Prose Assignment – Dearest Mom

April 5, 2016

Dearest Mom,

It is hard to believe that it has been 29 years since we have corresponded! Of course, I think about you a lot and treasure you, as if you were still here. I hoped to finish the portrait of you that I started so many years ago. It was based on, what turned out to be the last picture taken of you, and it was the photo that I took of you. I took it with me to Pelican Preserve and finally wiped out that ugly background and am ready to start it again. The thought behind the background was a good one. I wanted to show you floating in space with a nebula surrounding you. It was too wild to work as a painting but I won’t apologize for putting you in it as the center of my universe.

In this letter, I want to remind you of some things I learned from you over the years that changed me in profound ways. First, thank you for making me an April Fool. I have so much fun playing tricks on people that I would have missed, if I came even a day late.

My earliest recollection of you was at about age 4, when you were chatting in the driveway with 3 or 4 neighborhood women. In Brooklyn, in the 1940s, the streets had not yet been paved and the street was covered with muddy water-filled potholes from the recent rain. Suddenly, you looked at me and pointed to me and said: “Did you get that wet spot between your legs by leaning over a pothole so that the water just wet you on that spot?” The women were smiling. I thought you were giving me a hint with a less embarrassing idea and so, I agreed with you and tried to demonstrate, over a pothole, how I did it. You gave me a spanking for my lie, while the women laughed. You can understand why I never forgot it! Thank you for teaching me the life lesson, not to lie. Incidentally, I also learned not to set people up to do dishonest things.

When I was about 11, I remember the day that you saw a ragged man walking in the street, holding his possessions over his shoulders on a broomstick. You called him from the front porch and asked if he was hungry. You brought out a large luscious sandwich and gave it to him. He took one bite and spit it out, threw it on the street, and cursed you, as he went away. You told me not to be upset. You said, solemnly, that doing the right thing was what mattered. I learned that from you not to blame the mentally ill or poor for their condition and to show compassion. I do need more practice at it.

I was just starting to learn introductory algebra in elementary school, when you motioned to me to sit down for a talk. You said that I had come to a point in my life when you and my father cannot help me anymore with my homework. You explained that: “it isn’t that we do not want to help. It is rather that both of your parents did not go far enough in school to learn these subjects”. Instead of feeling afraid, I felt like a grownup and told you not to worry. I said that I was sure that I could handle my homework assignments by myself. Thank you for instilling in me confidence, as a young boy, that I had, within myself, the power to succeed.

Do you remember, when I was 16, calling me over to you, while you climbed on top of one of the kitchen chairs? I looked at you, quizzically, a barely five-foot tall woman standing on a chair. My question, as what you thought you were doing, was answered with a hit on my head, and a laugh, followed by your punch line: “I wanted to teach you that no matter how tall you get, you are never too old for a spanking”. We both laughed because we understood each other’s sense of humor, by then. I understood, then, that one never outgrows being a parent’s child.   Thanks, also, for giving me your sense of humor!

It was about 30 years ago, when I came to visit you and my father, in Florida. My older brother and I didn’t spend much time with you because my brother was always telling me to go see dad by the pool, with the men. My brother left and I was about to go when you said that “your father can wait” and that I should spend some time with you, for a change. We sat down at the small kitchen table and I could feel that what you were going to say would be very important. You started by saying that she knew that I knew that she had Leukemia for many years but wanted me to understand that it not mean that it will be a stable situation forever. You said that we have to prepare for the inevitable and follow her instructions. You told me that you have been hiding your Social Security checks from my father because “he never gives me anything for my basic needs”. You told me where the money was hidden and things I should know about my father’s behavior. You said that he was abusive and selfish and was showing signs of dementia. You made me promise not to let him live with us because he would destroy my marriage.

That was the first really adult talk that we had in a long time. I learned from you how much I enjoyed being with you and chatting. I wished that we had started to talk much earlier. I kicked myself for feeling that I was always supposed to be with Dad. I also relished our remaining time together, where I began to understood your inner strength in beating depression and becoming so full of love for every human being.

When you passed away, I remembered the title of a folk album by a young, dying folk singer, Kate Wolf, who sadly passed from a similar condition, just a few weeks before you. The album was called “Give yourself to Love”. I thought it fitting for your gravestone to have the words: “She Gave Herself to Love”.

I love you so very much!

Norm

^© Norman F. Estrin, Ph.D. April 5, 2016 Dearest Mom