I miss you, Mom. Its been so long since you have calmed my troubled heart over one thing or another. I’ve picked you some flowers.
I am but one of millions who’s mothers have left this mortal existence . . . I claim no special heartache that is not felt by many others as Mother’s Day 2020 is here amid so much background noise and heartache. Please forgive me for writing a few lines about my Mom. She was and is an angel who’s spirit could never be dimmed. My Father said many times that he saved his lovely Corinne from a dazzling Hollywood career in films. I think Dad was right, and this 1944 photograph of her with her submarine sailor proves the premise. My Dad was a motor mac on diesel electric fleet submarines during the Second World War. He cut a wide swath . . . cleared out many a bar in the Philippines, Perth, and Pearl. A veteran of 10 combat patrols in the Pacific, and of many 20 + hour depth charge attacks, nothing scared him. Dad didn’t even get to meet me until I was 10 months old. This early photo in my life was taken just before her sailor came home after Japan had fully and unconditionally surrendered . . . a means to ending a war that has not been practiced since!
As rough as Tom was, Mom was just as gentle . . . except when it came to me and discipline. Dad never laid a hand on me, probably because he knew the strength in his hands. My Mother, however, would send me on a 4 block hike to the local hardware store for one of their free wooden yardsticks with which to administer corporal punishment on my backside. It did not occur all that often, and when she had broken the thin piece of wood she would circle her arms about me and tell me that she loved me. Our home had hardwood floors, and a favorite memory was Mom dust mopping with her kitten “Itty Bitty” riding on the big mop head. She got to be a “June Cleaver” stay at home mom. She was at peace in her warm and inviting home.
Mom made shirts for me . . . even matching shirts for a special girl and I from time to time, which is unheard of today. For my high school dates, she fashioned beautiful corsages from carnations, roses and camellias cut from her flower garden. She cut my hair, and in many other ways made my teen years at home such wonderful times.
Mother painted in oils. She was a very talented artist who loved to put the beauty she saw onto canvas. I have a few of her paintings in our home. Obviously, they are treasures. An example of one is this country scene. I left home for Alabama to train as an Army Pilot in 1964. I left the country to do a tour of duty in South Vietnam in 1965 at age 20. It was reported to me that my mother sat on the sofa, chewing ice and watching Cronkite for the next year. From the day she put me on that 707 to the far east until the day she died, she never again picked up a paint brush. Mom wrote LBJ and asked him what her son was doing in such a far away and hostile place. I am sure that any future as an Army senior officer was doomed from that juncture. I wished I had those letters today. I am positive that the pain of bringing me into this world was nothing compared to her suffering while I was away for that year. It cost her much more than it cost me.
Mom never smoked or drank, and ate like a robin. She was slim and beautiful all of her life. She was burdened with three kinds of cancer from the 70’s until her death in 1989. She was only 68. This last photo was taken summer of 1989, and is the last time I saw her alive. Mom and Dad still lived in San Diego, and I was in Utah by then. Dad was retired, and spent every hour of every day caring for his beloved Corenne at home for her last 18 months. She could administer morphine to her self with a machine. Mom asked Dad to somehow end her suffering, but he could not . . . he would not. My father, a charter member of Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” defined himself as a man during those terrible months. I was running a centerline paint crew for a highway department on a machine without a two way radio the September day Mom died. A county Sheriff had to follow fresh yellow paint to find me, and told me of my Mother’s release from her suffering. It was a day I will never forget. I was so happy for her . . . . but why was I sobbing so in front of my crew and this officer? I finished the day painting roads. It is what Mom would have wanted me to do.
I love you, Mom . . . so I picked you some flowers for this Mother’s Day. Actually, this photo was taken in 2004 while visiting my younger brother in Seattle. So Mom, Brian and I picked you some flowers for Mother’s Day. We miss you!! JP
Rusty Bent Nail 