You see, as of this past April, my mother has been gone for
16 years. She died from lung cancer when
I was 18 (yes, she smoked cigarettes). In
the time that has passed since, I have felt her, sensed her, dreamed her, smelled
her, breathed her countless times,
usually when I felt I needed her most.
As unbelievable as that might seem, I swear it is true.
If you’ve never met Shirley Dover, well, then, let me tell
you, you missed out. This woman had ways about her. Within five minutes of meeting her, she would
know your life story and you would swear that the two of you had been best friends
for half your life. With a sip of coffee
and a flourish of an elegant hand tipped with pristine mauve (real) fingernails, she would impart upon
you the soundest and sanest advice you had ever heard, and it would seem so
simple, so wise, that you would wonder how everyone in the world didn't know
this as gospel.
That Shirley Dover
was my mother, but that was only one version of her. That version of her occurred only after a
difficult life lived. There were other
versions of Shirley (she wasn’t always
Dover, of course; that only happened after she married my dad). There was Shirley Fuwell, and Shirley Russo,
and Shirley Hamm, and Shirley Atchley, and Shirley Marler(twice). A woman doesn’t wear that many last names
without having a story to tell and some experience in life to go along with it.
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| My mom and dad. |
To most people, my mother was kind, compassionate, and
nurturing, but if you pissed her off… well, just don’t. She had a temper that
turned a violent red, and if it did, she couldn’t be held responsible for her
actions. If someone hurt her or hers, a
mama bear would be mild in comparison to her.
If you offended her, intended or not, she was likely to tell you what to
do with the horse you rode in on, or where you could shove it and what you
could do with it after that. My mother
had a million expressions, and at least one was appropriate for each situation. Sometimes they were so funny or unusual that the
target of the expression was so dumbfounded that he didn't realize how badly
he had been trounced by a 5’2” spitfire.
Anyway, she taught me so many things in the short time I had
her, but I didn’t actually learn many of them until well after she had left this
world. It was difficult for me to narrow
this list down to ten; there were probably thousands
of significant life lessons I could have chosen. I could write volumes about my mother, her
stories, her expressions, and her lessons, but for today, I’m sticking to
ten. Here they are, in no particular
order:
1. Get an education. It’s the only thing that can never be taken
from you.
My mother did NOT get an education; she got
pregnant. Then she got married. She gave birth to my oldest sister the day
after her 16th birthday. Don’t
get me wrong; my mom loved her kids more than anything in this world, and she
never regretted any of us. But she often
told me that she married too young. As a
result, she divorced young too. Shirley
was beautiful, so she never stayed single long, but when she was single,
raising three girls was a struggle without having a high school education, even
in the 1960’s. I think she had to deal
with certain situations
because she was at the mercy of others to
help her financially, and I think that bothered her. I think there were times when she lost things
because she couldn’t afford them. She didn’t want that for me. She knew that no one could ever take away
knowledge.
By the time my niece (Shirley’s
granddaughter) and I came along in 1977 and 1980, respectively, Mom realized
what a difference an education would have made in her life. She pounded the importance of education into
our heads. Not going to college was NOT
an option.
Once, when I was being an obstinate
teenager, I told her that I didn’t want to go to college. At the time, we were in her car and she was
driving. She stomped the break in the middle of a reasonably busy
street and looked at me over the top rim of her glasses. I could see the muscles in her jaw flex, and
when she spoke, it was through clenched teeth.
“What?” she said, as if she was uncertain she
heard me correctly. Her tone was
dangerous, and I knew better.
“Nothing,” I told her. I never mentioned not going to college again.
Mom died a month before I graduated from
high school. I DID go to college; I even
graduated. And then I graduated two more
times after that. I heard her message
loud and clear. I’m so grateful she told
me time and again how important an education was; it made me who I am today,
and I am better for it. Because of my
education, I don’t struggle the way I see many people struggle. This was one of the best things my mother
ever did for me.
2. There are few problems in the world that
going to lunch, getting a mani-pedi, and taking a nap cannot make better.
This was my mother’s solution to
everything. Your boyfriend dumped
you? Let’s do lunch. Severe sinus infection gets you sent home
from school? Let’s do lunch while the
pharmacy fills your prescription.
It was also the way she celebrated. We finished cleaning the house? Chinese it is. It’s your birthday? Let’s go to that one place you like that has
the great soup and salad and the flower pot bread.
It wasn’t so much the lunch; it was the
conversations we had there. It was being
together. It was her wanting to spend
time with me, and me with her. It’s just
what she did.
