Remembering mama

I remembered something that was buried way back in my mind.

When I was a little girl and something needed a quick sewing mend, mama would say, "Hand me that needle." She would point to a wall near a door frame in the living room.

About head high, (mama was short) she had stuck three or four threaded needes in the wallpaper. When she needed a needle she just reached up and got a needle.The wallpaper was peppered with tiny needle holes.

To me that was just a natural thing, nothing unusual at the time.

Now years later, I can't imagine anyone sticking needles in a wall papered room.

Mama couldn't sew. Not really. She didn't own a sewing machine. She could mend a hem or sew up a hole in a sock, but she didn't make clothes. Many of my girlfriends were taught by their mothers to sew their own clothes, but mom couldn't teach me.

She really didn't need to sew. My grandma Adams made a lot of my dresses, just as she did for all her granddaughters.

She had one of those old Singer pedal sewing machines. The machine is now owned by one of her granddaughters. It's kept in the family as a keepsake.

Mama didn't cook fancy foods or gourmet casseroles. She stuck with basic foods, like beans and cornbread, garden vegetables, potatoes, and homemade soups. Meat included pork chops, beef roast, meatloaf, fried chicken and salt pork, mostly.

Mama was humorous. No, she didn't try to be funny. In my whole life, I never heard her tell a joke She just had a natural humor that made the family laugh.

She liked to sing "Walking the Floor Over You" and "You Are My Sunshine." I remember the time when the insurance man stepped upon our front porch. He was there to collect the life insurance premiums. Mama suddenly belted out a song and nearly knocked him off the porch.

She was a stay-at-home mom, taking care of four children. She did work outside the home for a short time when I was in junior high, and later after all the kids had left home.

For a long while she worked at The Majestic Hotel in Caruthersville, Mo., where President Harry S. Truman stayed when he visited Caruthersville and attended the fairground horse races..At the front desk, she operated a one-person manual switchboard used to connect groups of telephones to each other, using phone plugs. On a nearby wall, there hung a framed picture of President Truman. The picture and old switchboard burned in an inferno that destroyed the three-story hotel one evening.

Several boarders lost their lives in the fire, including one of mama's best friends.. Mama escaped. She had gotten off work early and had gone to play bingo in Blytheville. She was devastated by the fire and death of her friend, who was one of the hotel boarders. A mother and her young daughter also perished in the fire.

Once when I was about 11 years old, I heard my mother, my aunt and a couple of other ladies talking in lowered voices in the living room. When I entered the room, they changed the subject and spoke in a normal voice. I wondered what they were whispering about.

A few days later I opened one of the "chester" drawers in my mother's bedroom. The whole drawer was filled with tiny folded baby clothes. I touched them and I still remember their softness. I suddenly felt that I was not supposed to find those clothes. Why would those baby clothes be in my mother's drawer?

Then it dawned on me that my mother might be going to have a baby.

Even at that age, I knew nothing about moms, dads, and babies.

The facts of life weren't discussed in my house.

Sure enough. my baby brother was born in the night while I was fast asleep in my room. Mom didn't go to a hospital to have my brother. When her time came, the family doctor arrived and delivered the baby. That's how it was done in those bygone days. Incidentally, my bedroom was shared with my younger sister. Neither of us ever had a room of our own.

Mama lived to be 93 years old.

Her last years were beset with near blindness, hearing loss, then alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's is an insidious disease that destroys memory. It is progressive and insinuates itself into the brain. Nerve cells die and memory, judgment and thinking is affected.

I actually don't remember when my brothers and my sister realized that mama's memory loss was more than normal aging.

She would forget a recent experience and asked the same questions over and over again.

Her concept of time changed. She forgot that she had already eaten her lunch.

Eventually she needed help with basics, like bathing and dressing, and taking her daily medications. She would ask a dozen times a day, "Is it time for my medicine?"

She no longer cooked a meal or cleaned house.

She lost interest in the things she used to do, becoming housebound.

Even during that stressful time, mama had a sense of humor and made me laugh.

Sometimes she would burst out singing an old hymn and I would join her.

It was in those times I realized that mama had a nice singing voice. She remembered many church songs, like "The Old Rugged Cross" and "Amazing Grace" and "Bringing in the Sheaves.." Yes, she got the words mixed up sometimes, but that was okay.

The burden of mama's care was on my sister, Shirley, who lived on the same street. She was the one who had daily contact with mama and saw that her needs were met. I and my brothers lent our support.

Her death left a big hole in our hearts, a hole that time helped heal.

This afternoon in my kitchen I suddenly burst into song, singing loudly to no one.

Then I remembered mama.

Mama, I miss you.