Memories of My Mother
By Kat Harting
Princess Anne, Maryland
May, 2004
 
“Good came out of it.”  Rightly said, Donnie, I remember that phrase, too.  It frequently punctuated her comment about times when her explosive temper disrupted a relationship.  It was her way of finding strength to regroup and try again.
Handwriting – poems she wrote out for me in that distinctive print of hers on beautiful birthday cards, nicely timed to arrive just before the day, e.g., William Blake’s “Little lamb, little lamb, dost thou know who made thee?”  I still have that one, and others.   And the letters and letters.  What a writer!  She loved words, which is where I get my big vocabulary and interest in etymology. Going to the dictionary is EASY, thanks to her.
Mom spent a great deal of time in libraries, making photocopies from books and hymnals.  I see now the totality of her effort to copy and mail things to me time and again, over the years.
Many of her gifts to me were musical. I have from her CD collection a recording of Richard Strauss’ Tod and Verklärung (Death and Metamorphosis) with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.  I recommend it highly.  The liner notes say that Strauss wrote it while young and when he heard it played as he himself neared death, he said, “I got it right.”  It reminds me of Mom’s death.  It helps explain the story (is it a legend or true?) that she, in her final moments, rose unassisted from her bed and took her wooden cross off the wall, then got back in bed and died with the cross in her hand.  There is sweetness, pain, fear, and overwhelming joy in Strauss’ piece.  I’ve only had the strength to listen to it twice.  It’s not something you dip in and out of.  Nor, for that matter, is death and transfiguration!  I am grateful to my mother for introducing me to that music, as well as many other remarkable pieces.
       She gave me other gifts in the area of art. Donnie said this earlier, at her funeral.  Except  … she said a woman couldn’t be an artist.  Our mother came from a different era.
Another area where she gifted me was related to the sense of touch. Jennifer said this at herfuneral.  I loved her hands and nails. 
She passed along her love for nature. Even in the nursing home, she focused on the cows feeding outside her window, or the flag fluttering in the breeze.  In her Livingston Ave. apartment, she liked to watch the sky up on the roof. Dayspring brought her great joy, which she wanted to share with her children.
She had good taste in clothes, jewelry, and furnishings. When Owen first showed up wearing glasses, she had this affirming response:  “Ye Gods, Man, you look like your IQ shot up 20 points.”  She could be charming.
I now understand better the nausea and dizziness of her later years and wonder if perhaps that was stroke?  She soldiered on very bravely in her later years.
She liked that I could make her laugh.  She never tied me down and never asked for help, even though I see now how desperate she was at some points when she was at 70ll and how blind I was to her situation. And I am realizing now just how deep my pain was in those days, too.
She gave me a love for arranging flowers. This is a passion/indulgence/therapy that is subliminally crucial.  I am often late for work because I spend time in the mornings cutting flowers and arranging them.  Wafting through my backyard in the mornings in my bathrobe brings Mom to mind. 
When we were very young, our parents entertained. At New Year’s Eve, they rigged up an intercom sothey could go to a neighbor’s and still hear us. At parties at home, she had a great, loud laugh, which we could hear upstairs. She loved playing charades. She said she stopped drinking when she came home one night drunk and checked up on us sleeping and realized that if anything had been wrong, she wouldn’t have been able to fix it.  
Mom had beautiful teeth, eyes and skin.  Her ears stuck out, which bothered her, and her head was big.  But I always thought, and still do, that she was gorgeous when she was happy. 
Now, I eat like her.  My diet includes plenty of pecans, cashews, prunes, apricots, heavy whole wheat bread, yogurt.  But I like fish; she didn’t.
Mom set a good example by working at the polls during elections in DC for many years.  I think she did it because her mother was interested in politics and it made her feel close to her mother.  She loved her father intensely and missed him for the rest of her life.  Her faith was profound and she used it to help her deal with all the loss in her life.  She didn’t have the self-confidence to create anything except to make a family.  Her great gifts were her will, her intellect, her artistic sensibility, and her faith.  She just did her best to maintain and delight in what she was given. 
Spring’s soft and fragrant breezes remind me of when she died, a shock from which I’ve not recovered.   My acquaintance with grief was limited.  I am fortunate and grateful that she stayed alive until I was grown and strong.  I have a Christian faith in God, too, which she and Daddy both have tried to instill in us.  It helps me and guides my steps.  Her priest and spiritual director from St. Aloysius assured me, “Have no fear, your mother is with her God.”
 

Home