The mani-pedi was similar, but this was her
teaching me that sometimes, you just have to stop to take care of
yourself. You have to step away from the
madness of life for an hour, and do something for YOU.
And naps?
Shirley was a world-class napper.
That woman LOVED a good afternoon nap.
I loved to nap with her. I loved
how her bedroom had a calm, a hush, that was more than the cool blue paint and
the soft whirring of the ceiling fan. It
was comfort. It was home.
I DO always feel a little better after a
nap…
For many years, my mother’s birthday would upset
me greatly. For the first few years
after her death, when that day rolled around, I wouldn’t even get out of
bed. Finally, I realized that bawling
into my pillow was no way to honor someone as fabulous as my mother. So now, on her birthday, I go by myself, and
I treat myself to a mani-pedi, I do
lunch, and then I go home, and I take a nap.
I do exactly what I would be doing on her birthday if she were here, and
it is just as if she were with me. I
think she is.
3. Never depend on a man – or anyone, for that
matter – to support you financially (see also #1).
Because of her lack of formal schooling, my
mom’s opportunities were limited. Back
then, if you were a woman, you got married and had babies. That’s what was expected of you. End of story.
My mom made her fair share of mistakes, and she had to make do on her
own and with what she had.
By the time she was 17, my mother had three
daughters (my oldest sister and then the twins) and two marriages under her
belt. Her second husband wasn’t very
nice to her, and when she left him, she found herself on her own, and she had
to make her own way.
I remember her saying those very words to
me, over and over again:
“Never depend on a man – or anyone, for
that matter – to support you financially,” she told me, her voice like
iron. “Even if you find a nice man that
is good to you, anything could happen; he could die and leave you with
nothing. You have to be able to support
yourself.”
Well, in true Julia fashion, I have a
tendency to take things to extremes. I think
it is because of Mom saying this to me so often that I am so fiercely
independent. Even if he had the means to,
I don’t think I could ever allow my husband to “take care of me”
financially. He, on the other hand, has
expressed much interest in being a kept man and a house husband…
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| Mom and her second husband. The children are my oldest sister, Shirlene, and the twins, Anita and Bonita. Don't ask me which is which. |
4. Sh*t on me once, shame on you; sh*t on me
twice, shame on me.
This is one of those things that my mother
told me that I didn’t really understand until I was older. When I was a kid, I was such a people pleaser
that I became a door mat for certain friends.
I grew tired of being hurt and taken advantage of! So, of course, I took my behavior to the
opposite extreme. The first time someone
hurt my feelings or did something to me I felt was wrong, I ruthlessly cut that
person out of my life. I thought that
was what Shirley meant by this expression.
Now that I’m older, I’m not so sure.
People make mistakes; we are all only human. I know that I have accidentally done things
to hurt people to whom I am very loyal.
Shirley, I think, would believe in second
chances, but not third chances. This has
basically become my policy for dealing with people. I like to give people the benefit of the
doubt, but I do not have to let anyone walk all over me. No one deserves that, and I have too much
respect for myself to allow it.
5. If a man hits you or cheats on you once, he
will do it again.
I believed my mom when she told me
this. Honestly, I did. I really believed it. Then, I was put in these situations, and I
didn’t believe it anymore. I thought I
knew better than my mother did.
Every single time in my life I thought I
knew more than my mom did, I was proven wrong.
Every.
Single. Time.
That woman knew EVERYTHING.
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| All the girls, from left to right: Jenifer, Anita, Grandma Ruby, Bonita, Shirley, Julia, and Shirlene. |
6. When it comes to food, try everything at
least once; if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it, but at least try
it.
This lesson has been both a blessing and a
curse. A blessing because by the age of
five, I knew the heaven that was a bowl of Famous Barr’s French Onion
Soup. A blessing because I know the joy
that is roasted Brussels sprouts, or raw oysters on the half.
A CURSE because with the exception of
bananas and bologna, I pretty much adore ALL food. I do not discriminate. All food, and lots of it! I have a very diverse palate, which has
always led me to the heavy end of my yo-yo.
It has also led me to being an emotional eater, associating food with
feelings. But hey, at least I’m not
picky!
7. If kids and dogs like you, you can’t be all
bad.
Shirley actually said this many times. Mom thought that dogs had a sixth sense about
people, and I believe this, too. If the
dog doesn’t like you, I can’t trust you.
I can’t really speak to what she said about
kids; the youngest kids I spend a significant amount of time with are
teenagers, and they are so mercurial that they could like you and hate you in
the same DAY. Has anyone else thought
this to be true? My mother was right
about everything else, so she was probably right about this, too.
8. If you know how to read, you can learn to
do anything.
