May 2024 – Sittin' Ugly Sistahs

Momma liked smaller things. A demi-tasse coffee cup, teaspoons, a dessert saucer over a dinner plate, and a purse no bigger than a seven-year-old’s palm. She preferred small, cheap towels like the ones once stuffed into boxes of Breeze detergent over the bath sheets sold in fancy department stores. And she never wanted a whole stick of her favorite Doublemint gum. “Just give me half.” In our super-sized world, she often ordered an appetizer for her meal, and a small Ruby’s biscuit with a three-inch piece of Johnson’s boudin was all she needed for breakfast.

One of eleven kids, she likely grew up with smaller portions of everything. Her family nicknamed her “Poulette” (Cajun French for “small chicken”). I remember all 5’2”, 102 pounds of her pecking around our home with an ever present dish cloth (no bigger than a Kleenex), always cleaning or cooking.

However, her preference for smaller things contrasted with the largeness of her heart and her need for beaucoup bon temps. She never turned down a spicy gumbo dinner, a competitive Bouree card game (for money!), or a local festival like the International Crawfish Etouffee Cookoff in Eunice,Louisiana or the Frog Festival in nearby Rayne.

Her “don’t ever leave me out of the fun” attitude continued even after her mind got muddled and she was confined to a wheelchair. In 2014 my Sittin Ugly Sistahs (Nancy, Mary, and Cynthia) joined me in Eunice for Mardi Gras, and we wheeled Momma two blocks to the downtown festivities: a street dance with a zydeco band, a boucherie where cooks used all parts of a butchered pig to make boudin, cracklin, pork chop sandwiches, and Momma’s favorite – backbone stew. After we enjoyed the rocking band, the rich food, and the Second Street parade, a light rain started. Momma half-dozed in her wheelchair while we held an umbrella over her.
“Mom, you ready to go home and take a nap?” I asked.

“Y’all going home, too?” she said.

“We’ll take you home and maybe come back for the next parade.”

“If y’all staying, so am I!”

Momma’s “joie de vivre” was as big and bold as the Eunice Superette’s black bull outside their meat market/ processing plant.

Her love for her kids and grandkids was as strong as the hugs she gave us when she was forced to tell us good-bye after a holiday visit. Wrapping both arms around my waist she’d whine, “ Cha, I don’t want you to go.”

And she’d give me three tight, tight squeezes that always took my breath away even as I braced myself for the intensity. Momma’s smiles set her blue eyes twinkling and proclaimed her marquee-sized, unconditional love that gave me the confidence I needed to have my own children. So I still hold on tight, tight, tight to my memories of Momma’s endless and sometimes jealous love because I truly prefer a salad fork over a long-tined dinner one, and my coffee tastes better in a thin rimmed cup that holds no more than three ounces.

Me, Kelly, Momma, Gayle in Granada, Spain

I’ve always had to share my birthday month with some pretty well-known festivities: the end of school, graduations, and Mother’s Day. Usually at this time of year I become melancholy at the thought of Mother’s Day and not having my mother to honor.

I have spent years dreading Mother’s Day. I’ve slighted my own celebration of being a mother in lieu of loathing all the reminders of what I don’t have and all I have missed.

I have spent hours smirking at Hallmark commercials and sneering at florist bouquets that I have never gotten to send.

I have spent an endless amount of time missing my mother and feeling the huge depth of loneliness from having to grow up without her.

But, what I meant to say is that I still miss her sixty-six years later.

I still wish I had known her for myself, and not just through my brother and fathers’ memories.

I still dread the Hallmark commercials and influx of florist bouquets to buy or nightgowns to gift.

I still wish my daughters could have had a grandmother.

I still look at her pictures and marvel at her forever youth and beauty. She never grew old, and as I age, I wonder…do I look like she would have?

Lately, I have been thinking of all the ways my daddy tried to be a mother to my brother and me. I’ve spent lots of time being angry at what he didn’t do or say. I have written volumes about his temper and harsh ways he disciplined us. But, lately, ever so softly, I have felt the call to see the good.

Every Saturday night was bath night when I was a little girl. My daddy would try to curl my hair on pink spongy rollers so I would look presentable for church the next day.

He bought me an Easter dress and patent leather shoes every spring, complete with a hat and purse.

In elementary school he planned and executed backyard birthday parties for me and my friends. We played games, had cake and punch, opened gifts and he always took pictures.

Daddy made sure I joined Girl Scouts and got to go to camp during the summer. He let me borrow his Brownie Camera and made sure I had a fresh roll of film for my scouting escapades.

In 8^th grade he paid for me to join Cotillion so I could learn manners, how to dance, and the social rules about dating boys.

He took us to church and made sure we were baptized. As I got older, he encouraged me to go to MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) and took me every Sunday evening. (even though my friends and I sometimes left to smoke cigarettes in the park behind the Church!)

After I got my driver’s license he let me take the family car, a ’63 Chevy Impala, to high school, complete with bench seating, no power steering, and a secret cigarette burn on the floor board I never confessed to.

Even though my father was a frugal man and pinched every penny he ever had, I always had a winter coat, a formal dress when I needed it, and new school shoes every year.

He instilled in my brother and me a strong work ethic and a knowledge and appreciation for saving money. He worked as an electrical engineer for forty years at the same company. Being a company man, with a pension, was especially important to him.

Daddy paid for me to attend four years at Baylor University and my brother to go to The University of Texas. He used the money my mother inherited from her father and saved it all those years, just for our college education.

My father did a lot of things for my brother and me in the name of: ‘Your mother would have wanted you to…’

‘Your mother would have made sure you…’

Daddy was strict in a lot of ways and had rules he wanted us to follow come hell or high water. He was practical and pragmatic, and sometimes critical to a fault, but his love and devotion to our mother guided many things he tried to do for us. Nurturing didn’t come easy for him, nor did saying ‘I love you,’ or ‘I’m proud of you.’ But sometimes we knew it, just by the way he would look at us with tender eyes.

I was four and my brother was eight when our mother died. I don’t know if Daddy made a death bed promise to our mother that he would take care of us the way she would have wanted, but he did take care of us and loved us the best he knew how. I think she both smiled and cringed as she watched us from above. As a parent, I can imagine how hard it must have been for him, and how much dedication it took to get up every day with a determination to do his best. I appreciate all he did for us and the many ways he showed up as our only parent.

Recently, my brother and I were talking about Daddy and lamenting about something he did when we were kids. In a moment of compassion, my brother said, “He really did do the best he knew how. Remember, he was young. He was only thirty-three years old and had two small children without a mother.” I was struck by that loving thought. What thirty-year-old is prepared to go through a spouse’s long illness and subsequent death, much less be left with two young kids? It is something no one can be prepared for.

Because of my brother’s words, I have more grace toward Daddy, and a deeper understanding of his situation, not just ours.

And, if I could just say one last thing to my father, one thing that might bring a smile to his face and a warmth to his heart, I think it would be this…

Happy Mother’s Day, Daddy.