For Mama: The Muppets and Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody

"Five Oaks" at Harriett's Bluff on the Crooked River, about as far south as you can go and still be in Georgia

My mother bought this property with her own money from her job as a telephone operator with Southern Bell. It was a gift to her parents.

My grandmother, Bombombia, called it Five Oaks, for the special live oak cluster that grew there, and she fought with Georgia Power to keep the trees. We sat out under the trees at night and the light would draw in beetles, which Granddaddy would catch to feed to the circle of waiting frogs.

My grandparents would light a smoke pot using moss to keep bugs away, as the original inhabitants of this country did. Granddaddy's cigar smoke curled around his fedora. Bombombia rocked me and sang Shall We Gather at the River.

Once I was outside in this yard with my mother, and she was a short distance away. I think she was unloading the car. I thought I must be a pretty cute teenage girl when I saw a carload of boys slowing down, their heads swiveling. One of them leaned out and said to me, while pointing at my mother, "Who is that?"

In Memorium

I am thinking of you and your mother this morning.

Your Mother raised a loving and caring daughter, and I am positive she knows you are with her in every way possible today. She knows you are respecting her memory in a very special way....loving her in your own unique way and in your own safe space, singing her songs in the company of your animal angels. She sees your tears and hears your voice and she understands that you must keep healthy....every mother wants their child to stay safe and well. Although your other family members might not understand your needs right now, your mother certainly does.

I lift up my prays for you, your family, and for the healing of your grief, your estrangement from the family members who, in their ignorance of your health issues, do not understand your absence, and for your illness to let you have peace and normalcy once more....in God all things are possible.

This morning as I am sitting here thinking of you, I put a tape of my flute music on....I don't have my flute anymore, but I recorded this about 9 years ago. The solo is of tears and sorrow, but of hope and resignation, of passion and the soul....it is The Meditation of Thais by Jules Massenet. It has long been one of my favorite flute solos and I play the music today for your sorrow at your mother's transition, and for your pain and grief. The notes of the flute are the tears....and the pray is heard in Heaven.

Be well, stay in your healthy safe space and let your body be okay. Your suffering will pass and your mother's memory will always hold that very special place in your heart that only a daughter can know. Go have some cinnamon toast!

Sweets for the Sweet

I'm not able to sing right now, so I'm writing. I haven't had my breakfast yet, other than hot black tea, which she taught me to love when we ran out of milk a couple of times. It felt like such a grown up drink at age five, and I felt that she honored my growing maturity by presenting it to me.

Now, I drink black tea every day, and green tea most days. I've been unable to eat much, just fruit and nuts and miso. I used to fast for a couple of days every now and then, but since becoming ill I've not been able to do that, until now. It's a mystery.

My mom loved sweets. Her iced tea was thick with sugar, just the way it is made wherever sugar cane grows. When sugar was rationed during WWII, her step-father, my Granddaddy, was able to get Snickers somehow. Back then they were thick as gold bricks to hear her tell it.

I want to pour old time Snickers at her feet. I want to see my Granddaddy walking up to present them to her. I want to see the look of innocent delight on her gorgeous face when she bites into one, standing there barefoot in the grey sand in her rolled up dungarees, with her upturned nose and hair like a cloud.

Where I was born--I am fairly sure there was a building at that time.

If not, I hope they brought a towel. :-) Delivered by Dr. Lungerhausen, who did a great job on my navel.

Songs to Sing for Frances

A partial list of my mother’s songs:

Pennies From Heaven

Green Grow the Lilacs

People Will Say We’re In Love

On The Street Where You Live

Room Full Of Roses

Sending You A Big Bouquet Of Roses

Melancholy Baby

A You’re Adorable, B You’re So Beautiful

Mares Eat Oats

I Get A Kick Out Of You

I Saw the Harbor Lights

Who’s Sorry Now

Birds Do It

Around the World I Searched For You

Up A Lazy River

Take Good Care Of Yourself

You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby

You Say Potato And I Say Potato

Whispering While You Cuddle Near Me

Maybe I’m Right

Just One of Those Things

Shine on Harvest Moon

By the Light of the Silvery Moon

A couple of my grandmother’s songs:

Shall We Gather At the River (She lived on the Crooked River, a tidal river and tributary to the St. Mary's that forms the border between Florida and Georgia. I always thought this song was about her river. I think she sang it that way. "The River" was a sacred place inhabited by fiddler crabs, transient dolphins running in and out with the tides, and luminescent diatoms. At the river, no one asks what time it is, they ask about the tide.)

The Rose of No Man’s Land (My grandmother loved this one because she was a registered nurse, and there is no doubt about it—it is a compelling and stirring song in tribute to the nurses who served in the carnage of WWI.)

The Day of Burial

The funeral and burial services for the rest of the family are tomorrow. My plan for tomorrow begins with the breakfast described below, minus bacon, since I have been a vegetarian for many decades now. I will have chocolate soymilk instead of cow's milk.

