My first memories of my Mom are in Baltimore City. Glimpses of Bradford Apartments flash though my head. Time in the playground. A walk to an Orioles game at Memorial Stadium. Early Christmas toys. Most else is stored too deep.
Cockeysville is next. I loved that little house. We spent a lot of time outdoors. We even had a tree house. Cuts. Bangs. Bruises. Mom was always there to help. She made the best peanut butter and honey sandwiches. She was an artist. First the butter, then the peanut butter, followed by plenty of honey. Then, she’d fold the bread in half, not diagonally, but right across the middle. As you’d bite into the sandwich the honey would ooze out. Mmmm.
I remember her and I standing on the school grounds for registration. I skipped kindergarten, so the first days of school were quite a shock. She taught me not to be wasteful. Maybe I didn’t quite get that lesson right the first time as I saved my left over ice cream cup from school. Needless to say she was quite surprised when I got home and she opened up my lunch box. I didn’t bring ice cream home again. :) Tadpoles one day, but that is another story Mom would appreciate.
Manhattan. Lots and lots of walking. Walking to school. Walking to shops. Walking to Washington Square Park. Lots of walking. Coming home from somewhere one day I decided to take a short cut across the street. Who new Mom could scream so loud. Stopped me right in my tracks. Good thing too or I’d become a hood ornament right then and there. Didn’t try that move again.
She sent me to the grocery store one time. The family was hosting a dinner party for some of the university crowd at our apartment and she needed a couple last minute items. Everything was fine until I put that bottle of wine up on the counter. Seems that 3rd graders aren’t allowed to actually buy wine in NYC. Try as I might to explain the situation that darn cashier just wouldn’t cooperate. The party went okay (I guess).
Next came Buffalo. Cold. Snow. Don’t forget your coat. Where is your hat? What did you do with your gloves? All good questions from Mom. I use the same questions with my kids.
Back to Cockeysville. It was a good decision. Back then a newly divorced woman with three kids was unlikely to make a go of it in South Dakota. Peoria was a close second, but we put down roots in Maryland and never left. This may sound strange, but I remember my Mom as an individual so much more after the divorce than before. The first year was about survival. It was very hard on her. After that things slowly got better. She was our real life superhero.
There are countless stories from our second life in Cockeysville, but I’ll share two. Mom and my brother and sister went out one evening. I’m not sure why I didn’t go, but I stayed home. Alfred Hitchcock’s’ “The Birds” was on TV and Mom warned me not to watch it alone. Of course that is exactly what I did, watched the movie alone. When they came home I fessed up, but assured her everything was fine. The next morning I got ready for school and headed out the door. Mom always waved goodbye from the balcony door, so she was standing there as I hit the front sidewalk. To understand what happened next you have to know that the front of our building and the next were connected and formed the inside of an “L”. I wasn’t two steps from the front door when I froze. I couldn’t move. The roof of that adjacent building was completely covered in birds. And they were just sitting there staring at me (or at least that is what I imagined). It seemed like several minutes passed, although it was probably only a few seconds, when I heard the sliding glass door slowly open behind me. Mom stepped out on the balcony laughing so hard she couldn’t speak. Finally she managed to say “get going or you’ll be late for school,” and off I went.
My mom worked. Her day started with getting us out of bed (not always an easy chore). She fed us and got us off to school, birds notwithstanding. She would work an eight hour day and then come home and cook dinner. Usually this all went fairly well. One day she came home and made curried chicken, a special treat. In hindsight, she may have been a bit distracted. How raising three kids alone on a bookkeeper’s salary could cause any distractions is a deep mystery. My brother, sister and I were first to try the chicken. One bite was all we could get down as our mouths were dehydrating as we chewed. She turned around and saw us all just sitting there. She was a little upset that we weren’t eating so she sat down and took a bite. There was a long pause and she stood up, grabbed our plates and put them in the sink. For whatever reason, she had doubled the curry and tripled the salt that day. When eaten, the chicken absorbed all the moisture from whatever it touched. I don’t know what we had for dinner that night, but, after a few minutes, we all laughed so hard we had tears running down our faces.
Years later when I was living on my own I came to appreciate what it took to work a full day and then come home and make good meals. She really was a good cook. There was this casserole she made with biscuits on top. I can close my eyes and smell it now. I always loved that dish. And the homemade cinnamon rolls she made were nothing short of amazing.
She was and will always be a great woman and a great mother. She had a quiet strength that formed the backbone of our family through thick and thin. She helped and encouraged us to learn. She taught us how to cook. She taught us our values. She taught us to treat others fairly. And she taught us how to laugh, and to enjoy what life brings you. She left us sooner than we had imagined. But she left us with enough love to share and to get us through our own lives.
