A day for memories

            Today is my mom’s birthday. No need to say which one, except that I’ll say I never had trouble figuring out Mom’s age because she as born in 1900. She’s been gone thirty-one years, and I still want to turn to her to ask, “How do you cook such and such?” or “Who are those people in that picture?” or “Do you remember….?” She still seems but a phone call away.

If you ask, I will tell you the first thing I remember about my mother is her laughter. She could find laughter in so many situations, sometimes to the consternation of my more stern father. I see her in the back seat of our station wagon, between my two oldest children who were strapped into 1970s versions of car seats and screaming their heads off. The louder they screamed, the more she laughed. My father stared straight ahead, as though ignoring the commotion would make it go away. She told stories about family members and herself that made us laugh, and she laughed until she cried. There was the uncle who locked himself out of his apartment pulling a fuse to trick newlyweds—only he was stark naked, and my aunt, in the bathtub, couldn’t hear his soft knocking.

Or the time a friend came by to ask her to witness important legal papers. Discovering the woman had not had breakfast, Mom started some toast, wrote Alice P. Mac and then checked the toast. When she came back, her mind on breakfast, she wrote Bread instead of the last part of our name, Bain. Alice P. MacBread. A childhood friend of mine still laughs at that story.

My next big memory is of cooking. She was a wonderful cook, and she encouraged me, let me make a mess of the kitchen so I’d learn, and I did. Once, quite young, I made a chocolate cake that tasted awful. Mom asked how much baking soda I used, and I said, “Nine teaspoons.” She looked, and there was a misprint in the recipe. She laughed about it and made me feel better. By the time I was twelve, I was her sous chef, and when she hosted big dinner parties I had the kitchen cleaned before the guests went home. I often made the appetizers and was known for a blue cheese dip that never came out the same way twice. To this day, cooking is my avocation.

You might call Mom one of the last pre-Friedan housewives. She catered to Dad, cooked him three meals a day, including the meat and potatoes he wanted every night. (But in cities like Boston she dragged him to seafood restaurants where he staunchly ordered roast beef.) Every night before dinner, she showered and put on a fresh dress. She ironed sheets, in the days before permanent press. She entertained lavishly for him.  She led him to believe he was king of the roost, though she often triumphed in subtle ways.

Mom was no slouch. With a degree from the University of Chicago, she was proud of her years as secretary to Chancellor Robert Maynard Hutchins who accomplishments included founding the Great Books program, which she followed all her life. She never worked because Dad would not have liked that, but she flexed her work muscles by managing the gift shop at the hospital where Dad was administrator. And together she and Dad read all the works of historians Will and Ariel Durant.

She knew hardship, lived through the Depression, lost her first husband to a WWI wound in the early thirties, leaving her with a toddler to raise. She and my dad lost a baby girl who lived six months, and she lived ten years as a widow after Dad died. Some days she gave in to weeping, mainly on the anniversary of my sister’s death, or a migraine, but most days found her with a bounce and a cheery smile. She’s always been a role model for me, telling me not to take myself too seriously, to think of others, to find the good in life.

I miss you every day, Mom.