What follows is a celebration of our mother’s life, for I’ve met few people who loved life as much as she did … few people who laughed as hard as she could or cried as freely as she could … whose eyes could spark with anger but then light up with love and forgiveness the way hers could … few people who had such passion for the things she loved … and few who could so clearly, clearly express her distaste for that which she did NOT necessarily love.
A friend from high school wrote to me and said that she’d earned the title of “mom.” That is such a nice way of putting it. She may have had fantasies of being the next Ella Fitzgerald, or the next Emily Dickenson, but nobody can say those weren’t noble fantasies. They brought joy to our lives. She managed to keep them in perspective, because she never lost sight of who she was when it really counted. She was “Mom” to Jayne and I and our spouses … and “Mum” to Andrew and Lesley. How could you be anything other than grateful for that?
Our mother gave us a lot of gifts … and to me, the biggest was a lifelong love of music and poetry. There was always music playing in our house, whether she was playing it on the piano or it was on record player. Some of my earliest memories were listening to her records of the Platters singing “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” and “Twilight Time,” and I’m happy to say that both songs are in my iTunes library.
Evelyn made Christmas special. And one of the reasons she did was her love for an album of carols done instrumentally by the Percy Faith orchestra. They were beautiful, symphonic arrangements and I used to just sit and listen to them for hours. I know that the next time I hear “Silent Night” I’m going to have a tough time.
Evelyn was always up for a good joke, though. One day, she brought home a record by Paul Weston and Jo Stafford called “Jonathan and Darlene Edwards in Paris.” She put it on the turntable, and out came these horrendously out-of-key songs about Paris and France. It was an act, of course, but it was HORRIBLE. Think of someone scratching a blackboard. At the same time, though, it was hilariously funny. My sister could imitate her. But like Ringo Starr once said, you WOULD get up and walk out on her if she ever sang them the way “Mrs. Paris” did.
Evelyn would spring this on unsuspecting people at dinners and parties, and the reactions just made it even funnier. Just recently, I found one of the songs on YouTube -- “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” my favorite, -- and sent it to a friend. She told me to never, ever to do that to her again.
There was so much about mom that was fun. She’d get “whistleitis” while she was driving Jayne and I – and our friends – around, and we’d be mortified. But on the other hand, Jayne’s friends told her my mother was cool!
My mother patiently endured – and refereed -- our summer Home Run Derby games in our backyard, and she and my dad even had an end-of-the-season banquet and cookout for all of us. She taught me to play cribbage on a rainy afternoon at Hampton Beach. It was – in many ways – an idyllic childhood thanks to both my parents.
When we got older, she waited up for us. Once, my sister and I were at the same party and it was a good one. We got home late … or early, depending on your perspective. It was 3 in the morning. The lights were out and all was quiet. We took our shoes off and tiptoed through the living room and figured we had it made. All of a sudden, out of the darkness, from the den, this voice rang out …. “helllloooooo?”
Busted.
So many things come flooding back. There was the time the dog got into the sauce that my mother was preparing for a lunch of chipped beef and toast. I may or may not have had a hand in that … I’ll never tell. But I do remember – as we were outside washing the cars – mom SCREAMING at the dog … and the dog running for her life. Just as well. It smelled horrible. No wonder they call it what they do.
In 1972, I began talking about a girl I’d met named Linda Inserra. She and her friend, Martha, were inseparable. My MOTHER thought Linda was Linda and Martha was Sarah … and that I was seeing both Linda and Sarah at the same time.
There was the time, back before cell phones, when I got a ride home from work in Boston from a guy who had a mobile phone. He called the house from his mobile phone – via a mobile operator -- so he could tell my father he didn’t have to pick me up at Wonderland. Somehow, my mother got the message mixed up and thought I’d been kidnapped and was being held hostage in Mobile, Alabama. That caused a bit of commotion.
Now, no eulogy on my mother would be complete without talking about her poetry. She was a prolific poet and her work was often published in local newspapers. She had a poem for every occasion and she always seemed to know exactly what tone to take with it, especially if she was eulogizing someone. Yes, that is a gift. But she worked hard to write them and perfect them. They were a big part of her life … and, by extension, our lives, because she enriched our lives with every one of them.
It was the same with the songs she wrote. If you turn the commemorative card over, you will see the lyrics of one of them … “Hymn to the Green Scapular.” I am going to conclude this by reading another one – my favorite. It was something that she wrote as a poem for her mother’s Tuesday Garden Club. It’s called “Meditation in a Garden,” and she wrote it back in the late 1960s – a most turbulent time in our history. She later put it to music.
I wandered through my garden at the break of dawn one day,
And in the peaceful solitude I heard the flowers say;
“We've symbolized unselfish love since when the world began.
Why must there be such greed and hate within the hearts of man?
I gazed out at the shoreline and I watched God's mighty sea,
A feeling of great peace and strength quite over powered me
And I heard the ocean's rumble from the depth of its vast span,
“Why must there be cruel war and strife within the hearts of man?.
I viewed the morning sunrise watched the night give birth to day
With shameful thoughts to all mankind I heard the great sun say,
“I'm part of God's creation and I know my Masters plan,
He meant for peace and love to dwell within the hearts of man.
Yes I wandered through my garden lost in silent reverie,
Took comfort in the flowers that were there surrounding me.
And in chorus they addressed me, “It should be as He has willed.”
And I left my garden knowing that God's plan would be fulfilled.
God’s plan for Evelyn … and Ed … has been fulfilled. There are two recliners up there somewhere, and the ballgame’s about to start. Happy watching … and I hope the Red Sox win.
