BY BRADY RHOADES: “Motherhood is the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It’s huge and scary. It’s an act of infinite optimism” – Gilda Radner
An early happy Mother's Day to all the incredible mothers out there.
My mother fairly swooned when our family gathered, but did not adore getting cards and gifts, nor being the center of attention.
She was a giver, not a taker.
My earliest memory of her is that fresh, clean smell, and those sure, nurse-like hands tending to my boyhood wounds.
BY BRADY RHOADES: “Motherhood is the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It’s huge and scary. It’s an act of infinite optimism” – Gilda Radner
An early happy Mother's Day to all the incredible mothers out there.
My mother fairly swooned when our family gathered, but did not adore getting cards and gifts, nor being the center of attention.
She was a giver, not a taker.
My earliest memory of her is that fresh, clean smell, and those sure, nurse-like hands tending to my boyhood wounds.
My last memory came via a close friend, who visited a couple months after she'd passed.
He asked how I was doing.
"Fine, I'm good."
He looked me over. He was skeptical.
"Everything all right?"
"Dude," I said. "What's going on?"
"Your Mom told me to watch over you, and that's what I plan on doing."
He had seen my Mom — her name was Peggy Jean, from South Bend, Indiana, and you didn't cross her — shortly before her demise. She was suffering something terrible. She could barely breathe.
And she was thinking of me.
She was constantly thinking of me, and my two siblings. For most of her life, she went without new clothes, new jewelry, current cars, five-star "date" dinners with my Dad, exotic vacations.
She and my Dad used their modest incomes — she was a librarian, he a professor — to take care of all of our needs, and some of our wants. They saved what was left over. She considered her "wants" irrelevant.
That's the basic, material stuff.
My Mom spent much time and energy mothering. She was a big-picture person: She wanted to raise healthy, happy, decent human beings in a clean, loving home. She hadn't had much of a childhood herself and was on a mission to make mine idyllic.
She kept it simple. Her manner was blunt.
I was expected to treat others with respect, no matter their age, class, color, shape, sexual orientation, whatever (she chatted with me about race relations before my first day of kindergarten, and warned me about a nasty slur — the "N" slur — that certain people used. "Stupid people say that word," she said. "You're a Rhoades, do you understand?").
To strive to be as good as I could be ("You're better than that").
To be thoughtful ("If you're going to voice your opinion, be prepared to back it up").
And to enjoy life. (Go outside! It's beautiful!").
She was no micro-manager. She wanted us to enjoy our freedom, and she enjoyed hers — gardening, reading, volunteering, fighting for social and political causes, charting our family history, planning day trips…
On summer days, the rule was to check in every couple hours. We neighborhood boys spent our days playing baseball, basketball, football, riding bikes, flying kites, picking fruit and exploring. I'd be home to cram down supper at 5:30 p.m., then back out to play until my Dad called me home.
My Mom came from an unstable home during an unstable time: The Great Depression.
She could not control others, or the outside world, so I can't say I grew up in a stable time.
But I can say my home on Fort Lewis Drive in Claremont, California was a haven, thanks to her.
Mothers are miraculous that way.
