Mama's Mama
What does one know about one's parents?
I really didn't know them at all as whole people.
Maybe we never know anyone as a whole person.
Just bits and pieces
part of an unfinished mosaic
My mother was tall
and very slender.
I saw a picture of her nursing my brother,
one large breast half exposed with his head against her.
She had very fair and delicate skin.
She used a soap called Cuticura a lot -
Lilac or lily of the Valley scent.
She wore lavender teddies trimmed in ecru lace,
black dresses and strapped shoes.
Men liked her, she laughed a lot.
She baked wonderful bread and pies
flipped pancakes in the air,
once one stuck to the ceiling!
She played the piano
anything from jazz to Mozart.
She would throw her head back when a passage really pleased her,
or when she had improvised something.
I remember her hands rolling out dough with a little flour on them,
running scales or drifting over the piano keys.
Her handwriting was beautiful.
I only have my name written in my Bible,
that's all.
One Christmas during the Depression (1932)
she gave me a lovely handkerchief, my Bible and a blue crystal necklace.
I still love nice handkerchiefs and blue crystal necklaces.
She never wore jewelry
except for her diamond and her wedding ring,
once in awhile her pearls, real ones
because grown-up ladies never wore cheap jewelry.
My Aunt wore rhinestones and rouge and mascara
so did my cousin.
My mother was married in a white wool suit,
a white fur hat and white shoes buttoned with little blue buttons.
She had a white fur muff.
She had seven children in nineteen years.
She only lived to be 40 and 4 months and 14 days.
Her birthday was December 24th.
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