When I was in third grade, I came home from
school and saw my mother reading a book.
Sure, I LOVED to read, but Mom?
Mom didn’t read… what?
As it turns out, my mother had always been
an avid reader. That is, until I was
born.
“You wouldn’t let me read,” she said. “You demanded I pay attention to you. So I stopped trying.”
Moi?
Attention? No… that can’t be
right.
Anyway, because I was reading so
voraciously, Mom decided she could pick up her old passion again. Pick it up, she did! My mother loved romance novels: the trashier,
the better. From a very young age, she
would read passages to me that she found heartwarming or funny (she never read
the smut aloud to me; that she saved until I was twelve and then she just
passed the whole book to me to read).
I can still see her sitting at the dining
room table in her silk pajama pants and night shirt, a cigarette in one hand
and a cup of coffee at the opposite elbow, looking up at me over the rim of her
glasses.
“Oh, Julia, you have GOT to listen to this,”
she would say as she placed one perfectly manicured finger on the book held up
by a wooden holder that my father had
built for her. She would read the
passage in her soft, slightly raspy voice, pausing at all the right parts. When she finished, she would smile sweetly,
letting the words sink in to my young mind…
But I digress.
She loved reading for fun, but for my
mother, books were a wonder. Books were
the world. In the age before the Internet, books held
the answer to everything. If my mother
wanted to know how to make a recipe, or to blanch green beans, she looked in a
book. Don’t know how to plant
tulips? Head to the library; the answer
is there.
I think Shirley had a thirst for knowledge
and education, and if she had any regrets about her fifty-five years on Planet
Earth, I think it might be that this was an area in which she was lacking. Make no mistake – my mother was not a stupid
woman. She may have been uneducated (and
a TERRIBLE speller), but she was no dummy.
I think she would have made a fantastic
librarian.
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| Mom at her usual spot in the dining room, reading. |
9. There is NO ONE in this world that is
better than you.
My mother was never rich. I’ve already told you she was
uneducated. In her youth she was
beautiful (she was always beautiful to me), but youth fades. She was never extraordinarily talented at
anything; she was a great dancer but she could NOT sing (thanks for that,
Mom). But my mother had an air of
regality about her. She out-classed
nearly everyone she came in contact with.
She held her head up like she was the Queen of England. She seriously believed that there was not a
person walking this earth better than her, and she passed that on to me:
“Always remember, Julia,” she would tell me
when girls at school were making life miserable for me, “there is NO ONE, and I
mean NO ONE, in this world that is better than you. Someone might be better AT something than
you, someone might HAVE more of something than you, but that DOES NOT make that
person better than you.”
If you are still reading this, and you take
any piece of what I have shared with you today to heart, please let it be
this. This is true for you, too.
10. You will ALWAYS want your mommy.
Sixteen years. In that time, I have graduated from high
school, graduated from college three times, had my heart broken several times,
gotten hired, gotten fired, found my dream job (twice!), bought a house, found
the love of my life, gotten married, had some really HIGH highs, and really LOW
lows. I have clawed my way out of some
difficult situations and worked my tail off to get where I am. I have finally learned to change the things
about myself I didn’t like and to accept and love the things I cannot
change. I have become a for real adult.
Not one single day has passed in these
sixteen years that I have not thought of my mother and missed her terribly. In the time she has been gone, I have thought
of thousands of questions I wished I had known to ask her. What do
you do when you love someone who is no good for you? How did you make that Mexican rice
casserole? Why did you never have more
than one or two drinks? Who was the
author of that book where the girl fell in love with the simple-minded
man? How did you make your pork
chops? Why did you like emeralds so much? Why couldn’t you quit smoking even after you
got sick, not even for me? Is that
really you when I smell your perfume in my bedroom some mornings?
Time has made the hurt less, but it has not
filled the chasm she left behind. Nothing
ever can. No one will ever be able to
replace your mother. She is the first
comfort you feel in this world. She is
the first time you know kindness, and the first time you know frustration. She is always your champion, and will fight
to the death for you. Most people do not
have another person in life that will do that.
If you are lucky enough to still have your
mother, I want you to do something for me.
Call her. Go see her. Hug her tight; tell her you love her. Tell her how much she means to you, and how you
know how much she sacrificed so you
could have a better life. Ask her about
her life: her childhood; what she was
like before she became a mom; how she is different now. Ask
her all of the things that you sometimes think to ask her and don’t because you
forgot or you got busy. Thank her for
your life, and love her for every minute you have left with her. She is your only mother, and you will never
get another one.
Shirley was the original FIERCE.
Today, be FIERCE in her honor.
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