Mom was born on the fourth of July, 1932.When she was a little girl growing up in Detroit, her father would often tell her the fireworks and the parades and all the celebrating was because it was her birthday.Later in her life, we’d gather out on the lawn of my house on the hill at Speedway and Greasewood, stuffed full of BBQ and birthday cake, and watch as the fireworks lit up the night sky.We’d joke with her:“Look, mom, everyone’s celebrating just for you!”And she would laugh and say, “I know, isn’t it nice of them?”

You know, I came across an interesting tidbit which sparked an old memory when I was writing this and doing some research on what was going on in the world the year she was born.The tidbit was this:Three months before mom was born in Detroit in 1932, the artists Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera moved there.Rivera later recalled, “Frida began work on a series of masterpieces which had no precedent in the history of art - paintings which exalted the feminine quality of truth [and] reality.”

Mom was a huge fan of both Khalo and Rivera, and I remembered a cold autumn day, must have been the mid-60s, when mom had bundled us all up and took us downtown to the Detroit Institute of Art to see Diego Rivera’s famous Detroit Industry murals.As we stood there before the massive floor-to-ceiling paintings of blue collar workers in auto factories, I was awe-struck by both the enormous scale of the art, but also by the very idea that an artist could be so brave and bold and crazy as to create something so grand.But it was something more -just the sheer act of us three braving the cold and the city bus, coming all the way from our house to downtown to this museum specifically to see this particular work of art.I got the message that day that art was valuable and important and worthy of reverence.And it was this reverence for art which she instilled in all her children as we grew up.She was always fond of saying, “without art, there is no humanity!”

Somewhere along the line, I became mildly obsessed with Frida Khalo’s art and somewhere along the line, so did my daughter.And Anali.And Andi Jo.Mom created her art with her body as dancers do, and in pursuit of that, and just like Frida, she made bold - and somewhat rebellious - moves not common for young women of her age and era.And like Frida, mom exalted the values of truth and beauty in her life.

Her parents, John and Genevieve Chambers, were enthusiastic supporters of mom’s interest in dance.She began studying ballet at age 8, but also attended arts programs including music, poetry and theater at the Detroit Institute of Musical Arts.Anyone who’s ever been a parent knows that translates into a lot of after school and Saturday morning transports to and from classes and rehearsals and recitals.Grandpa and grandma’s love and devotion to their daughter’s dreams was unending, and watching her dance was a source of great pride for them.

Mom graduated from Cooley High School in 1950, and she had big dreams, though, massive, floor-to-ceiling ones. She did a stint down in Florida with the Ringling Brothers Arts Academy, and when she returned, made a deal with her dad - he would support her in New York City while she found a job and tried to get into a dance company.But there were two provisions – first, the financial support would only last six months at which time they would renegotiate, and the second, don’t tell your mother!

She and her best friend Liz Cook moved to New York City in August, 1952 and rented a brownstone in Brooklyn with two other girls.Over the next six years, she studied classical ballet with George Chaffee (who had been a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in the 40s), as well as with Maestro Vincenzo Celli.She danced with the American Ballet Theater, as well as Ballet Chaffee and the New York City Ballet Theater Workshop.

It was while she was head of the script department at Teleprompter Corp. for a national tv studio that she met her first husband, my father, Jim Edgar.She described Jim as being charming and very handsome.On their first date, he picked her up from a late night rehearsal in a brand new white convertible; on the console between them was a bottle of brandy with a white napkin over it. She was smitten and it was the beginning of a whirlwind romance Mom would later recall as being just like a Hollywood movie.Jim and mom were married in a tiny little chapel in Franklin, Michigan, with her sisters Linda and Wendy as her attendants.After a three month long romantic honeymoon on the beaches of Mexico, they returned to New York to an apartment in the Village.Bluesmen Brownie McGee and Muddy Water’s brother Slim were neighbors, and unbeknownst to her at this time, her second, future husband Bob was a beat poet at the same time in the same area.

I was born in 1958 and two years later, Brian joined our little family.She loved being a mother, and delighted in telling stories of strolling us around the streets of New York, visiting Jewish delis, shopping at B. Altmans and Barneys, and going to the Russian Tea Room for treats on Sundays.

