LARGETONY Blog

“M” is for May. And for Mother. And for the many things she gave you.

I tend to think about my mother a lot more than usual during the month of May. Mother’s Day is always the second Sunday in May. May just happens to be the month of my mother’s birth. It’s also the month of her death. May 1 to be exact. Today is the fifteenth anniversary of my mother’s death. I was 14 at the time and she was going to be 34 in a couple of weeks. Were she still alive, she would be about to celebrate her 49th birthday. She would still have been fairly young, a little more than midway through an expected life. Instead, she died very very young.

I still remember the day. My brother, who was 17, had picked me up after school (which he had skipped) in his IROC. We were hanging out in the parking lot of a neighborhood store where he was using his car and charms to impress girls. My brother was a gangsta player. My mother had been sick for a while and was in the hospital, so we were supposed to be at home taking care of household stuff before going in for visiting hours that evening. But when it comes to my brother and pussy…well…

So, we’re sittin’ there and our father’s truck comes down the road. He knew just where to find us. I got real nervous because he was gonna jump our shit and my father always scared the hell out of me. My brother has a fear of no one and nothing, and he and my father would fight all the time. Verbally and physically. My brother was the type to make sure that he would not look like a wimp in public, especially in front of a bunch of girls. And that was just going to make matters worse. I got in the car and and sunk down in the seat. I don’t know why. I guess I was trying to make myself invisible even though I knew my father would see me. Invisible was always the best state to be in with him.

So, he pulled up, didn’t get out of the truck, and looked at my brother and me. He said, “Your momma’s gone. I’m gonna go home and get her stuff.” Then he just pulled out and headed down the street. I think he was going to get stuff for her for the funeral home or something like that. It didn’t stick in my mind because then my brother jumped in the car and sped off to the hospital. He was flying through the streets way over the speed limit. I remember thinking “Why are you speeding? Getting there faster won’t change anything.” But he was like a crazed man. He was even crying. No, bawling. My brother. My mean-as-a-snake, hard-as-nails brother wailing like a baby. It was kind of surreal seeing my brother so torn up. I never sensed that he and our mother were very close. I’m sure they loved each other, the way one loves their family. But I was definitely my mother’s favorite, and my brother, even with all their fighting, was my father’s boy. I don’t know if it was shock, or I was just worried about my brother killing the two of us in a traffic accident, but I didn’t cry. Even after we got to the hospital and they took us in, one-by-one, to see her I didn’t cry. They send you in with two orderlies to hold you up, in case you faint or something. But I held myself up on my own. My brother, on the other hand, was a mess. I had never seen him show such extreme emotion, unless it was anger. For years I have wondered if he broke down so much because he was feeling guilty about their relationship and how mean he was to her all the time.

My tears didn’t come until much later that night. My grandparents (my granny who I live with now, and my grandfather, who I was named after, are my mother’s parents) had come down to help take care of things and make arangements. My brother was feeling like a caged animal and had to get out of the house, so I was sitting in our room by myself. That was when it hit me. But it wasn’t gushing waterworks. Just a quiet private cry (I still don’t ever cry in front of people). Even as sad as I was, I somehow felt relieved for my mother. Not just because she was no longer dealing with her pain and illness, but she no longer had to deal with her life.

My mother had married my father because she had to. Maybe that’s why she and my brother were never close. Maybe she saw him as a symbol of something gone wrong. My grandparents certainly were not happy with her going out with my father in the first place, let alone her getting pregnant. Of course I did not know any of this at the time. But I did know that my mother often seemed unhappy. Maybe she stayed with my father for us kids, or maybe she didn’t want to prove my grandparents right. But she was not very happy with where she was.

My father was an alcoholic and was always job to job (with a lot of empty space in between). The last few years of her life, my mother worked two jobs to try to provide us with the basic things in life. During the school year, I almost never saw her because she would work a restuarant job in the evenings and a phone dispatch job overnight. I would see her for the hour or so before going to school. But, in the summers we would have breakfast outside (dinner for her, I guess) and we would spend all morning together, until she had to get some sleep. I still do that by myself. On warm days, I’ll sit out on Granny’s back porch with a bowl of oatmeal.

Since she died close to the end of the school year, my last memories of my mother are not the sunrise breakfasts but are of her being very tired all the time. Her hair was medium long and always pulled back in an elastic thing. And she always seemed to be drinking a Sprite.

I last heard my mother’s voice on the morning of the funeral. At least, I thought I did. It was just after sunrise (the time we would have been having breakfast had it been summer and she was alive) and I woke up because I heard her repeatedly calling my name. “Tony, wake up! Tony, wake up!” But as I got the fog out of my head, I realized that what I heard was a dog barking somewhere. It’s funny what your mind will do to you in a dream state. Or maybe it really was her (spirit) and she was channeling through the dog. I’m not sure I believe in such things. But, maybe it was her way of saying goodbye.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 1st, 2005 at 2:32 am and is filed under growing up tony. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.