TheBanyanTree: Mom, Defiant Adrenaline Junkie

[LaLinda]

It’s my mother’s birthday. If my mother had lived to a ripe old age, she 
would now be 76. Seventy-six doesn’t seem quite so ripe or old as it 
used to.

It’s been a long and slow passage of time from her dying age of 54, 
tortuous, sometimes. I only hope that between my own 54 and 76, I will 
accomplish more than I have during hers. I write that hastily, as only a 
child of my mother could, and my siblings would know exactly what I 
mean. With my mother gone, it has become my responsibility to sow doubt 
across my own path, lest I get any lofty thoughts of being better than I 
am.

It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

My mother was her family’s "difficult child." In her own words, 
specifically, "a pain in the ass."The second daughter, she was bullied 
by her Irish grandmother who punished her for playing with kids who 
weren’t Catholic and rewarded my aunt, my mother’s sister’s obedience 
with expensive coats and treats from downtown.My aunt tells me their 
grandmother tugged so hard when braiding Mom’s hair that it pulled her 
right off of the stool onto the floor.After, my mother would go outside 
and look up her Protestant playmates. /Defiance/.No one likes to be told 
what to do, but not many people look a tall, bitter woman in the eye, 
turn on their heel and do their own thing, let alone small /people/. Not 
an “under the radar” kind of gurl, my mom.

She told stories with great wit and flourish, lamenting her lack of 
judgment when her father chased her to spank her and she ran upstairs 
where there was no escape.///Impulsive/.She triumphed every Saturday 
morning by waking early to mow the smaller front lawn, leaving the vast 
savannah, known as The Back Lawn for her sleeping sister. My aunt, 
however, took her complaint to the highest level, whereupon TBL was 
assigned to each girl on alternate weeks.Justice was served.

One of my favorite stories, my mother detailed, not long before her 
death.I’d heard this story, many times, but this night, I was visiting 
from New Hampshire and it was just Mom and me, looking through old 
photos.My mother held up a sepia 8x10 of herself at about age 10.

“Look at that,” she directed.“Look at those fucking braids!”I think that 
was the first time I’d ever heard my mother use the word fuck, which, 
understandably made a huge impact.We laughed so hard that I was in tears 
and nearly on my knees.I got the message: she really did /hate/ those 
braids.

This may not seem enough to bring someone to their knees, but, in my 
defense it /was/ 3 AM, and it was after My Favorite Story, which had 
already just about killed me.

The story goes that my grandparents had gone out to dinner with my aunt 
and her fiancé.My mother’s father had been teaching her to drive. 
Feeling extraordinarily cool and grown-up, my mother called her friend, 
two blocks over.

“My parents are out. Wanna come over?”

“Sure I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Oh, no,” protested my mother.“I’ll come and pick you up.”

“Are you sure ?”

“Yeah, don’t worry,” my mother said. “I know what I’m doing.”

My mom grabbed the car keys and pranced on her cute, little pigeon-toed 
feet out the door, over the gravel and into her father’s pride and joy, 
his enormous car. She started it up and backed carefully out of the 
driveway, straightened the car on the road and set off to pick up her 
friend, who lived those two looooong blocks away.


To be continued…