Mother's Day from Doc Lawrence

A Mother's Day Story
by Doc Lawrence

For Mother.

She’s very near the end, and the miles between us represent a special agony when I realize this visit looms as possibly final, something I pray I can handle with the same dignity she displayed at the loss of one of her children. But, I doubt I will ever do anything as well as her. I sure can’t cook Sunday dinner like she managed when I was a child—the full spread of salads, multiple entrees-with the best fried chicken on the planet—complete with fresh vegetables and at least one pie and cake, all after having worked a full week at Rich’s, the now defunct department store that in its heyday, was the best in the South.

She is the quintessential child of the Great Depression, who endured the horror of her husband being taken off to Europe to help conquer evil, and managed to feed and cloth her kids while being in and out of hospitals time and again, staring death in the eye. How she survived amazes me and she talks about it today like it was nothing. But, I know better. She suffered.

I never once saw her appear in public without being dressed nicely with her hair beautifully coiffed. If she missed a day of work, it was only because of illness or to bury her youngest son. When she retired, her employer rightly praised her and honored her devotion and loyalty. It was the only way she knew to live and work. Complete everything, never do sloppy work or even think about disloyalty.

I was the oldest and left home for a far away campus when I was 17. Homesick and insecure, I made it with the help of those twice a week letters, slipped inside a nice card (I kept them for years) and usually with a few bucks just in case I needed anything. Her children came first, something she was so ferociously committed to that she told me recently that she once told my father that if she died as a result of some upcoming serious surgery, she wanted him to promise no other woman would raise her children.

At work, she had the music department under her jurisdiction, and it was my Mom, not Ed Sullivan, who introduced me to the great black and white singers. My life was forever happier because I got to know vicariously Ray Charles, Elvis, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Ruth Brown, Hank Ballard, The Drifters and Chuck Berry when my buddies were still stuck in the dark ages of Perry Como and Vic Damone. She loved gospel music, the ancestor of all great American music forms, and took me to concerts that lasted until daybreak. Before I was 10, I, a fortunate son, heard music from heaven.

She’s feeble now, moves around in a wheelchair, living out her days in a decent assisted living facility outside Nashville. She could just as easily be a thousand miles away. We chat regularly by phone and every member of her very extended family still gets a birthday, Christmas and Valentine’s card. The handwriting shows increasing tremolo.

I’m on my way to see her and I want our visit to be just the two of us, a few hours to share old memories of days long gone. There is, I believe, beauty in the pain and the happiness, and, like her, I want to talk about many things while there’s still a little time.

Tell me, dear lady, before we say good-bye, how in God’s name can I go on without you?