I Am Linda's Daughter

Martha Ruth and Linda Ruth, Hawaii, 1975

I am Linda’s daughter.  True, it’s only one facet of my identity.  I could just as well say that I am Jack’s mother (or Woody’s, or Betsy’s, or Lucy’s), or that I am Jim’s wife, all of which are more definitive (certainly more incriminating) aspects of who I am.  But for this blog, I am Linda’s daughter, one of her six children, and not even her favorite.  My older brother assures me he was the favorite.

We never looked alike, she and I, and if anyone ever said we did, I knew the speaker had either never seen Mom, or me, or possibly both.  But from her I inherited an uncanny -- some have even said completely useless -- ability to name every obscure children’s book illustrator from the past 50 years.  Because of her, every Goodwill store is a potential treasure trove, only sun-dried towels grace my towel racks in the summer, and the day is not complete without a dessert -- real sugar, full fat, sometimes for breakfast.   Because of her, four kids seemed manageable, if not socially respectable.

Bringing in the laundry, Shawnee, Oklahoma

The chaos of being surrounded by so many children and all their friends must have been wearing, though to her credit, Mom never locked herself away in the bathroom, or laid her head on the table and covered it with her arms, as I have been known to do a few times.  Every day.  But once she was folding laundry, watching ESPN.  “I didn’t know you liked sports,” I said, puzzled.  “What’s your favorite sport?” “Golf,” she said, nodding vaguely toward the TV.  “It’s quiet.”

Standing (l-r): Amanda, Robert (Sendo), Sally

Seated (l-r): John, Martha, Tyrone

I know we were a loud and rowdy bunch.  I know once we hit teenage years, we caused more grief than she deserved.  We bullied, and in later years, cajoled, Mom into doing things we thought interesting, rather than allowing her time to pursue her own interests.  Sometimes she seemed bewildered by the trick of life that left her in the midst of a whirlwind of activity, none of it productive.

But she had resolve beneath the meek exterior when she was challenged: once she showed up at school, grim for all our classmates to see, to pull my younger sister and me out at midday.  We had lied and said we cleaned our room.  I can’t say our room was clean after that, but we never again told her it was clean when it wasn’t.  Mom was always an absent-minded driver, and my brother happened to be with her when she inadvertently cut off a couple of hot-headed teenage boys who promptly sped up to get in front of her and cut her off at a left turn signal.  The light turned green and the boys’ car crept forward; they planned to keep her from turning left on that light, while zipping through at the last minute themselves.  Mom gassed her van forward slowly until the bumpers touched, and then inch-by-inch, she pushed those boys through that intersection.  Later she pulled over and informed a couple of police of what she had done, worried that she would be reported.  My brother said the cops laughed and said they didn’t think they’d be hearing anything from them.   I imagine it was the best story they heard that day.

Mom wasn’t much for technology, never proficient at more than sending e-mails or ordering books from online bookstores.  She drove with the radio off (much to our dismay), and actually taped a laminated page with written instructions onto the TV remote.  If one of us wanted to start a movie, she was game, but heaven help you if you sat next to her during a suspenseful moment because you were likely to be subjected to shrieks, foot stomping, and frequent pleas to “Look Out!” or even worse, “Who is that?  What just happened?”

She was deeply suspicious of strangers’ motives; “Watch out for people with guns!” was the usual cheery admonishment issued as one was leaving for a quick jog around the neighborhood.

Mom and Dad

But what I remember most is that Mom laughed a lot.  She would say, “Bob, tell them about when …” and Dad would start with one of his tales of growing up on the Rice plantation in Hawaii.  Or, “Mama, tell about …” and Grandma would recall their life as the family of a country teacher in Oklahoma.  Years later, Mom would recount stories of her grandchildren with equal delight, saying, “Listen to this!” to make sure she had everyone’s attention.  She preferred humor in all her entertainment, whether it was Gilligan’s Island, I Love Lucy, Cheers, Cary Grant, Danny Kaye, or Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.   

Another good book

In the days before TVs were considered a kitchen appliance, she sometimes read aloud to us while we kids washed the dishes and generally annoyed each other.  She picked O. Henry, tales from Uncle Remus, Ogden Nash, S.J. Perelman, Gary Larson, Dave Barry, Mark Twain, Patrick McManus, Betty MacDonald, Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, James Thurber, and a good sprinkling of Reader’s Digest.   Most were repeats, because she read the ones she loved over and over, until we could anticipate what was coming, and could remember the words even though Mom was laughing so hard, she couldn’t finish them out loud.      

Mom would have been 68 on June 27.  On December 31, 2005, an emergency room visit to address what was thought to be a kidney stone turned into a diagnosis of Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML), a form of cancer that strikes quickly.

For some, death comes unexpectedly.  It is a kind of blessing that Mom suspected, when all of us refused to consider the possibility, that each conversation might be the final one.  “I love you, Darlin’,” were the last words she said to me by phone.  My plane arrived too late for me to see her before she was placed in a medically-induced coma. Mom died on January 18, 2006, less than three weeks after her admittance to the hospital, and before we even had the official diagnosis. She was 61.

This blog is not about Mom, but Mom is the reason for it.  I write because when I do, I can imagine her reading aloud to whomever is nearby.  I write because when I do, I can hear her laugh.

Linda and Martha