Sunday is Mother’s Day. It should be daily. As a Mother Lover I reprise versions of this same column yearly. Maybe I change a word, shed a tear.
I was nothing. Not pretty. Not accomplished. Constantly sickly. I reached age 2 when Mom divorced my dentist father. She disliked everything about him including his teeth.
No money. And we came from no money. Grandparents emigrated from Russia. Here on the Lower East Side, Grandma cleaned stoops and took in boarders. Grandpa, a bad tailor, never made a cent. En route to the New World my mother was born in England. Liverpool.
Each generation improved. Mom, beautiful. English perfect. She became an executive secretary. Single parent. She later remarried. An insurance man. He became my real father and we all loved one another.
Everything I had, all I had, was my mother. I needed doctors, medication, nursing, absence from school — my mother was there. Career, no career, work, no work — Jessica, my mother, was always there for me. Today my Yorkie, Jellybean (my dogs are always named with a “J” after my mom), is needy. Craving attention. That was me growing up.
Mom began improving me. Fixed my nose. Put me on a diet. Improved my skin. Redid my hairline. Fed me iron tablets. Bought my first party dress. The hem a fake fur shred. Grandma, who didn’t know from fancy, washed it. Ruined it. I cried for a month. Mom sent me to speech and acting school. I learned to walk, talk, speak. I improved.
That was then. This is now.
She’s gone. For years she lay unspeaking, unfocused in a hospital bed inside the country home I provided for her. She didn’t know who I was. But I knew who she was. I knew somewhere inside that shell was the stunning, bright, sassy, verbal, vibrant, witty, dynamic, fun-loving killer lady who’d been my all — the core of my being.
I wanted to — but couldn’t — crawl into that bed with her. That bed with the iron prison bars. I could only stroke that small head. I put a little stuffed teddy bear in her curled hand so she’d touch something soft.
Time came when I couldn’t even hug her. Or be understood. She couldn’t speak. I tried calming myself that somehow in her deepest recesses she sort of sensed me as a friendly being. Maybe even a brief flicker of light as to who I was — the crying person touching her, hovering over her.
My only relative, same age as my mom, was my longtime husband. When he passed on, she followed four months later. And then I was one.
Not for me to judge family matters or how life separates us from whom. Survival has difficulties for us all. In families exist wide gaps between many a parent and child. It is not for me to sit in judgment. I only know that in my case I’d give up anything for a gentle hug today. To hold my mom. To say I love her. Thank her.
I only say: Sunday is Mother’s Day, and if it’s within your ability — call. Send flowers. Tell your mother you love her. I wish I could. I can’t anymore.