Happy birthday, Mom...

Every couple of years or so, I am lucid enough to remember to write about my mom on her birthday, which is today. She would have been 92 years old, and if she stayed lucid, too, she'd be royally pissed off right now.

All my mom's favorite soap operas are off the air these days. As the World Turns stopped turning, Guiding Light blinked out. These shows, along with countless others (Young and the Restless, Bold and the Beautiful, The Edge of Night, The Secret Storm, even an occasional ABC soap like General Hospital) were all part of her daily routine. She was a stay-at-home mom, a "housewife" as we called them back in that time period, and her day consisted of laundry and housework in the morning, a quick lunch (a "tea biscuit" from Wenzel's Bakery and the ever-present glass of iced tea, which sat in the fridge, never emptying, always half-full) and then her soaps in the afternoon. At 4:00pm it all wrapped up and that's when dinner preparation started. This was her life, day in and day out, with grocery shopping and the hairdresser thrown in on Friday, and maybe a trip downtown on Saturday and (for a while at least) Sunday School at our church. (Well...HER church.)

I don't know how she did it for so long. It sure doesn't seem like a lot of fun writing about it. Lord knows I have more than enough trouble with the mediocrity of my own life, and I pretty much leave the house every day. (But then again, I'm a Gemini, and I bore easily. Hell, I'm bored with this post already.)

My mom did all of this--took care of two kids and a husband who slept a lot because of his nocturnal job (as a milk delivery man)--and still managed to fit in about 8 hours of TV viewing per day. Sad, but true. She and my dad went places a lot...mainly shopping malls and the Jersey Shore for vacations and one-day casino outings...but she was basically a homebody. We lived in two separate houses when I was growing up, and the second one was her parents' house that she inherited. I don't think she--or by extension, we--ever paid a day's rent in her life (except at the Crown Motel on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City for one week in late August of each year).

It was because of her routine every day that she couldn't understand my restlessness. When I was struggling with my TV graphic designer job in Pittsburgh, she would tell me I couldn't quit. I didn't...until a year after she died. The frustration was too great. A vast gap separated her generation from mine, and some of the kids I grew up with settled into "their" way instead of going "our" way. Their way was do what you can to make money to get by and raise your family. Our way was there had to be a way to make a living that was both rewarding and satisfying. I found that way, I think (most of the time), but I can't say I'm any happier because of it. My mom had a strong streak of melancholy about her, something she passed along to me, I'm afraid. I both embrace it and abhor it. But mainly I just kind of deal with it (badly, at times, as some friends will confirm). I have, thankfully, forsaken the long sighs and sorrowful "Oh, well..."s that trailed off into some kind of "what are you going to do?" unfinished sentence, that were part and parcel of her demeanor.

But you know what...I still miss that part of her, too.

Comments

[j]

sweet gary

[Shell]

Happy Birthday to your Mum.

Thanks for being a good guy.