HOUSTON, TX – I used to joke that my mother bankrupted me in May with all the gifts. Her nameday was May 5th (St. Irene), her birthday was May 19th, and Mother’s Day is in between. What do you get a woman who has everything, including enough aprons and black housecoats to last several lifetimes? My children have it easier. My birthday is in July and they simply ignore my nameday (May 21st).
Anna Jarvis conceived of Mother’s Day in 1908 as a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers made for their children. It became an official U.S. holiday in 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. Though Jarvis had originally imagined it as a personal celebration between mothers and families, once Mother’s Day became a national holiday, it was not long before florists, card companies, and other merchants capitalized on its popularity. Dismayed by this commercialization, Jarvis disowned the holiday altogether and, by the time of her death in 1948, even actively lobbied the government to have it removed from the calendar.
Except it hasn’t been removed. And the cards and candies and flowers keep on coming. Has Hallmark hijacked yet another celebration? Probably. Have we lost sight of the holiday’s meaning? Not really. For some of us, Hallmark takes the ball out of our court. For most of us, it is that gentle reminder to pause and be grateful. Should we be grateful every day? Of course. But let’s be honest. Unless we keep an Oprah-style gratitude journal, we need that nudge.
Sometimes that nudge reminds us to be grateful to those who have been “like” a mother to us. Yes, there is a card for that, but more important, the understanding that biology is not the only criterion for motherhood. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to have other women in our lives – role models, mentors – who provide an alternate perspective, additional support, minus the guilt and the groundings. I have been fortunate to have two such women in my life.
The first was the chairman of the English department at my former university. While I was in graduate school, I sent her a letter of introduction and my vita just in case there was a position available for someone who was ABD (All But Dissertation). Predictably, I received a “thanks, but no thanks” response. And then, two weeks later, I got an unexpected phone call. Apologizing for any inconvenience, she asked if I was still interested. I jumped at the chance. Unbeknownst to me, she had me in mind to fill the recently vacant Renaissance position, but I first had to transform that ABD into a PhD. I had completed three chapters of my dissertation in a record six weeks, and now I took the summer off and completed the final three chapters in another record six weeks.
Not only did I teach all things Shakespeare and his friends, she trusted me to develop courses that would attract students other than English majors to our classes. To that end, I created six new literature courses as well as several writing courses that morphed into the only writing major at a Houston university.
She retired soon after I arrived – too soon – but we continue to be friends. We meet for lunch every few months, and conversations resume as if we’ve never been apart. When I left our university, she and her husband provided invaluable support and advice. She still supports my work and attends my research presentations. I often say I want to be her when I grow up. She is effortlessly beautiful, with a deep voice reminiscent of Lauren Bacall. She used to live on Shakespeare Road. I was always envious of that address. Better yet, she shares a birthday with him – April 23rd. But best of all? Her maiden name was Hamlet. I used to tease that she was lucky her parents hadn’t named her Ophelia!
I learned much from her – enough to become chairman of the department years later.
The second woman who influenced me was a spry senior citizen who lived in a nearby retirement community. She had been principal of the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts for many years and had chosen that particular facility because of its proximity to a university and its young people. She attended every performance and every lecture, and endowed a scholarship for deserving music students, earning the title Distinguished Mentor Emeritus. She even enrolled in classes, earning a Master of Liberal Arts and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.
She and her husband were music ministers at their church, where she played the organ for 35 years. On the occasion of her church’s 60th anniversary, she was invited to play the “Toccata,” from the 5th Symphony by Charles Widor. She was in her 80s. She was more tenacious than many half her age. Her former student was the pastor of a church on the tiny island of Unalaska, 800 miles southwest of Anchorage with, as she described it, “the shortest runway in North America.” She had researched and selected an Ibach piano for the Unalaska United Methodist Church, and he invited her to witness the laying of the cornerstone and play the new piano for the church’s dedication. What he neglected to tell her was that she would be playing “Godspell” for the community musical. Imagine the mistress of the “Toccata” playing a rock opera.
We met when she brought another senior adult to my English course. I arrived with some students, and we stood at the door to listen as this white-haired lady mesmerized the class with a charming introduction of who she was and how she was connected to the university. When she noticed me and the other students, she waved us in and said to me, “Come on in, sweetie, and have a seat.” The class roared with laughter. They’d never really thought of me as “sweetie.”
That was the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship. I’m not certain that she knew at that moment how special she would be to me and my family, but I don’t really doubt it either. She had that uncanny ability.
She was lovely and loving but mostly loveable, and – I might add – mischievous. When my grandsons visited, clearly fascinated by her walker, she would encourage some rolls across the lobby – to the delight and, sometimes, the chagrin of the residents. And she always had some treats stashed in the seat – not always sugarless, by the way. When we shopped for birthday and Christmas gifts for the boys, I couldn’t pull toys off the shelves fast enough. She didn’t much care if the toys had a gajillion pieces or would create a mess. After all, as their “new yiayia,” her job was to spoil them. My daughter could clean up after them.
She never had children, so she adopted us, and every young person who was lucky enough to be in her presence.
As close as we were, what neither of us knew, and what I only learned as I composed her obituary, is that her middle name was Irene. That was my mother’s name.
I loved my mother very much, and I miss her every day. No one can replace her in my heart. But I was lucky enough to meet these two women who, in different ways, nurtured me as only a mother can. My mother would have really liked them.