I'll just include what I asked my husband to do for me:

"Please put cinnamon in the purple washi envelope. Cinnamon will always remind me of cinnamon toast on the couch in Cleveland watching Captain Kangaroo and the Today show. I can see her moving back and forth, bringing it to me and putting it on a tv tray. Even though I always asked for the same thing, she always asked me what I wanted before making it. My breakfast was made to order, and it was always cream of wheat, bacon, and cinnamon toast with chocolate milk. thx"

I always loved Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit more than the Captain and Mr. Green Jeans. The ping pong balls just killed me with laughter.

I will sing for her here tomorrow. I will post a song list for anyone else who wants to sing for her. She had a beautiful voice. One day recently when we were talking on the phone, I said, "I know all your songs, and I sing them." We both understood that I was saying, "I will always remember you." I'm so lucky I was able to say that. That same day, in order to demonstrate to her that I carried her within me, I started a song called Roomful of Roses, and she sang along with me. Her diaphragm was paralyzed, and she couldn't summon a lot of air. It was the sweetest thing for me to be given the opportunity to sing to her and with her. I told her about the cinnamon too.

My voice is not as clear and sweet as hers, but you don't listen to perfect pitch singing every day without developing some kind of ear. When I said that my grandmother, her mother, had had a pretty voice, and an operatic one, she told me that her mother had studied voice. I never knew that. This matriarchy is full of surprises, right up until the end. I love them. I am of them, and I feel that more than I ever have. I wonder if that is a common sensation. It is so palpable, I think it must be.

From the road warrior.

Nassau River in a thunderstorm.

Back where I am from...

The Nassau River, Nassau County, FL.

Secondary Gain: Win Win Challenge

My husband should be arriving in Florida right about now for my mom’s funeral tomorrow. I’m taking my time with “writing up” my mom, because as all humans are, she was wonderfully complex. I want to avoid defining her. I want to lightly illuminate her, and allow her multifaceted vibrancy to survive and not be fixed, as so often happens. I’m also planning my private accessible ritual to say goodbye to my mom, probably centered on singing her songs to my horses, but there will be other aspects to it. For now, however, I want to present a challenge.

I woke up with this idea. A theory is floating around that people claiming to be adversely impacted by low levels of chemicals like commonly used perfumed products (that incidentally contain respiratory irritants and neurotoxins, among other things) are engaging in secondary gain, driven by attention-seeking and mewling for sympathy.

I won’t say where I think this theory comes from, but it could be the same place that this idea originated: We are ALL responsible for the BP oil disaster because we drive vehicles with internal combustion engines. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t design them, fight to prevent innovation, or throw roadblocks in the way of alternative energy the way certain unnamed entities have--it is our fault. Ha! I reject that idea. No, I am emphatically not responsible for BP’s crimes and profane destruction of the Gulf Coast. Similarly, I don’t think I am engaging in or benefitting from secondary gain, but I am willing to throw down the gauntlet and submit to a crude test. I have absolutely nothing to lose.

I predict that secondary gain will be disproved, and that I will maybe some day get a smattering of sympathetic posts from complete strangers who are similarly situated. Here’s the win win situation:

Heads, I win

In response to my post, I receive so many condolences and such an outpouring of sympathy that the endorphins are knocked off the charts for the rest of my life, or at least for a while. Come on, hit me with it—give me the love and acceptance I crave (either because I’m a person with an imaginary or feigned illness, or because I am simply a human being)!

Tails, I win

I disprove secondary gain by showing that there is no real advantage in claiming to have an illness that I don’t really have.

Little Frances

My mother died on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 after a long illness. As a child, she was called little Frances, because her mother's name was Frances too. I was named Jacqueline for my dad and Francine for my mom. My dad cared for my mom at home in Florida, and he recently had triple bypass surgery, so my 80 year old aunt came to help my mom, while I was at home in Alaska. What's wrong with this picture?

I have been unable to visit my parents since 1997 due to chemical injuries that developed over many years until I finally became housebound. I have improved somewhat over time, so that I have more mobility--I've even been to Japan to visit my son. Some call it the Land of the Rising Sun, but I call it The Land of Clotheslines, as opposed to brain-numbing dryer exhaust that is almost inescapable in the US. I'm just not strong enough to endure an onslaught of petroleum-laced yard, home, and personal care products in a town with two paper mills and mosquito spraying that you can call in like an airstrike, not after flying, and not while driving a toxic rental car, and most important, not while being misunderstood or even criticized for being ill.

I will be writing a tribute to my mom, but I wanted to begin with why this kind of venue is necessary. Anyone who has not faced a physical barrier to family participation, cannot imagine the isolation. But even more painful than an isolated life and the challenges of illness, is the judgment and cruelty of people who lack compassion for anything outside their own experience.