Monday Memories – May 1, 2023 Edition: My Mom

My mom, Renee, would have been 87 years old today. Naturally I always think of her on this date. As I was growing up we had a blast together! She taught us (my sister Gwen and me) lots about grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. I remember many impromptu “spelling bees” as we were riding in the car, doing dishes, or whatever. Gwen and I were both reading well before we entered kindergarten. She used to teach us things using humor – purposely mispronouncing words to make them sound silly, for example, by saying them strictly phonetically such as LIG-ht for light; we didn’t realize this was one of the ways she taught us spelling. We were always excellent spellers but Gwen really excelled! She progressed quite highly – to state level I believe? – in school spelling bees thanks to our mom’s “games”. And I remember my mom and Gwen spelling for HOURS to help her practice.

There are so many other ways she made our childhood special… I remember having strep throat and was SO miserable as I laid in bed, missing school and my friends…too miserable to even watch TV. When I woke up from a nap and went into the kitchen she had baked a cake and hung decorations and balloons all over the room to cheer me up! Another way she helped pass the time when I was sick in bed was to tape white shelf paper all along the wall next to my bed and give me crayons.

She also was a brilliant, no, not brilliant, BRILLIANT! musician. With her perfect pitch she could sit down at the piano after hearing a complicated piece of music and play it perfectly, even including every nuance of expression. She had performed in her first recital at the age of 3. We lived in a typical suburban neighborhood, and she was a night owl. After the family went to bed she came alive, and spent much of the night playing our Grinnell Brothers spinet. In the summer, with the house opened up, her music would fill the neighborhood. I recall neighbors commenting, after a night that she didn’t play, that they missed it so much they couldn’t sleep! She instilled in me a love for music that has never left, though I don’t have her gift I do have the passion! Some of her proudest moments were during her years as a piano teacher to children and adults alike, and working with the first-grade class at the local elementary school as they put on yearly spring musical shows!

She was the mom who made it fun for our friends – all the way through high school – to come to our house. Because I was mostly involved with the music and drama departments in school most of my friends were musically inclined, and we had some great times gathered around that spinet with her on the bench!

One of the other Big Things I remember with her was Wednesday nights when we would sit on the living room floor and play canasta. That’s when Grizzly Adams was on, and I always lost because my attention was divided, and she would laugh and laugh that she “got” me again, thanks to Grizzly!

These are only a few highlights…there are SO many more! She had some major difficulties also, but everything went together to make her who she was. Once I was grown we lost a lot of time together for various reasons…and as she got older, because we weren’t together much, I didn’t see the early signs of dementia, Lewy Body Disease. Once Gwen and I found out what was going on, and once her friend left (due to her violent and even cruel outbursts), we divvied up her care and between us we, I believe, were able to give her the best of what her disease allowed for the last decade of her life…we were both with her as she left that lewy-ravaged body…

Photos can’t do justice to her beauty, nor can they tell her story. But here are some that I have, of various quality as a few were taken in the early days of digital photography and some were photos of photos. But I hope that you will look at them anyway, and see the Mom that greatly impacted who I am today, and who I loved so much.