The walk of life

I couldn’t tell you if my early memories of my mother are actual memories or if they are the made-up kind of memories you get from pictures and stories you have been told throughout your life.  I’ve spent a few days trying to recall my earliest memory of mom and I haven’t been able to pin-point the real, actual, pulled from the compartments of my brain memory. 

My mom told me the story of my birth, but not all of it.  She said that she had a doctor’s appointment on September 26^th so she took the bus into town.  The doctor told her to go home and pack her bags because she was having a baby that day, so she did.  I don’t remember if she ever told me who took her to the hospital because apparently my 17-year-old dad was in math class so he didn’t take her.  What were these children doing having a baby? There must have been so much fear surrounding my entry into this world.  I was born at 3 minutes till midnight.  My due date was September 27^th.  My mother always said that is why I am always early for everything.  Of course, this isn’t the real memory I am searching for.

The next memory I have is also a story.  Mom told me that once, when I was an infant, she fell asleep while I was laying on her stomach.  She rolled over and I rolled off her, off the bed, and onto the floor.  I was unharmed (children are so resilient) but I don’t think mom ever got over it.  When I turned 1, mom couldn’t afford to buy me a cake until 3 days after my birthday when she got paid.  She also never got over that.

When I was a toddler, my mom was making pizza and put the pizza sauce can in the garbage, with the can lid still attached like can lids do when you use the can opener and don’t cut the lid completely off.  I wanted to help, so I took the can out of the trash and tried to open it using my pinky finger.   I screamed, my mom screamed and carried me to the next-door neighbor’s house in a panic.  I had to have the can removed at the hospital, I almost lost the tip of my pinky finger.  I still have the scar.

Did my mom ever tell me happy stories?  Or is it that I only remember the scary and sad ones?  Still, no actual memories.

When I was two, we lived in Germany and I “remember” these huge (huge to a 2-year-old) throw pillows on the floor in the living room.  They were there for me to sit on and watch cartoons, or eat my breakfast, and sometimes I would take naps on them.  I’m not sure why I associate that memory with my mother, she isn’t even a part of the memory, but I do, probably because it’s not an actual memory but another one that she told me growing up. 

I think my first actual memory of my mom was when I was about 5 or 6 years old.  That seems like a long time to live before having memories.  I had pretty, long blonde hair as a child (I know, strange).  She took me to the salon to get my hair cut and the stylist told her that I had lice.  Mom was mortified. She took me home and washed my hair with lice shampoo then she combed through all my long hair with that stupid lice comb and it hurt so badly.  A few weeks later, I fell asleep with gum in my mouth and she had to cut all my hair off anyway.  I remember thinking that was ironic and I didn’t even know what that meant. She was devastated – my mother always loved my hair, I think it was the thing she was most proud of as if it were an accomplishment on her part.

My parents had a little collection of records.  I was fascinated with them.  My favorite 2 were Dire Straits and Air Supply.  I would make up little dances and when my mom’s friends would come over, everyone had to sit down and watch my “performance.” Once, I turned on “The walk of life” by Dire Straits and I started walking across the living room with my hands out, fingers stretched, shaking them like tamborines. THIS was my impression of “the walk of life.”  From that day on, this was mine and my mother’s song.  Whenever it came on, we would shake our hands and mimic walking across the room.  This has ALWAYS been one of my very favorite memories.

A few weeks before she died, we were laying in her bed talking.  She made a comment about how her 14-year-old cat had managed to stay alive for her and how the cat might actually outlive her.  I said, “Mommy, do you think you will die soon?” “I don’t know,” she said.  “Are you scared?” I managed to get out as my throat swelled and I felt the sharp headache that you get when you fight back tears with all of your might. “No, I’m not scared.  Are you?”

I couldn’t hold the tears back any longer.  I laid in her arms and cried, “Yes.” 

She held me while she fumbled with her phone, I knew what she was doing.  Sure enough, her phone started playing..

“Here comes Johnny singing oldies, goldies

Bebop, a lua baby, what I say…”

This song actually makes no sense.  Kind of like the way I feel about life right now.  However, there is this nugget at the end that makes the whole song worth it and I believe it is what my mother was trying to tell me that day:

“And after all the violence and the double talk

There’s just a song in all the trouble and the strife

You do the walk, yeah, you do the walk of life

You do the walk of life.”

Life is hard.  Sometimes, unbearable.  I spent the years I had with my mommy laughing (and crying) and singing a song that was ultimately about how it would all end.  Through it all, you just keep doing this walk called life.  It’s beautiful, and fun, and ridiculous, and ironic, and scary.  It also makes absolutely no sense, but you walk anyway. That’s what she was trying to say.

She didn’t know what she was doing on September 26, 1979 … and she probably didn’t feel like she knew what she was doing on July 28, 2017 … but she walked, and that’s what she wanted me to do.