Every year, on or around my birthday, my mother lovingly retold the story of my birth—in person during the first 22 years of my life, then mostly over the phone for the next 22. I was born on a Sunday evening, exactly one week after the famous first moon landing in July 1969. She recalled how the nurse that attended her had said that a week earlier at that time she and her colleagues had been fully absorbed in watching that historic event on live television. According to the story, I was born three weeks early because one hot afternoon in late July my mother got hit on the head by a ripe plum that fell off one of the plum trees in the yard of our Tarzana house while she was supervising my then-not-quite-two-year-old sister, Helen, as she played outside with other neighborhood children. Then, apparently, the process of cleaning up the mess wrought by the splattering of the reddish-purple fruit caused her to go into labor. Mom's annual story went on to recall the call to Grandma Helen to meet her and Dad at the hospital for emergency grandma duty looking after my sister, and of how I “arrived” so bruised after a hasty delivery that she and Dad did not take any pictures of me until I was already a few months old. Mom also related how the nurse, in characterizing my appearance upon delivery, likened me to a boxer who had just gone 15 rounds with one of the top fighters of that time—though she could never remember which one, since she never did follow the sport. I celebrated my 45th birthday in Texas recently, but for the first time without Mom to retell the story of my birth.
Indeed, the greatest impact her death has had, and will continue to have, on my weekly routine is that I am no longer able to have the long telephone conversations that we had regularly had ever since I first left home at age 18 in 1987 to go live in the honors dorm while studying at USC. Everything at least seemed OK with her health right up through my Mother's Day call this May, yet that all changed beginning just one week later. Little could I have known then that my call to her after I got off work on June 4 would end up being our last conversation. At least I am thankful that I was able to get here to Ojai in time to embrace her one last time and say goodbye face-to-face before she slipped from consciousness entirely.
As most of you present here today can attest in one way or another from your own experience, whether recently or long ago, nurturing—the ongoing essence of motherhood—was at the very center of my mother's being. By the time my sister and then I were born, Mom was already in her thirties, which was considered rather geriatric for a new mother of her generation, even if it is quite commonplace nowadays. Having three big sisters, she became an aunt before she completed elementary school. Hence she soon assumed the role of babysitter for several of her nieces and nephews, some of whom are with us here today. As a youngster she got to practice her nurturing skills on you, so that she was an expert at it by the time she eventually acceded to motherhood in subsequent decades. I understand that some of you got to reciprocate years later by babysitting my sister and me during your own teen years.
Indeed, my mother's life was always mainly about helping and guiding others—both in her personal and in her professional capacities. Some of you who knew her during her retirement years here in Ojai may know that she utilized her teaching abilities as an instructor for AARP's “55 Alive” senior citizen driving course, right up through this spring's session. More than half a century earlier, before undertaking the responsibilities of motherhood, she taught Spanish at what was then—in the late 1950s—a new high school near LAX. Later, as what would now be called a “stay-at-home mom,” she tutored Spanish students privately in our living room during the after-school hours. Once my sister and I entered private school, when I was in fourth grade, she returned to work a series of jobs in schools, the first of which was as an early childhood Spanish teacher at another private school. Little did she know it at the time, but apparently my overhearing of her “composing” simple nursery-rhyme-type songs in Spanish—preceded by my earlier overhearing of some parts of her tutoring sessions—helped make it relatively easy for me to learn the Castilian tongue, and to speak it properly, once I began formal instruction in ninth grade. From the foundation that she helped build, I went on to study AP Spanish as a senior in high school; then a Spanish minor at USC (during which time I spent a semester studying in Madrid); a Texas bilingual elementary teaching credential, in conjunction with the Teach for America program; a master's degree in Latin American Studies at the University of Texas; and subsequent professional possessions in which I have utilized my Spanish skills, whether occasionally or all the time. Whenever someone asks me how I learned to speak Spanish nearly fluently even though I'm not a native speaker, I give credit to Mom for giving me a firm foundation in that aspect of my life as well.
Furthermore, at least some of you here today are familiar with my mother's many contributions to the life of this church and community. Among those was her participation in a handbell choir which, I understand, played at this and other Ojai churches, as well as at local nursing homes, especially at Christmas time. I recall from my childhood that Mom gave piano lessons to other local children, and played her favorite pieces for pleasure at home from time to time. She didn't force piano lessons on me, but let me pick my own instrument to learn. At age 8, I chose the banjo, which I played for about five years. What lasted longer for me, though, was sacred choral music performance, beginning around fifth grade and recurring sporadically through junior high. Then after I graduated from USC and moved to Texas, I joined the adult choir at my church there, and have made that activity a regular part of my life ever since. I even sang for a few months with the choir of the Methodist church in Mexico that I visited while on my Fulbright fellowship during graduate school. For helping get me started in that fulfilling avocation I also give thanks to Mom.
I did not appreciate it adequately at the time, but my mother seemed to have an uncanny knack for remembering events from her own past years as a young person, which she retold didactically as I reached each successive stage in my own development and schooling. For example, she could recall her teachers' and professors' names from decades earlier; how she felt relieved from stress after taking her final exams in junior high; how she managed to get a whole year ahead in elementary school, which allowed her subsequently to graduate from high school at 16 and college at 20; how her father would turn out her reading light and tell her to go to bed at midnight while she was in college; or even a detailed account of how she got sick during her summer trip to Mexico after her 1956 USC graduation, which caused her to have to register late for classes for her fifth year, in which she earned her teaching credential. All of these memories Mom marshaled over the years in the fulfillment of her maternal duty to lead and guide her children by example, as well as by exhortation.
As an adult, I realize how much I took my mother for granted when I was young. I did not realize back then that not all children have parents who make their offspring's well-being their first priority in life. Now, I thank God for the many blessings that my mother bestowed upon all those with whom she came in contact throughout her life—most especially my father, my sister, and me. May she rest in peace.