The Zog Blog

Ten years ago today, my mother died. As the years go by, my memories of my mother as a separate person, as Deborah Thomas, are fading. I’m left with impressions, with the remembered aura of snuggling with her, with emotional residues of the way she made me feel. It is terrible and painful to lose her in this way, too.

Telling and hearing stories about my mother seems to help. The stories act as roots, give me something to grasp, to struggle with, to help me know who she might have been. I hope that if you knew her, you’ll share a story with me in the comments, email, or some other way.

I remember her in a rust-colored fair isle sweater and 70s polyester blue slacks, snuggling me and rocking me when I was upset about something. The wool was scratchy, her hands were small and cool as they stroked the hair on my forehead. She hummed to me, and made me feel like we were the only people in the world.

I remember her sitting in our living room knitting things for me and my brother. Hats and mittens out of scratchy acrylic yarn, with a string attaching one mitten to the other. I remember her excitement once when she got some “pure wool”, what I know now to be a fairly rough wool/mohair blend. She made a free-style sweater out of it that I still have.

I remember her good-naturedly telling us we could cook our own dinner, as we good-naturedly ribbed her about her “cornflake baked chicken”. She was a terrible cook, with the exception of fried fish, lobster stew, and piecrust.

I remember her strange combination of guilt and joy when she bought a fancy dress for the Christmas party at my father’s work. It’s the only time I remember her buying clothes for herself. It was very in style at the time, in the mid 80s. It was royal blue satin flecked with kelly green, and it looked fantastic on her.

I remembered her quiet happiness when we left our house in Woolwich to move closer to her family in Phippsburg.

I remember going to the beach with her, when we were all very young. My brother and I (and sometimes the neighbor kids) would play in the sand and the waves while she rubbed olive oil or sun-oil that smelled like coconut on her skin and baked in the sun to get tan.

I remember her returning from her brother’s funeral, red-eyed, in a tan linen skirt, and going immediately to her room. My brother and I played with my dad’s relatives. It’s one of the only times I remember her really crying.

I remember her and my dad throwing small parties at our house in Woolwich, AC/DC blaring out of my dad’s ancient stereo while us kids lip-synced and danced. She’d dance with us sometimes, too, as she cooked or drank her beer or whatever. She loved to dance, but my father hated to.

I remember that they fought over my dad drinking with one of his friends, once. She stormed out the front door and kicked a bucket across the lawn and ten minutes later, took me and my brother to my grandma’s house so that we wouldn’t be around when they had the fight.

I remember her rocking and humming and soothing the babies she cared for in our home. She loved all of the children she cared for, but especially the babies. She stroked their small heads, danced around with them, sang to them. She seemed sad when they left, every day.

I remember one afternoon in Phippsburg. I was perhaps 12 or 13 and I was getting ready to go out for the afternoon. I asked her if I looked okay, and she put down her coffee and cried a little bit and told me that she knew some daughters and mothers stopped getting along when the daughter became a teenager, and could we please never do that. We hugged, and I said of course we would never fight, and I would always love her and she was my mother. It totally baffled me. I understand it, now.

I remember that she drank gallons and gallons of black coffee. She taunted my father for creaming and sugaring his.

I remember how happy she was when, later in our lives, she started working for LL Bean. She kept spiral-bound notebooks of notes and thoughts about her job, things she wanted to do, things she learned. I think I remember her taking classes of some kind through them, but I don’t really trust this memory.

I remember driving with her to pick up my brother from Junior High and going to the humane society to get a puppy. We got a black lab mix, named him Bryer, and he was a wonderful family dog. During the ride home, my brother and I both sat in the back seat of our Subaru station wagon (“The blueberry”, she called it) giggling and laughing with the puppy and his slobbery kisses. I remember seeing her repeatedly look at us through the rearview mirror and smiling.

I remember her never questioning my choice to go to college in Los Angeles, my conversion to Judaism, my choice of boyfriends. I don’t know why she never second-guessed the big things, but it’s one of the many parenting choices she made for which I’m grateful.

I remember how like a different person she was by the time I could get back home, my senior year of college. I remember her thin, gaunt face and hands, her yellow eyes, her enormous bloated stomach. I remember holding her hand when they finally inserted a catheter to keep her comfortable. I remember knowing the night she was going to die, and going home instead of seeing her off. It’s the only regret of my life. It shames me.

I remember her cackling and drumming her feet on the floor in glee when she’d win at card games with our family, especially when she beat her brothers.

I remember hanging around her mother’s house. She and her mother and sister would gab, drink coffee, sometimes smoke, make fun of the “outta staters” buying up all of the land in our town, play cards, cook, bustle. It was ordinary, we were all loved, nothing could ever happen to change it.

But something did. I miss you, mom. I love you.

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