● She was smart. I mean really smart, intelligent to the point of being easily accepted into Mensa, if she’d wanted to join. She never did. She didn’t need other people’s assurances that she was smart; there was no need to “prove” it to anyone. She already knew it. The last time I took an IQ test my result was a few points lower than hers; I’ve never quite reached her level, but just being in the vicinity is an honor.
● She loved classical music, art and the ballet. Being an artist herself probably had a lot to do with that, but it was her influence that made me the patron of the arts that I am today. It was she that scheduled ballet lessons for me and one of my sisters, and all three of us sang in the choir. I don’t mean the choir at school (although we did that, too), but the community choir. The type you have to audition for and sing classical pieces (such as Handel’s The Messiah) with real orchestra accompaniment. PBS was her favorite television station, NPR her favorite radio station, and she loved – I mean truly LOVED – music. She loved to sing as well as simply listen to music, really listen, and not play it as background noise. She also truly appreciated folk and pop music, and was especially fond of artists who actually said something with their lyrics. Social commentaries or clever turns of phrase, she liked them all. When I first got into The Beatles, she approved. When I sent her a tape of some 80’s bands I was listening to, she found she absolutely adored Tim Finn. It didn’t matter what I sent her, she found something good in all of it.
● She had this habit of comparing me to my sisters. Every parent does this, even though it’s completely unfair to all concerned. This annoyed me to no end, mainly because she’d usually compare me to my sister Susan, and more often than not I came up short. You’d be hard pressed to find two sisters that are so alike, yet so obviously different. We have different interests, different ways of expressing ourselves, and comparing the two of us is essentially trying to compare apples to oranges. We’re not exactly oil and water, but we’re not far from it. Yet, our mom would compare us anyway. As I said, annoying.
● She was not easily offended. There was very little that really upset her. The only time I recall her refusing to speak of a subject was when I got back from my first trip to Europe and while looking through all the photos I took, she flat out refused to look at the pictures of the German concentration camp Dachau, and she left the room. Considering how she remembered the news stories from WWII as a child, this wasn’t all that surprising, but dark matters such as that she wouldn’t go near. You could, however, talk to her about practically any other “somewhat taboo” subject, and not have to worry that she would gasp and turn her head. I once asked her to explain to me what oral sex was – I was young and naïve and didn’t understand the concept. She looked at me, asked me what “oral” meant and then said to put it and sex together. Once I figured that out, I was appropriately horrified and disgusted: “EWWW! Gross!” She laughed, licked her lips and said “Don’t knock it til you try it!” I thought I was going to die right then and there.
That’s one of my all-time favorite stories to tell about my mom, and I’m glad to share it with you. She really was a piece of work. J