Tribute to Mom – December 2, 2001

This was the experiences shared with those who had come to pay final respects by my sister and I at my mother's memorial three years ago. I've just doing some soul searching and thought I would share. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Sis: Activist, free spirit, teacher, poet, counselor, cheerleader, beauty queen… Sue Stapleton played all her roles with commitment and compassion. There was truly no role, however, to which she devoted herself with more passion than that of motherhood. My brother and I are uniquely qualified to paint a picture of this ’role’ in her life, which, in all its complexity and paradox, so truly integrated and expressed all the parts of who she was. Our mother whose avowed liberal beliefs shocked the other parents in the neighborhood, required her own offspring to answer all adults with “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir”. (Although I know I cheated when outside her earshot and I suspect my brother did too.) The woman who, dressed in pedal-pushers and Keds, squired all the neighborhood children around in one of many named station wagons that passed through our lives – my brother can be seen in this classic “fifties” photo leaning out of the window of the “Galloping Ghost”. She also often left the house wearing her white gloves and hat leaving a trail of Chanel No. 5 in her wake. These accoutrements to her “formal” life were stored on top of a cylindrical lamp in the front hall, the gloves neatly folded on top of the white hat.

Both my brother and I recall a “traumatic’ childhood incident when our kitten, Sheba, having eaten a piece of string, was frantically scooting around the floor in an attempt to relieve herself of it. Ct and I were both convinced the cat was in mortal danger and our baby sitter was prevailed upon to reach my mother where she was attending a meeting at church. Mom to the rescue! She hurried home and without removing her white gloves, gently scooped up the kitten in one hand and pulled the offending string from the kitten’s bottom.

CT: I knew from an early age that my mother was different than other mothers. I learned years later that my mother's reaction to my infant sister's comment at bath time: "Please give me the goddam soap," was, "We don't have that kind. We only have Camay." She decided that with her second child, me, there would be no baby sitters with bad habits taking care or her children while she worked; so she stopped working. At least, she stopped working for pay and instead focused her powerful sights on other worthwhile causes.

As a child, I went everywhere with my mother. We were on the move together. My recollections are from the many trips and excitement that was generated by my mother's enthusiasm for the causes she pursued. I remember how strongly she felt about a stop sign that needed to be placed on Shelton Road to facilitate the safe crossing of children and how she and Bud Stephanie, another parent and owner of a local Texaco station dogged the municipality through the PTA, of which she was an active member, until it was placed, even though neither my sister nor I had to cross Shelton Road. I remember how she organized and spearheaded a drive to bring to Graytown a local chapter of the national Camp Fire Girls and my disappointment at the age of three or four of only being allowed to be an “honorary member”. I especially remember the regular trips to the office building in downtown Graytown that I personally looked forward to because the elevator operator let me ride up and down with him while Mom attended business and sometimes even let me run it when no one was around to see. I remember that several years later, she hosted a den of cub scouts. After all, equal time for me was only fair. The trips to take collected used newspaper to Sandford’s on Port Ave. and deposit bottles to the grocery store to raise money for the scouts probably didn't even pay for the gas but the lesson was clear: have a goal and work toward its accomplishment. And I remember her concern that the Unitarian Church was to be torn down to make way for some city project and the many trips we made, mother with son in tow, to the Chatsworth house, where the church rented space before the building in which we stand was erected. And I remember the trips to the Graytown Museum and Science Center on Saturday mornings. Mom taught Indian Lore. You can bet I knew all about the five tribes of the Iroquois Nation: "C-O-O-M-S, cooms," she said. "Canandaigua, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and Seneca." I instead, chose to attend Snake Spotters that Mrs. Wilson offered and brought snakes with her on the bus. Mom didn't like creatures without legs.

After I was safely through several years of elementary school Mom went back to work at Washington High School. The backyard of our suburban home became the photographic backdrop for weddings, graduations and football team celebrations because to my mother's city oriented students, we lived in the country. My mother was a mom to many hundreds of kids over the years and yet, I never felt like there was not enough time nor love for me.

