Not About Michael Jackson. So Long.

BET was playing Michael Jackson videos all day today. I forgot how much I like "Smooth Criminal." I got sucked in, then had to change the channel. Too sad, too engrossed, needed mindlessness so I could doze. My mother (who'd be 85 now if she'd lived) would have been sad too. She used to worry about him. On her death bed, waking up from a coma, she asked me if Martha Stuart had gone to jail, and if Michael Jackson had been convicted. Both quagmires were as yet unresolved. She told me "Michael Jackson will never survive prison. I hope he'll be okay." To clarify, she wasn't exactly talking. She was on a respirator attached to her throat. She mouthed and pointed to a pre-printed card-with-words to communicate. It was fascinating to me that waking up, after we thought we'd lost her, her concerns were for two individuals I didn't even know she followed. Her heart was that big.

My mother forgave people. She understood people and she had a tremendous love for her fellow man. I've rarely seen such compassion since. She had a Master's in Sociology from USC. She was a Professional Girl Scout, and supported our family while my dad went to school. Later, she stayed active in the Catholic Church, Politics and the Community. She and my father opened our home to anyone who stopped by. The nuns. Long lost cousins who spoke only Swiss-German. Students needing a place to stay. Visitors to LA for the Olympics in 1984. With 5 children and 8 grandchildren, in-laws and out-laws [her word], extended family and friends, more beyond that, the house was always full. She started a Girl Scout Troop for adult women (that ultimately included the husbands.) She used to joke that the main activity was drinking gin. Not true. She was training new leaders, and providing a needed social environment for a particular group of people dedicated to serving and supporting young women. My father still opens the house to this Girl Scout Troop. She named it 007. The Girl Scout Council approved. Mom was a big fan of Sean Connery... Gosh. She was so funny! She joined the Navy in WWII. (Where she met my dad.) She was a W.A.V.E. She was stationed for a while in NYC at Columbia University when she saw the first Broadway Production of Oklahoma! She loved theatre, and even stage managed a show once. (I didn't know this until I had been stage managing for 15 years or more.) Mom started losing her hearing when she was in her 20's, but could sing perfectly any song she'd learned before that. She never learned sign language because, she said "none of you know sign language, so who would I talk to?" She was very adept at reading lips and faces. "Look at me when you talk to me. Enunciate!" All of her children are loud and speak very clearly! My mother hated people who mumbled. Oh, and she liked only her own children, and later, her children's children. And yet, she always fed the entire neighborhood.

She told me once, "there are just things about your life I don't need to know." Thanks Mom. That was important.

And it was important to her that her kids could think for themselves and be independent. She gave me Kahlil Gibran's book, The Prophet. "Your children come through you, not from you." Mom was a tremendous reader. Voracious really. She said she could travel the world through her books. She taught us all to love literature. She told me once, " You may read anything you can understand." What a gift! (So, I read about genetics. I was interested, ask me about Gregor Mendel, I was 11 or 12.)

Mom thought California was the most beautiful place on the planet. So do I. She showed it to us. She took us on one journey after another exploring the hidden, beautiful places in the state. She took us to most of the missions. She took us to the Redwood Forests, the Mountains, the Beach, San Francisco, the Central Valley and Mohave. Tahoe and Yosemite and The Cascades. I know California like the back of my hand. I could never get lost here in what I now perceive to be a little bit of heaven. Because of Mom.

Hm. So, seeing Michael Jackson videos made me sad. For Michael, but not just for Michael. I thought of my sweet mother. The real Queen of Everything. We will miss some people until we join them in death. Sorrow and sadness are okay when complimented with the joy of knowing and loving someone for so long. So long.