The title of this post is a reference to the wonderful novel by Maria Semple, and is a tribute to my mother, Bernadette, who passed away February 2nd, 2022. She was 77.
I was born as her first son, from a coupling of two Roman Catholic parents each playing a role that was, like for many, defined by the church and their parents. She was a beauty queen, attended a Catholic high school, and met and dated the start football player in the local public school. He was my father. But these words are about her journey. My mother went on to give birth to three other boys. By the time she was 26, she was raising 4 boys that were all under the age of 6. As was the norm in the United States at the time, most people’s only idea of how to parent, came from either Dr Spock’s book, “Baby and Child Care”, or by watching their own parents. Playpens were very popular at the time. For those of you unfamiliar, think of a portable set of walls to keep you baby contained while you socialize with other parents, that were themselves, trying to survive. We called them baby jails.
By the time I was 12 years old, both my mother and father had decided that they didn’t want to be together. As mentioned above, they were really just playing a role that they thought they needed to play. Once we were all old enough to see them as adults, there was a shocking lack of chemistry. I asked my mother many times when she was alive how in the world they lasted 12 years. It always generated a laugh. I mentioned above that the they both “decided” they didn’t want to be together. It wasn’t nearly that neat and tidy. There was screaming. There were slamming doors. There was infidelity on both sides. To me, the most interesting aspect of what happened during that time, was what came next for my mother. She had fallen in love with a woman. That was in 1977.
My mom was born in 1944. Her parents were my Grandmother, who was one of my favorite people in the world, and a man that I didn’t know existed until I was an adult. That is a tale for another day. My Grandmother remarried when my mother was 2 years old to the man that I knew as my Grandfather. That coupling produced four more children.
At some point after the last child was born to my Grandparents, the Catholic Church played a role again. My Grandmother was feeling guilty because, as I understand it, she had been married before and gotten a divorce. Which at the time was a big no-no to the Vatican based religion. So the local priest told her that to live in harmony with the church, she needed to have a separate bedroom and not have sex with her husband again. If you are reading this, at this point, you may have uttered “What the fuck?”. Well, guess what, my Grandmother followed the priest’s suggestion and lived the rest of her life, in a bedroom by herself.
So, circling back to Bernadette, you have to wonder what that type of atmosphere did to her nervous system and psyche. Even with all of that baggage, my mother was brave enough to rebel against what she had experienced thus far as the script, and reach for something that not only was unconventional, but also, at the time, not accepted by society. I was, and am still, in awe of that bravery, regardless of what brought her there.
After the divorce from my father, she moved in with her partner Judy, and they raised us together for the next 5 years. Not long after that, my mother found her next partner, Holly, and they ended up spending 25+ years together. Moving around the country, and living a pretty simple life.
My mother wasn’t very complicated. She identified as lesbian until her 60s, when she then identified as asexual. My observation by then was, similar to how she viewed parenting, she loved the label of lesbian, just not the actual sex part. All she really every wanted, was a Starbucks Chai Latte, to watch her shows, and to eat whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. She didn’t think exercise was lady like. She didn’t admit that women farted. She loved everybody she met. She would have a conversation with anyone, joyfully. She loved to laugh. If you tried to tell her what to do, she was having none of it, even if it was suggested as something that might be beneficial to her.
To begin to describe her as a parent, I’ll share this. She once said to me, “I don’t think I was a very good mom”. I said, “Why do you think that?” She then told me a story of her sister talking to her about each year when the fall came, her sister was sad that her children had to go back to school. My mother commented that she never felt that was and that she was always glad to have us out of the house. The truth was, I don’t think my mom every truly embraced parenthood. I know she loved the idea of being a parent, but the actual act of parenting and caretaking? Not her thing.
Bernadette developed breast cancer when she was 69. She decided to have a double mastectomy. She lived with myself and my partner while she recovered. During that time I had a close up look at who she was. Only I was now seeing her from my eyes that were the eyes of a parent of three boys. Some of her was alien to me. Some of her was frustrating to me. I think a pattern I learned from her was that I liked the idea of her being my mother, but I didn’t like her performance as a mother. Her living with us was a short time and a very difficult experience. I’m glad I had it.
She then moved into her own place. She was a cancer survivor, and, for the first time, living how she wanted to live. Eating whatever she wanted. Waking when she wanted. Farting when she wanted, although she would deny that. For those last years of her life, she generally seemed very content.
Toward the end, her body finally said to all of us that she needed to be in assisted living. Her years of eating what she wanted, smoking until 60 and not exercising had caught up to her. Soon after moving there, she caught covid. She was the poster child of covid comorbidities. Did she die of covid? Are you kidding? She was way to stubborn and tough to let that take her. No, like cancer, she beat covid.
She died soon after that in her sleep. In the end, it was the way she lived that dictated the way she died. But, dying in her sleep was exactly how she always wanted to go, so there might be some wisdom there. Who knows.
In the end, without her trying to be a parent, there would be no me, or my brothers. So I’m eternally grateful for the effort.
Rest In Peace Mom.
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