Nostalgia
I reached into the bag of McDonald’s fries, fresh out of the oil, and humored myself: “I don’t think she had ever eaten cold fries.”
My mother — mamma as I called her (or beautiful, if I picked up to her voice on the other end of a phone call that I wasn’t too busy to answer) — always asked the cashier for fresh fries. She would return them with no small fuss if they were anything less. I laughed at the thought as I pulled away from the drive-through window five days ago.
Today, I thought back to the mild burn of those fries, the memory it provoked, and how those nostalgic memories seem to flood the heart and mind in a given moment.
It has been a year since my mother’s memorial service, and I miss her a lot. I miss those little things about her — how she stubbornly insisted on her way. She insisted on hot fries, a kiss on the cheek, watching the Maury Show, and a hundred other things you’d never know mattered so much — a hundred other things I find forcing a smile across my face as they’ve come to mind the last few days.
My mother insisted on helping others when she often was the one needing support. I laugh now at how often she stubbornly refused help offered her. “I don’t want to be a burden to nobody,” she would say just before expressing gratitude for whatever gift or service, paired with the question, “are you sure?” It’s almost as if she believed she didn’t deserve it. Undeserving, however, never was a reason to withhold her support from others. I’ll never know how she always seemed to start with nothing, give so much, and always seem to find more to give if someone else needed it.
My mother insisted on living. I think of the videos she would send after making progress at physical therapy. A step or two were mile markers in a defiant pursuit of independence. I’m baffled that as a double amputee she found a way to live her last few years independently in an apartment. She was proud of that. And I was proud of that too! Despite the daunting record of medical defeat — kidney failure and dialysis, lung failure, heart failure, three amputations, diabetes, and critical hospitalizations I’d long lost count of — my mother insisted on living, fighting, persevering. She persevered through the inward affliction of abuse, loss, abandonment, betrayal, and the accompanying melancholy of loneliness. But I’ll never forget the almost intuitive way she conjured hope and gratitude amidst so weighty a load, consistently finding some news to celebrate and some factor of life to praise God for.
And as for those often missed phone calls from my beautiful mother, Sandra Farrington insisted on following up with a voicemail that always began and ended the same way: “Hey Shel, this your moms … Talk to you later. Love you.” In some ways, I’m glad those countless moments found me too busy to answer. I still have those voicemails, reminders of my mother’s persistence and unyielding love.
She insisted on that too. “I love you more,” she would say in response to my “I love you so much.”
Who can doubt the immensity of a mother’s love? Yet as I think back to those sweet times, it is hard to imagine that the love I have for my mother can be rivaled by anyone, even the one who garnered it.
I guess in some ways, I owe it to my mother who modeled love so well. She loved everyone — even those who hurt her — but more frequently the lucky individuals who came across her path. My siblings’ friends. Anyone’s child. Co-workers. Neighbors. Her church family and the medical care team she interacted with several times weekly. In fact, she saw all of those people as family deserving of unconditional love — and she was always making a new friend.
I think I learned that from her and I’m glad she loved stubbornly, insisted on forgiveness, and so frequently chose embrace. I learned to love in the way she manifestly loved my siblings and me.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and I’ll forever remember those sacred afternoons the day before Christmas spent just mamma and me at Red Lobster. An emerging tradition of two years, cut short but still so rich. I remember the look in her eyes of joy and gratitude bridled only by the weakness of declining vision and a weary heart. I remember what treasure that smile from across the table was, as it gave way to the type of laughter that infiltrated the heart and stirred the soul with delight. I remember those gentle ebony hands cracking open crab legs and dunking lobster tails in a deluge of butter, garnished with more laughter, wider smiles, and more glimpses of the glimmer in those weary eyes.
I still have the gift cards to Red Lobster I didn’t get to use from last Christmas Eve, the day after her funeral. But one year later, nostalgia brings a smile. Crab legs, voice mail, and hot fries.