 TO
MOM,
FROM PARADISE
By Doc Lawrence
The fabulous fighter jets and ships had gone after
thrilling over one million guests. Filled with pride and patriotism, I mapped
out the next few days and saw Mother’s Day on the calendar. From that
moment on, my mother, a thousand miles away, was foremost on my mind. Mother’s
Day is that hallowed Sunday when we pay homage to those grand ladies who
gave us birth, raised us and, at least in my case, forgave more than most
mortals would. We celebrate the person and the institution. I cannot fathom
a more awesome and daunting responsibility.
Carrie
is the perfect name for my Mom. It’s got a cheerful ring to it which
seems to mask pain, fear and unconscionable loss. She grew up in the northeast
Alabama town of Sulphur Springs in the incredibly beautiful Sequoia Valley
near the western s slope of Lookout Mountain. The town’s name came from
the percolating warm mineral water springs which the Cherokee and later their
white conquerors used for healing. The town has long disappeared. On a Sunday
excursion looking for my great-grandfather’s grave, I found the ruins
of her birthplace. The moment was soul wrenching.
The springs are still there. I never found the grave of my ancestor who rode
in the Civil War with arguably the greatest Calvary in history. However,
I felt his presence and something powerful requires me to return soon.
Carrie was a child of the Great Depression and in her teens moved to Atlanta,
found some work and met and married a rock- solid man. They had three children
and educated them beyond what most other families were able to do. Mom, with
very little education, loved to read and write, and my first intellectual
experience was her nightly bedside reading, a ritual she continued despite
sickness, surgeries and other hardships. Reading is a wonderful gift from
her. It remains my singular truly good habit.
Her youngest child, an honor graduate of Vanderbilt and Emory, died tragically
before he was thirty. I handled this abominably, with rage and bitterness.
Mom handled it with grace and dignity. She displayed supernatural strength
of character and bade farewell to her flesh and blood in a way no one but
a loving mother could. She made the pain a little more bearable by her angelic
example.
 She
was grace under pressure in the kitchen. No family responsibility was overlooked
and yet she still prepared meals that made the family dinner table a community
legend. I defy anyone to make a lemon meringue pie or coconut cake equal
to hers. And, her fried chicken, pot roast and pork loin would make Emeril’s
eyes roll.
She managed to work and raise children simultaneously. I am in awe of every
mother on this planet who does this seemingly impossible task.
Carrie retired with some gratitude from an honorable employer, a corporation
that knew class when it was there. Shortly after, bad health, her lifelong
plague, resurfaced and she moved to the lovely town of Franklin, Tennessee
just outside Nashville. She now resides in an assisted living facility that
looks just like the one in “The Gin Game,” the recent PBS production
starring Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke. The good news is that she’s
a mile from her daughter, a spitting image of her if you measure people by
how they emulate the best qualities of their parents.
She’s in a wheelchair after a hip removal and gets frailer daily. The
annual Mother’s Day we joyously celebrate together will soon end. It
frightens me, but doesn’t seem to bother her. She knows who she is and
where she is going. Maybe I don’t.
Whatever good I have inside me, this grand lady provided. Thanks, Mom, for
teaching me how to live a good life. All I have to give you in return is
my boundless love and eternal devotion.
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