Mama, You Been On My Mind

My mom, in a very real and present way, has been hanging around in my house lately.
She's never really "visited" me before, in dreams or in waking. She's just been gone from me for the last two years. I've missed her, despite my general lack of crying or dwelling on it. She's missed me, too, apparently. Because she's been jumping out at me from some unexpected places.
Of all the knicknacks I have of hers, there are a few gems (literally and figuratively) that I hold very dear.

One is a pregnancy book from the seventies that I recently lent to a friend in that predicament. She had it for long enough that when she returned it, it was like getting a long distance phone call from an old friend. I opened it up and saw my mom's signature. "Judy Groves" it said. That handwriting that I knew so well. Her old name from before she was remarried to my stepdad. That signature that I tried so many times to forge, but could never get it right. The pregnancy book was from when she was pregnant with me.

I also have these videos that I had converted from old 8mm reels that my sister and I found in the attic after she died. It's footage of my sister learning to crawl and walk, our old dog, birthdays, trips to Kansas, me when I was born, my parents, together, talking to each other (something I never really saw in my lifetime). I can't tell you why, but I've never really watched the videos until a few days ago. I heard my mom talking to baby me in that voice that's so like my own. Heard her laugh at my dad for fondling a snowman I helped him make. Heard her laugh as a new mother, watching my sister make her first cooing sounds. Heard her answer the phone the way she always did, "yyYELlo." It was like she was right there. I don't know when I'll be able to watch those again.

Most surreal of all was last week when my dad came to spend the day and we wound up going through "the suitcase." Let me preface this by saying that for the last twenty years, my mom was like "She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" in my dad's house because of my stepmother. She, too, has recently died, giving my dad the newfound freedom to express himself fully. "The suitcase" is full of papers and photos: My mom's grade school report cards, signed by my grandma. Newspaper clippings from when she received various awards in high school. Homework and Essays she wrote in high school and college (she had that same handwriting then, too). Prom pictures, pictures of her and her brothers on the farm, Christmas cards, wedding napkins from my parents' wedding, and long distance letters from my dad from when he was in Vietnam, trying to talk her into staying with him and marrying him. These were why we pulled the suitcase out in the first place. He started reading one and started crying, told me he never stopped loving her, and he put it back with all the other stuff he wanted to keep and said I'd have to rediscover it all again after he died.

These are all images of my mom before the ones in my own memory. It's interesting, but not heartwrenching for me like it must have been for my dad. What was heartwrenching for me was last night when I was going through some stuff in Mazzy's room and happened upon a necklace that my mom wore every day I can remember. I had forgotten I had it. I saw it in the bottom of a box and nearly fell over. It's still so sparkly.

Here's one of my very favorite pictures of my mom. I probably don't need to explain why, but she's wearing that necklace, holding baby Maz, right after she shaved her head for the first round of chemo.

In a couple weeks is her birthday. She would have been sixty this year. I'll happily drink a couple of "Jack Daniels over with a splash of water"s. You should, too, they're not bad.