Writing something to say about Mom has been a challenge, partly because
of the depth of emotions it pulls from, but mostly because my feelings for
her, and our relationship, were so uncomplicated. They never demanded
much thought: I simply adored her. She was always the easiest person to
be around, the most complete comfort, and this home she and dad made
here for us, was always the safest harbor. But I wanted to share some of
my thoughts about her, this world she created here, and about being one of
her kids.
My siblings and I are all grown children. Grown mostly here, grown mostly
by our mother. She put us in this rich soil and made sure we were getting
enough sun and water. She cleared the stones from our roots and shooed
the bugs from our leaves. And watched us grow. She knew, that like seeds,
much of our future shape was already buried within, and her task was not
to shape us- snip our shoots like a Bonsai, or bend and strap us like ornate
topiary - but to make a fertile place for us all to grow and take our natural
shape. Now initially, I wrote "a safe place for us all to grow" - but this is
where the metaphor of the gardener and her seeds falls apart, because I'm
pretty sure that Mom did not value safety all that much, or at least felt it was
overrated as a virtue of childhood. The best adventures were ones that
skirted or sometimes embraced some minor disaster. This quality, was in
fact, what ultimately made us all feel the safest. She showed us that when
things don't go as planned - when you're in the rain without a raincoat, or
the key is locked in the car, or there's a hole in the boat, or whateverthings
are still going to be okay, and usually better than okay. She showed
us resilience.
I don't think Mom was overtly trying to teach us resilience. I don't think she
was overtly trying teach us anything. She knew we would all figure it out
our own way. She called her parenting style "benign neglect", but because I
work in the commercial business, I would like to rebrand it as "intuitively
designed neglect". She believed, at her core, that even as children, we
were independent beings, who deserved healthy doses of space, respect
and self-determination - to a degree. I don't want to give the impression
that we were feral, exactly, but we all had pretty long leashes and while
some of my siblings discovered where their leash ended the hard way,
some of us- watching- managed to bob along happily at the further reaches
of our leashes without much incident. But my point is, Mom let us be who
we were and we always knew she loved us. Dad could yell, but I can't
actually recall Mom losing her temper, ever. In the moment, the most you
would get from her was a look of mild exasperation - a look that I would call
"flat mouth" which was sometimes accompanied by an eye roll, which, even
though they carried hints of annoyance, you knew it was nothing she was
going to carry around past that moment. In this seemingly small detail of
my Mom, is, I think, her greatest gift- and by gift I mean both "an expertise"
she possessed and "a present" which she gave all of us, and I think many
of you. Harmony, a balance of love and respect, and an innate awareness
of the needs of others and herself.
I don't mean to create an image of Mom blissfully gliding around, smiling
upon scenes of Hester and I clutching each other's throats, locked in
cartoon-like battle, or gently patting the heads of Rhys and Caitlin
endlessly poking each other. No. But stuff like that didn't rattle her, and I
think this composure could be attributed to a couple things: She accepted
the world, herself, and others, especially us, as imperfect. And the fact that
she saw us as separate from herself meant that she didn't see our
shortcomings or misdeeds as some reflection of herself or as indicative of
some larger failure on anyone's part, hers or ours. She was again, resilient
- ready to put petty frustrations behind her and move on to whatever
needed to be done to make things better and find the joy in the next
moment.
In short- she didn't sweat the small stuff at the expense of the big picture.
It turns out, as we discovered in the last couple years, that she didn't sweat
the big stuff either. She met her cancer diagnosis, treatment and
resolution with astonishing grace, courage and resilience. Her bravery
bolstered us all.
Before she died, I was lucky enough to be able to spend a lot of time back
here with her and my siblings. It was an incredibly hard and beautiful time.
Mom was amazingly generous in letting us help her and grateful for the
help we, and many of you, gave, and for the incredible outpouring of love
she received. At one point she joked about all the attention, borrowing a
line from Downton Abbey, she said, "I'm going to be crushed by the weight
of my own halo".
But all during this time I was trying to wrap my head around the fathomless
reality rushing upon us.
In my journal I wrote:
January 31, 2014
2 Homans Lane. Lying awake in the sewing room. It's 4:10 am and I've
been up for an hour.
Hester is sleeping with Mom in her bed. We got up at 3 to help her to her
commode, which is now in the room with her. After lying back down, I lay
there in the dark, remembering that feeling at 3 years old when Mom would
have to sneak out to Crowell's to grab some groceries, and I, discovering
that she wasn't in the next room would rush to the kitchen door screaming
in a panic. I was just tall enough to peer through the bottom of the window
on the thick wooden door as the car drove away. I am that little boy again
for an instant. Instances. That rising panic: "she is leaving."
While I was here, Melissa, my wife who was back in Los Angeles with the
kids, would call and ask me. "Find out how she does it! What's her secret?"
- "What do you mean? what secret?" I asked - "You know, for getting along
with everybody, for being so brave, for being Anne Parker." And my
mother, to my surprise, actually had a response. A couple responses
actually.
On getting along with everyone, she said, "If you see a hole, you don't have
to stick your finger in it," and then she added, "Unless you can see thru it
clearly."
And in another conversation, when I asked her how she was managing to
be so brave about what was happening - about facing death- she looked
at me and said, "Whatever."
"That's it?!" I said. "Whatever?"
"Yeah" and she laughed and shrugged, repeating in a sing song voice,
"Whatever." Like death would be a walk in the rain without her umbrella.
She seemed pretty confident it would be alright. Maybe even another
adventure.
I miss her beyond words, but now, as I did when I was 3 years old, and
Mom had run out to the market, I take comfort in my family all around me.
The panic is quelled by their love and distractions, and by doing as Mom
taught us- to look for the next adventure, and by the larger, happy task of
trying to provide the same sense of love, comfort and harmony for the new
children. Growing.
Maya Angelou said: "I've learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made
them feel."
So thank you Mom, for all the sweet feelings I'll never forget.