Sis: Just as our station wagons were always full of Campfire Girls, Indian Guides, Cub Scouts, and various neighborhood children, so were the two houses in which we grew up. Houses were for living. My mother’s attitude toward housework, which I have inherited, was “pick up a pile of books and papers or move an animal if you have to and have a seat”. The top of the dining room table was for projects, underneath was a fort. (We also had a totem pole and a ten-foot teepee in our backyard, but that’s a story about my father.) As you might imagine, our childhoods were full of literature and one of my mother’s favorite stories was Phyllis McGinley’s version of LaBefana, an Italian tale about a grandmother who is invited by the three Wiseman to bring gifts to the Christ child. LaBefana is too busy with her housework to accept the invitation and spends eternity wandering with her gifts. Our mother never allowed housework to interfere with the important things in life such as having fun. She could usually be convinced to participate in harmless mischief. One of our favorite memories it that of convincing mom to take us out for what we thought were thrilling rides on the winding roads of Windward Park in my father’s precious (and off-limits) Triumph sports car without him knowing it. We would sing “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena, the refrain of which was, “Go, Granny, go,” --she was all of 39 at the time -- as she negotiated the curves. One evening we returned from such an adventure to find my father standing on the front porch scowling. Mom whipped into one end of the circular drive and out the other, waving as she sped by, leaving my father slack-jawed and she and her children squealing with laughter.

CT: The joy she brought to every life she touched was immeasurable. Where many people stop at thinking about making offerings of things or of themselves, my mother’s giving began. Her generosity was legendary – which I say not just because she was my mother but because I have never known nor do I ever expect to meet anyone with the same giving temperament. Of course her family came first but on so many occasions, I watched her provide clothing, school supplies, emotional support, counseling, protection against abusive parents, etiquette training, books, toys, food and any number of other material or emotional items to her students, her friends, her acquaintances, my friends or those of my sister, and even friends of our friends once removed. She intuitively seemed to know what was needed and where a dollar was best spent to make the biggest bang for the buck and she never hesitated to spend it. She focused her resources wherever she saw a need and fixed problems, relieved pain and brought joy. Even in her last year with her health in decline, she conducted a telephone and letter writing campaign to local representatives to assist the honor student child of a local family that emigrated to the U.S. in obtaining a visa status and papers that would allow him to enroll in college. There was no gift too small or too large.

Sis: It would take many hours to recount all the ways in which our mother shared her joy in life. She practiced “random acts of kindness” and “pay it forward” all her life never thinking to commercialize her practices. It isn’t easy being the child of a saint and I also remember by brother and I rolling our eyes at each other as yet another stranger or scheme became a presence in our household or we were convinced that some possession was needed more elsewhere. Her committed belief in the inherent goodness of people and her example of putting belief into action were a gift that far outweighed any glitch in what we realize was an extraordinarily magical childhood.

CT: My mother’s generosity is well known. But aside from the joy that she got by giving, her generosity was a natural extension of another one of her loves: shopping. For the ten years after moving back to Graytown until the time that I moved to my current home in Miami, I don't think I ever bought laundry detergent or any number of other household products nor did my sister “suffer” for cat litter. So finely tuned was her ability to combine her "two for one" store coupon with her "$1.50 off" plopped on top of the manufacturer's rebate that by the time she left the store with the product, the store was paying her to take their inventory.

She truly relished in finding the "good" coupons whether in the Sunday circulars or in various home magazines. While her expertise in shopping was not limited simply to supermarket stuff, I believe that she derived the most amount of satisfaction from it. Even after her mobility was impaired by pain in her legs, she found that the cart was a natural way to continue the sport. It wasn't until the last few years that I realized what true satisfaction she derived from putting the pieces of the puzzle together. It was the hunt that excited. When she was more limited in mobility, she would send my father off on missions with pictures from the circulars attached to a page with notes on quantity and -- coupon or not -- to assure herself he would get the right product. On his return, she would check the receipt to make sure that store had lived up to the bargain. I admit it rubbed off on me. For a while, I would compare my savings with hers. Of course, there was NO comparison. She beat me hands down every time and I gave up on competing.

