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This is my mother. She has been the most constant support figure in my life. Our relationship is far from perfect, as both of us are imperfect beings trying to make it in this crazy world. Mom stayed home to raise 4 children, me being her favorite. Sorry, brothers and sister, but you know it’s true.
After years of being a homemaker and mother, she went to work at a boys’ prison in Somerville, TN, getting trained in self-defense, and yet somehow she made a difference to those kids in a confusing time and place. Later on she taught special needs kids in the public school system and petitioned to the state of Tennessee to put public Kindergartens in our hometown, the first in the state to have publicly funded Kindergarten. That program helped launch an effort statewide for Kindergarten programs. I remember being in a private Kindergarten at a local church because there were none in the public school system at the time.
We grew up in a little West Tennessee town with a strawberry festival parade that I thought was as big as NYC’s Thanksgiving Parade on TV. Even though it was on a much smaller scale, the townspeople collaborated (and still do) to make beautiful floats with puffed paper, glue, wire, and glittered lettering. There were many evenings I spent crawling under my grandfather’s legs while he hammered on those wooden float frames, and Mom puffed tissue paper into beautiful flowers, strawberries, dice, ice cream cones, books, rag dolls, and whatever other designs she could imagine.
As a teenager Mom drove me to music rehearsals to sing, dance, play piano, or act in musical theater productions from one small town to the next over 3 different counties.
In college, Mom was the one that showed up to help me move from the dorm to an apartment to another apartment to another dorm and then back home with her for a couple of months until I took off to live out of my suitcases for a few months on my job search, suitcases that she gave me for Christmas.
When I jumped up and surprised everyone by getting engaged after 23 days of dating to my first husband (don’t worry – we’re still happily married after 21 years), Mom was there to help me pick out a china pattern, wedding dress, flowers, cake, and punch, even though she was still battling in court over a long, difficult divorce settlement with my dad and didn’t have much money to spend or time to give.
When she went from living a comfortable life as a social butterfly to struggling without the solid support system she loved so much in the town she grew up in, she survived and opened her own pager and cell phone business that thrived in a town near Nashville where most of her children had settled at the time.
Mom seems vulnerable a lot these days after having survived lung cancer, breast cancer, a fractured spine, 7 broken ribs, and 2 broken hips, and it’s hard to watch her spirit diminish with her body, but she’s still that same strong force who has always been my rock. I wanted to capture a moment with her and my 3 girls as she still has a beautiful smile on her face and celebrate her life that she’s living. It’s not easy, but she’s still here. She’s a survivor, and I’m proud to be her daughter.
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