Life has a way of moving very, very quickly. As it does for most people, the dawn of each new day greets me with a fresh set of challenges. The demands of work, interpersonal relationships, life’s everyday responsibilities, and unexpected occurrences all take their respective shares of my concentration and emotional energy. Getting lost in the here and now is an ever-present hazard; losing sight of things that are precious but not pressing is easy when an endless stream of emergent issues keeps my mind well occupied.
I miss my mother today.
Dee Johnson, as she preferred to be called, was an enigma to many. She had the talent of showing the world a tough, uncompromising exterior while possessing the gentle heart of a mother. Born into a large, rural farm family, she grew up fast, helping her mother raise her younger brothers and shouldering a heavy load of household chores. As soon as she was old enough, she entered nursing school, excelled, and began a career in nursing–a profession that any nurse will tell you requires more than compassion and education. My parents wanted children badly, and a good look at my birth certificate will reveal just how much I meant to them. My mother endured five miscarriages before finally carrying me, pregnancy #6, to term.
Like most kids, I was close to my mother as a young child, then went through the usual rebellious phase during which I clearly knew everything. I regarded my parents as old-fashioned fools who’d never understand me. Mom patiently watched me make each mistake, probably chuckling softly inside, and did her best to cushion the blows. Then she’d dust me off and set me back on the path to righteousness as her no-nonsense, devout Christian upbringing dictated. Some might argue that I never quite found that particular path beyond a certain point in my life, and they’d probably be right, but she made sure I knew where it was.
My mother and I, in her last years, were not as close as we should have been. Her home in the tiny town of New Castle, Virginia was many hours from both of the cities I’d called home since 1991. While I was in touch with her by phone often enough, she resented the fact that I wasn’t able to visit frequently or for very long. The distance affected me as well. Other members of the family, pressed more and more into taking care of my mother (as they saw it) in my stead, began to resent me. That tension made matters worse, and made even my infrequent visits more uncomfortable and uneasy than they needed to be.
I was on a business trip in St. Louis, Missouri, when I heard that my mother lived no more. I took the call in the engineering workshop of a radio station, and I remember being so stunned that the nice people I was working with that day had to help me to a chair. “No,” I thought. It couldn’t be. I wasn’t at all prepared. I hastily arranged for my work to be postponed, booked a direct flight to Roanoke, Virginia, the nearest city, and asked my uncle John if he would pick me up at the airport.
I arrived well after 11:00 PM. A cold rain stung my face as I walked across the tarmac into the small terminal, and was greeted tersely by my stoical uncle and his family. We passed almost wordlessly through the quiet airport. The 40-minute drive to New Castle was completely devoid of conversation, the wind and rain flowing over the car and providing a welcome curtain of neutral sound to mask the deafening silence.
I was dropped off unceremoniously at the door of my mother’s house. Most of the necessary business would be taken care of the next day. I stepped inside; the house was quiet, but the scent of my mom’s “Orange Flower” fragrance was everywhere. Everything looked as it would have if she’d just stepped out. Dinner dishes were on the dining table. Her bed was unmade, and the litter left by the EMS crew told a gruesome tale of an unsuccessful fight to revive her. A newspaper lay unfolded on the sofa.
I sat down at the table, thinking of the last time I’d seen her. I couldn’t imagine that she was gone, yet I would never see that face or feel those arms around me again. I’d never taste her home-cooked meals, and I’d never hear her reassuring voice. I wept, alone in my mother’s house, a place where I’d always felt at home but which now felt as remote and isolated as my heart did.
The next few days were little but a blur. The funeral was the same formal-but-familiar ceremony I’d been through half a dozen times before with other relatives who’d passed away. The procession and burial were the same, too. I was numb with sadness and completely useless. Not long afterward, my uncle John announced that my mother had left a will, and that it needed to be read. Mom didn’t have many possessions. Three things were bequeathed unto me. She left me her collection of owls, a bewildering array of them of all sizes and descriptions that she’d been building for over two decades. She left me her cockatiel named Big Bird, and she left me her car.
The owls have been in storage for all of the years since my mother died. One of them, a little refrigerator magnet that used to live in her kitchen, now stares at me from the desk lamp in my office each day, my way of keeping Mom nearby. Big Bird lives happily with me now, and like my mother, is a tough old bird who can be either sweet or fierce, depending on her needs. The car served as backup transportation for many years until a fatal transmission problem, not economical to fix considering the car’s age and condition, doomed it to be parked semi-permanently. A few of my mother’s possessions remained stored in the trunk, and it was left in a stable and secure place while I decided what to do with it.
Years passed. From time to time, I thought I should probably do something with the car, but each time I seriously considered it, I procrastinated. I knew it was going to hurt and I just never went through with it. This was a silly, non-useful, inanimate object, but it somehow just seemed wrong to part with it.
Finally, this week, the place where I’d been storing the car got tired of looking at it, and declared that it was no longer welcome. My current living quarters have no parking space for an extra car, and actually paying to store it seems unjustified. It became clear that the car needed to be disposed of, and I made arrangements to donate it to a charity. In preparation for that, today was the day I set aside my lunch hour to clean out and prepare the car.
There was nothing terribly shocking to be found as I cleared out the trunk. There was a lot of paperwork. Envelopes with my mother’s slanted, neat handwriting were in abundance, notes and checklists sprinkled liberally with the nursing shorthand I’d grown up recognizing. I’d often had to explain her notes to my teachers. (“Mr. Butterfield, the letter ‘c’ with the line over it is how nurses write the word ‘with.’”)
Mostly, cleaning out the car was a reminder of how very much I feel her absence. I was never what one might call a “mama’s boy,” but my mother was better at understanding my sensitive, emotional nature than my father could have ever been. I didn’t often run home to mother when life knocked me down and skinned my knees, but there were some memorable times when she was on my side. She knew me because emotionally I think she was a lot like me. She’d seen a lot more of life than I had, and she’d been where I was. Whatever she said and however she chose to encourage me to rationalize and accept things, it always seemed to help. There were a lot of issues, of course, on which we never saw eye to eye. I wasn’t the best son ever born. She wasn’t the best mother ever to give birth. We each knew this, and we respected each other. She loved me, completely and unconditionally, and I think that’s the most important thing for a son or daughter to know.
The last year or so of my life has been a real ride. There have been thunderous, ecstatic highs, and crashing, life-shattering lows. I’ve been so busy concentrating on the individual events, fixating on each pocket of turbulence and each warm updraft of success, that I forgot, for a time, just how much I miss my parents, and particularly my mother. At a time like this, my father would want to give me a swift kick and a stern word about being manly. My mom would hug me. At the moment, I’d settle for either if I could feel even a little less alone, but I’d definitely prefer the hug.
Today I cherish the memory of Geraldine Frances Lee Johnson. Rest in peace, Mom. I miss you.