Mom loved a bargain.

For such a forward thinking woman, technology confounded her. When her older Buick had outlived its reliability, she specifically went out and bought another one identical to the first in all respects except for the color and she had no thought of parting with that car. She couldn’t be bothered with learning the gadgets or the gimmicks of another vehicle. Technology was all Greek to her and literally, she would have preferred it to be Latin for literature if she were to learn anything at all.

I on the other hand, having studied mechanical engineering in college and having worked for several car and engine companies after graduation, took great pleasure in having mom explain to me the mechanics of everyday products. On one occasion, she told me in great detail, with a straight face and without skipping a beat, how an internal combustion engine worked. The tale was grand and filled with contrived and mythical parts, my mother being a far more accomplished wordsmith than a blacksmith. It became a standing joke and actually got transposed to other situations, particularly when she had strayed well beyond her vast knowledge of so many subjects, that I would catch her and say, “Mom, tell me how an engine works,” which would invariably turn to laughter when she knew I had caught on.

Despite her love of shopping however, she never would allow herself to use an electric scooter shopping cart. She said she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. What do you think? I think it was because the dashboard didn’t look like her Buick.

Sis: Mom was a collector of all good things. One would have to debate the merits of the word “good” in this instance, however. From the legacy left by our ancestors, archeologists have painted the picture of years of living and what life was like so many years ago by uncovering relics of past ages. So it is with my mother. In reviewing the artifacts of many years of collecting, we have patched together the wonderfully rich picture of my mom’s life. We are fortunate today to have a collection of representative photographs. Beyond these however, always an avid reader, there were always numerous volumes of books supporting any one of a number of current interests, among them poetry, of course, art and orchids. No literary home would be complete without hundreds and hundreds of newspaper clippings on any subject imaginable from the mind’s eye of a contemporary woman over a span of a life time. There are bolts of fabric from a period of quilting, ungiven gifts (a vestige of shopping) waiting to be bestowed on some deserving soul, and unworked crossword puzzles – another joy for another time. The collecting, however, was never criticized when one needed something in a real hurry. “Mom, I need a birthday card for …………” “Mom, I need a cardboard tube to protect this poster.” “Mom, do you have some masculine wrapping paper?” “Mom do you have……?” Of course she did! Mom asked me when I was in the early years of elementary school what I was good at, hoping to elicit a response of reading or writing. I answered, “I’m a good ‘bringer’,” because no matter what I needed to bring with me to school to help the common cause, Mom made it appear.

CT: I returned to Graytown to attend college and lived with my parents in my last years of college, having collected a dog, Damien, and a piano (Beethoven in the making?) along the way. Upon my college graduation, and knowing that I had accepted my first job out of town, my mother melded the printed lines inside a Thanksgiving card with her own: Dear CT -- I watched you graduate yesterday …with a world of pride, a world of love, a world of special wishes. I feel a kind of Happy Thanksgiving that you're finally graduated, but a bit sad that I will no longer awaken at odd hours of the night to pleasant sounds of piano concertos, or your hearty laughter at wild comedies. I will miss serving you breakfast in bed while you watch cartoons on Saturday mornings and your help with some of the household tasks that are a bit beyond me. I will look forward to your visits home so will Damien! I won't miss your nagging and teasing, but I will miss your magnificent help when it comes to doing impossible tasks, like disassembling pianos and assembling all kinds of other things. Love Mommie.

I will miss you too Mommie.

Sis: Her belief in the magic and beauty of life were strongly conveyed to us in the poetry our mother read to us before we fell asleep at night, always ending with her version of Shakespeare’s (or was it Christopher Marlow’s?) “Good night, sweet prince, may bands of angels waft thee to thy rest”. After we would get ready for bed, I could hear CT calling down the stairs, “it’s time to come and say ‘wafty’ to me.” And so we will end by saying “wafty” to our mother: goodnight, beautiful soul, may bands of angels waft thee to thy rest.”