Mom returned to Detroit in the early 60s as a single mother, and soon thereafter, met and married her second husband Bob, Sean and Evan’s father.Bob was good-looking, witty and the smartest person she had ever met.Sean was born in 1962, and two years later, little Evan came along.While Bob worked as a graphic designer in the auto industry, mom continued to both dance and teach dance at various dance companies. She became the director of the Birmingham Y Ballet and created a program which offered free dance classes to underprivileged youth.In 1970, she was invited to an artists retreat on Ossabow Island to choreograph and perform a modern dance piece. There’s a photo of her dancing in a deadwood tree on the table back there; looking graceful and strong and beautiful.

One of my most vivid memories from childhood, something which greatly influenced me to become the social justice activist I am today, was when Martin Luther King, Jr. died in 1968.I was ten.Our family belonged to the Unitarian Universalist Church and our church marched in silence for miles along with other community members through the streets of Detroit. I held mom’s hand, and although I didn’t really understand everything that his life and death meant at the time, I remember being awed by the commanding silence; that in community, we are powerful and strong.

In 1970, mom and dad decided to ditch the rat race of corporate Detroit and become hippies in an old farmstead in Alamosa, Colorado.Now, mom would probably reject the label “hippie,” but I remember a lot of long flowing beards and tie-dyed shirts and homemade dandelion wine.This is about the time I found a small brass bong and mom tried to convince me it was an incense burner. (I even teased her about it a couple of years ago and she STILL insisted it was for incense!)Dad worked on his master’s degree and mom supported our family of six on $375 a month teaching dance.Everything we ate was organic, and it was generally pretty disgusting.Well, not everything – there were a lot of fresh vegetables from mom’s garden but I distinctly remember an unleavened bread she would make every morning with whole wheat flour and last night’s leftovers which was hard as cement and impossible to slice. We complained, but we never went hungry either.

When Bob accepted a teaching position at the U of A, we all moved to Tucson and Mom began working for the Tucson Women’s Commission where she created a program for women re-entering the workforce. She got them training in nontraditional jobs such as carpentry and firefighting.And the cool thing was, this program eventually became a model program adopted by other agencies at the state and national levels.

Dad took a position as dean of instruction at the college in Yuma, and mom began volunteering for various arts organizations there.In 1982, she was appointed Executive Director of the Cultural Council of Yuma where she enthusiastically oversaw the regional arts organizations with a goal of making arts accessible to everyone.She was appointed by the governor of Arizona to the state arts committee, and won an Arizona Historical Society award for a walking tour of Yuma called Frontier Alive.

Sadly, her son and our sweet brother Brian passed away in 1984.His passing was difficult for all of us, he was truly a lost soul on this earth, a gentle person with a tender yet troubled heart, and we can take comfort in knowing that if there is an afterlife, then he and mom are now reunited.I remember a photo of Brian mom must have taken – he was leaping in the air during a dance class, strong and athletic, the best of himself at that moment.

After Bob passed away in the mid-90s, mom sold the Yuma house – which she and dad had restored and put onto the National Historic Register – and returned to Tucson.She spent the next couple decades traveling, dining with her good friends Marty and Myrna – those three were always up to no good – and enjoying a simpler life with her children, her grandchildren.She indulged in her love of books and gardening and fondly remembering her days of dance.

Mom was famous for her warm, gracious nature – always polite and well mannered, a great story teller – she had so many stories – really the quintessential dinner companion.And she gave the best advice – I will truly miss that – always practical, sometimes out of the box, and was so amazingly supportive in anything us kids did.I will miss our ice cream sundae excursions and giving each other holiday and birthday gifts from whatever we had around our own houses.I will miss her spontainety like the time we ditched the movies on my birthday and ending up each coming home with a new pet from the pound (me, a Siamese cat, and her, her beloved dog Jojo).

Relationships with mothers can be complicated, but I never had a moment’s doubt that she truly loved me – all of us – so very much, from the bottom of her big, bold, beautiful heart. We love you, mom, Joan, sister, friend, nana, GBG.You were a beautiful person and we will you’re your happy face and squishy hugs everyday.