Although her death was sudden and unexpected, she was not caught unprepared. She called me the week before she died and, to my later amazement, mentioned casually, "By the way, last week I appointed Mr. Quinn, Mr. Manly, and Mr. Balch to be the bartenders at my wake. Have them fix everyone a drink, and then all of you laugh at all the silly things I did, fuss about all the mean things I did, remember the things I loved to do, and, most of all, remember how much I have loved all of you." I asked her at the time if she knew something we didn't know, and she just replied that it was important for her to get that said.

        The wake was all she would have wanted it to be. The house was teeming with family and friends, the overflow spilling onto the porch and into the yard, where the children chased fireflies in the gentle air of the early summer night. The clatters and pings of silverware and china, the clinking and splashing of glasses filling with ice and liquids from liquor to lemonade, the warm and hearty greetings of friends and family, the freely shared soft bursts of tears, the laughter at endless tales, and the murmurs of gentler remembrances created an ensemble of sounds representing the happiest times of my mother's life. The general consensus was that Momma was perched at the top of the stairs, Auntie Mame style, a cigarette in one hand and a toddy in the other, beaming down on the ultimate party we'd thrown in her honor, the banquet she always wanted life to be.

* * *

        Remembrances of my mother always include a cup of Maxwell House, a pack of Alpines, and a roll of white Lifesavers. Our home greeted you with the combined smells of perked coffee and freshly-lit cigarettes (with a hint of mint), and so did she. These aromas helped to define the world to me in my first days of life. In fact, Momma horrified my grandmother's friends by reminding herself at which breast I had nursed last by switching the little table holding her coffee and cigarettes from one side of the rocker to the other.

        I realize now that, throughout our life together, that beginning persisted: I was always urgently attached to her, starving for her validation to sustain me, operating under the smoky illusion that it was her hazel-eyed look of approval that determined my self-worth. It was only when I married, moved several hundred miles away from her, and then had my first daughter, that I cautiously exercised a few independent thoughts and ideas of my own. Of course, I felt daring and a little guilty for stepping outside the boundaries of the one declared way of doing things right, but it was also a bit exciting, and I could feel myself in the primordial stages of becoming a true individual. This actualization has involved a long and difficult weaning process.

        Not one other mother attending our Saturday morning YWCA basketball games in junior high school sat in the stands with a transistor radio, listening to the live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She would hold the radio to her ear with one hand and wave wildly at me, out on the court, with the other. I remember feeling a confused mixture of pride, at her quirky enthusiasm for the opera and for me, and embarrassment, for the very same reason. How frustrating it must have been to be as bright and creative as she was and yet locked into the prescribed role of mother and housewife, in the fifties, in the South.

        Maybe it was that frustration she acted out in certain ways. Every day when I got home from school, as I walked up the sidewalk toward the front door, I wondered how I might have provoked her somehow while I was gone. I knew that, on most days, on the other side of that door, there she would be, angry at something, and even though I knew logically that I had been out of the way all day, I felt responsible. I always blamed myself when her world wasn't going well, and I would do anything to try to make it better, even if that meant staying away from her altogether, in order at least not to make it worse. I became an artist at walking on eggshells, developing radar for her every mood, living my life with appeasing her as its primary mission. By now I had figured that my mistakes weren't simply errors, but indications of basic character flaws. When I left a fountain pen in my little sister's room and she wrote all over her bedspread, it was not just that I had been forgetful, but that I was a terribly irresponsible child who should have known better and not set such a bad example for my little brothers and sisters. The time I told Momma how disappointed I was that she couldn't attend my sixth-grade play, what I was trying to say was that I would have loved to have her there and wanted her to be proud of what I did. Instead, she shot back at me how selfish I was to expect her to be there when she still had little ones at home to look after. She was merely frustrated, but what I heard was that my feelings were somehow morally wrong and I withdrew further from acknowledging those feelings and opted to repress them in exchange for peace at all costs.

        Privileging my mother's feelings as more important than my own caused me to misinterpret her speech more than once. Momma always said, "Don't cry for me when I die of my heart attack. God loves best those whom he takes fast." (How did she know?) She would tell us this from the time I was a little girl. I thought this meant "don't cry or be sad when I die," when, in fact, it meant "if I die quickly, don't be sad for me at the quickness of it." It was one of those messages that I took too much to heart and stored away with similar ones telling me "don't feel." I was learning well to hide my feelings more deeply from myself as well as from others.

        I've wanted my daughters to explore their world more freely, with much less fear, much less caution, much less dread of anger. I've learned with them, and increasingly within myself, to let the little things go. Because of my hypersensitivity to having such heavy moral issues made of even the small things, I've tried, for better or worse, to ride out similar instances in the lives of the girls. When my oldest daughter, Allene, was about six years old, she and her younger sister, Libby, were playing one night out on the driveway under the outdoor spotlight. Several toads had gathered under the light, and Allene scooped one up and cupped it in her hands. Libby came over to her and warned, "Allene, you'd better put that frog down 'cause he might pee on you and make you get warts!" Ever mindful of my own mother's careful use of words, I said, "Libby, that's not a very nice way to put it. Can you think of another way to say it?" She smiled sweetly up at me and said, "Yes, ma'am. Now, Allene, you'd better put that frog down or he's gonna piss all over you!" Allene immediately looked big-eyed to me for a reproving comment, and all I could do was get tickled, and we were simply left with a favorite family story, and no harm done. In more serious issues, though, I overcompensated to no one's advantage. For years I would conceal my utter dismay at their father's drug abuse, hiding the kind of deep hurts that I had practiced repressing all my life. However, I knew I was beginning to deal better with his and my failings the day (now) eight-year-old Libby asked me, "What are those funny cigarettes Daddy keeps making, and why can't we play with those little bitty medicine jars he has?" Instead of covering for him as I always had, I simply replied, "You need to ask him, honey." Not too long after that, I realized I had the strength to pull away totally, and we left him, for good.

        I recognize now that the same sharp-edged woman who demanded perfection from me used her fervor to teach me that kind of strength, even though it took me years to translate it as such. It was also that same bright, articulate, creative woman who took me to concerts, who had me listen to her Broadway records of Mary Martin and Julie Andrews, who helped me to fall in love with classical music, and, yes, even to appreciate opera. It was she who insisted I take piano lessons, giving me access to the instrument through which I can set my soul free. It was she who insisted that I study Latin and French, developing in me a lifelong love of working with words. It was she who opened the wonderful world of libraries and books of all kinds, but especially the thrill of a good mystery. It's because of her that I have a dozen Latin and French dictionaries she would ferret out for me at garage sales.

        Of all the maxims she lived by, Momma's favorite was, "Life is a humbling process." With the privilege of humbling hindsight and insight, I've almost completed the process of breaking the suction with my mother, as the font of my identity, and embracing her as a formidable influence on it. I now expect and encourage my own daughters to do the same. What that leaves is . . . me, looking in the mirror for my own brown-eyed approval, dreaming of the kind of future I want to shape. How I'd love the opportunity now to run up the sidewalk, fling open the door, and savor a cup of Maxwell House, an Alpine, and a Lifesaver, eye-to-eye with that amazing woman.