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| Mom with Joanne |
As I sit down to begin this week’s installment, I
almost forgot it’s Mother’s Day. Alas, I am one of a growing number of orphans.
My mom passed in 2011 and Dad preceded her by two years. I miss them both a lot,
but I do not mourn their loss. The last years of their lives were difficult, as
I suspect they are with most elders, but I’m getting to the point where I only
remember the good times. They both lived long and interesting lives, and I am
thankful to have had them for as long as I did. They were both wonderful
parents, and with their patient, intelligent guidance I somehow managed to
avoid any jail time, to date. I was hardly the perfect child, and I’m sure I
gave my mother fits.
Last Friday night, Sarah Coombs, the host of the
afternoon show at Hunters Bay Radio, called her mom live on air and asked her
to recount three of Sarah’s more memorable childhood screw-ups. The stories
were amusing. I have a few of those stories as well. When I was only four or
five years old, my mom took me with her to run some errands, which included a
trip to Wards Pharmacy near our house in Buffalo. While she was talking to the
pharmacist, I grabbed a box of crayons and attempted to smuggle them out of the
store. Unpracticed as I was in the fine art of thievery, I chose a giant box of
crayons, and was not particularly effective at concealing them. Of course, Mom
immediately caught me, and she made me admit my transgression to the pharmacist.
She told me he’d probably call the police and have me thrown in jail if I did
not beg for mercy, and agree to eat broccoli and spinach without protest for
the rest of my life. Needless to say, this was one of many important lessons my
mom taught me. I suspect many of my readers out there have or had great moms. It’s
a tough and sometimes thankless job.
I’ve written a few songs that deal peripherally with
my parents, and they might seem in some ways unsympathetic. In fact, nothing could
be further from the truth. I usually infuse some fiction in my songs to keep my
distance, and to make the songs more universal. In the aforementioned songs I explore the complicated relationships we have with
our parents, as the real human beings they are. The song dealing with my mom is
called “Laughing” and I still have not finished it, three or four years after beginning it. It’s about a photo taken of Mom, a year or so after my thirteen-year-old
sister had been hit and killed by a truck while crossing the street in Buffalo. In the
photo, Mom was on a horse riding out West. She was smiling, but it was the Mona
Lisa smile of a woman with had many secrets. “Wherein lies the truth behind the
flash of a camera smile…” I could not know the pain she felt, I was three years
old at the time, but I believe everything that happens to our parents eventually
trickles down to us. Tragedy could have destroyed my mom, but it didn't.
I don’t know what it is to be a parent. We never had
children, but more and more I'm growing to respect the ones who get it right. Even
with the best of intentions, parents occasionally do emotional harm to their
kids. Sometimes it’s a chain of abuse that is hard to break, and I’m always
impressed when a parent does not transfer his or her struggles onto the
children. No matter what happened to my mother in her life, and she had her
share of tribulation, she never showed anything but love and respect for her
children. Increasingly, I see how remarkable that is. As the world gets more
complicated, it is perhaps harder and harder for mothers to protect their
children from turmoil. Some do a better job than others. Today, I offer my
posthumous “I love you Mom!” and I mean it with all my heart. To pay it forward, I hope to pass on some of the
love and respect she showed to me. To all of you good mothers out there, bless
you for all you do.
-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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