Dorothy Mae

Remnants of my grandparents include a mug made for me on my third birthday by my Grandma Ida, and the black leather handle of a razor strop imprinted "Medal of Award" from the Panama-Pacific  International Exposition, held in San Francisco, 1915.  Five years before my mother was born.  "Us kids got the razor strap," she would say, and I wonder if it was this one.  She was frail, tiny, premature in an age before penicillin, when ether was given to sedate the mother and thus most likely the coming baby.

My mother was a "blue baby" for unknown reasons, but survived in spite of a heart murmur and Rh-negative blood, a factor that influenced the spacing between me and my brother, and the miscarriage of what would have been her third pregnancy.  I remember her being pregnant both times; with my brother she seemed happy, with the third a pervasive sadness overwhelmed her.  My brother and I picked up on it, for the spontaneous hugs disappeared, and her face was a mask above a small protruding stomach.

She disappeared and my brother and I stayed with Aunt Dorie's family till her return.  We weren't told much, but I heard bleeding had begun just before she was whisked off to the hospital.  The stress of being married to my father exacerbated her sorrow, and her loneliness was so magnified that she began confiding in eight year old me concerning matters.  I don't blame her, but it was the final ending of childhood for me as I metamorphosed into becoming her caretaker.  The physical reality was that the pregnancy happened too close to my brother's birth; it took five years for antibodies in the mother's blood to dissipate to allow a safe delivery in those days.  Relief was in her voice when she returned, and we kids tried to help by drawing pictures for her and staying quiet.  We were so glad to see her again.  She was like cool water in her slow movement and stories of swimming in the Chemung River near Elmira, New York.

Her dreams were not apparent to anyone.  She just lived from day to day, hanging on through the tumultuous, hateful, unbalanced and unfair tantrums thrown by my father.  I wanted to save her then, ever since I was two and figured out that the man who came home just before supper was an angry nuisance, and we would be better off without him.   After moving from the wilds of farm fields to suburbia, she took off most every afternoon with her sister, to sit in a local bar.  As long as she had a cooked dinner ready, my father didn't seem to mind her sudden change towards alcoholism, most likely because he was the mayor of Drunkenville himself.

Christmas became them exchanging cases of beer, her Carling's to his Genny.  We kids had clean laundry and meals, but neither parent knew anything about what to do with children.  My brother got the sun and the moon and the stars handed to him by my father, and I buried myself in the library books to avoid the turmoil and remarks from both parents.

My aunt, who was beloved by me, died early on at age sixty a few years after a massive early stroke,  leaving my mother adrift and without an outlet.  She aged quickly.  Drank at home.  Clung to my brother.  By this time I was out of the house and out of state before moving back to begin a family.  The grandson gave her new life, a fresh start at looking at things and she became an adoring grandmother when my father would let her.

I miss her.  So much.  She taught me to string wild strawberries on a grass stem, to love animals, to clip roses just above a five-leafed shoot.  She had relatives in Elmira that we would visit, her cousin Otto was a glassblower at Corning Glass, his wife Tesse was the daughter of Jesse, who was as old as when the first springwater trickled through the first rock.  I miss who she was before the drinking, before her fragile self had been emotionally and physically crushed.

Sleep, Mama, sleep.  Yet I know you are stronger now than before, and watch from a place of fullness.  Is it all one?  I am not in a position to suppose, but I like to think that we will see each other again.  I am proud of how you went through various tunnels of hell and didn't let it change your beliefs or who you really are.

Evening has come to be a quiet night, as here in this country many are watching the final football game of games.  I have more study work to do before turning in, just enough time for completion.  A cake is wrapped and ready to be taken in to work, the papers for the sleep study are filled out, and lastly, a fish tank change should be done.

Good people, look at what you do and if it is good, rejoice.  If you contribute to the safety and joy of your home, be at peace.  It is a far-reaching act of kindness to add to someone's day, make it be someone known to you, the one you love best.  Under covers, the cats and I.  Good night.