at Ford, going to school and had now taken on another job that wasn't easy.
In the want ads for rooms to let, she found Anne St. James. Anne was the widow of a dentist who lived in a huge house in the Indian Village section of Detroit. She was in fairly good health but had no children or close family and was not only lonely, Anne also felt she needed someone else in the house.
Anne and my mom hit it off, an immediate bonding of the hearts and souls. Anne had been a teacher and was well-travelled and well read and was very impressed that my mom wanted to become a teacher. My mom moved in with Anne and lived with her for 6 years, until Anne died. When Anne died, she willed her house in Indian Village to my mom. My mom had loved Anne as another mother.
One of my saddest losses of Lost Things is a locket my mom gave me that had been Anne's. It was a round gold locket with an engraved heart with a diamond chip. Inside was a picture of my mom on one side and a picture of Anne on the other. I wore this locket on an 18 inch gold chain for years. I lost it in the Newark airport. I still miss it. I do still have the beautiful sterling silver rosary Anne gave my mom for her 21st birthday. And the Victrola.
Anyhow. My mom was so fortunate to have found Anne, and Anne, I think, was happy to have my mom. I should mention one thing here. Anne was black.
Keep in mind, this is Detroit in the early 60s. Couldn't find a much more racist place.
My mom had a bit of a colorful past. She was married to a guy named Jim Reynolds who was 18 years older than her and a schemer. Mr. Big Ticket. He wanted her big house in Indian Village and wooed her and my mom, who had had no boyfriends up til that point, married him. He promptly impregnated her, in between beatings. When she was due to deliver, he refused to pay for the hospital and took off. My mom called a cab and went to Detroit Receiving, where she was registered as a "poverty case". There were complications with the baby and my mom was given whatever gas they gave women in those days.
She woke up a few days later with no baby and a total hysterectomy at the age of 26. Can you even imagine? (NOTE: I am adopted.)
Right around then, when the hospital was looking for next of kin, because my mom almost died, they found out that good old Jim Reynolds, my mom's husband, was married to someone else and may or may not have divorced this other wife.
My mom was a nice Catholic girl. This was shattering to her. And of course, inbued with that sense of Catholic guilt, she thought it was all her fault.
So she called a cab to take her home to her big house in Indian Village. Only a few problems with that. She had not a dime with her and had to promise the cabby she would pay when she got home and when she got home, the house had been cleared out. All of Anne's beautiful antiques were gone. All of my mom's clothes were gone. Everything on the walls was gone. Not a bed or a table left in the place except the 1919 Victrola, which is very heavy.
I know, because said Victrola is in my great room right now.
Jim Reynolds two weeks later crashed his private plane in Hemlock, Michigan. He was going to see his girlfriend in St. Charles who wonder of wonders, happened to be my mom's sister Jean. Who at that point in time, was pregnant with his child, although she was married to someone else. He had met Jean through my mom.
Nice guy, eh? Hope that plane crash was a slow agonizing fall.
My mom sold her house in Indian Village and used the money to finish college with a teaching degree. She helped her youngest sister Adelle, who had schitzophernia, as best she could. (NOTE: Do a whole other post about Adelle.) She (NOTE: We're back on my mom so catch up) taught in Detroit Public Schools and eventually met my dad and married him. She went on to get a doctorate in special education. She helped found the teen-age parents program here in the county. She took in a lot of "stray" kids.
She had a heart full of love.
She loved to read pulp fiction mystery novels.
She loved art and music. Georgia O'Keefe (have a print hanging in my dining room) and jazz and blues and the Beatles. She used to sing the Beatles all the time to herself.
She laughed at herself.
She put up with my dad. Not an easy job, I am sure. My dad was not a Great Guy.
She had class and style. She wasn't fancy but she had quiet dignity and class. I hope I have a least a little of that from her.
She wrote part of a textbook.
She loved me completely and unconditionally and thought I was Miss America and The Second Coming all wrapped up in one.
She was the most non-judgemental person I have ever encountered.
She is my inspiration to be a better person.
I miss my mom every single day of my life.
My gosh, Lisa, you need to write a screen play. I somehow don't find it difficult to believe how wonderful and strong you are considering the beautiful and loving mother you had. Thank goodnes for women like the two of you. I'm certain she is reaping her just rewards in heaven. Happy Thanksgiving Friend.
~Monica~
Posted by: Monica | November 25, 2004 at 11:47 PM
Wow! Our lives bump into each other's yet again... my Mom lived in an orphanage for a year when she was a small child, until her father could regain custody of his three children (this was in Muskegon).
My great-grandmother lived in St. Charles.
Posted by: Stacy | November 26, 2004 at 03:59 PM
Beautiful post, we'll raise a glass to your mom this January.
chris
Posted by: Sain't Christopher | November 26, 2004 at 07:23 PM
Lisa, that is just a great tribute. Beautifully written. Thanks for sharing that.
Posted by: Holly | November 26, 2004 at 09:13 PM