Time Again with Daddy and Mama

 

               They have been gone for far too long--Daddy for 26 years, Mama for 12 years.  All too often, it seems longer, but sometimes it is as if they were just speaking to me moments ago.  I hear their voices in my own words, feel their genes and their nurture in the way I experience life.  Every day when I think of them, I think of all the things I want to talk with them about.

               As the youngest of three children, I remember them only as adults, grown people with busy lives.   With the egocentricity of a child I was primarily concerned with the attention they paid to my needs.  I had little consideration then for the responsibilities they carried not just for our immediate family, but for their own parents, as well as their jobs.  Somehow they managed all of that without giving the appearance of being burdened.  Now I realize it must have been wearing, but they were stoic in the face of what must be done.

               For a time in my childhood, my father's father lived with us.  A quiet, rather withdrawn man, Grandpa nonetheless made time to teach me to play checkers.  We would set up the board on an old cedar chest in his room and while away the hours as he challenged me to be good enough to win without him having to let me, he said.  I think the lesson he intended was not just about the rules of checkers, but rather about learning patience and strategy.  It also lengthened those times we shared and I like to think that he wanted my company for longer than my normally short attention span.

               I don't remember Grandpa telling stories about his life or my father's early years.  I can't recall him ever mentioning his wife, either. He became a widower before my parents were married.  Though I was a curious child, I don't remember asking him about either of those subjects.  I wish I had.

               When I look at the photographs of my parents, Billy and Frances as young people without the responsibilities of children and aging parents, they look back at me with an energy that makes me feel happy.  I know they met in Albany, Georgia, when they were in their 30's, both working there and part of a group of young people who had a good time together, they said.  Two of their friends ran a funeral parlor and hosted parties in the back room that sounded like high-spirited fun when my parents referred to those events.

        

Once we did get my father to talk about an even earlier time when he worked for the Columbus Enquirer newspaper in what was then a small town in western Georgia.  It was just across the river from Phenix City, Alabama, which was, Daddy said, "as wild and gangster-ridden as Chicago in Prohibition." Daddy didn't go into as much detail about those days as I wish now that he had.  He also worked a number of other jobs during those tough Depression years, including what he described as "running a chain gang" that was repairing the highways.

 

               Now I am hungry to know more about Daddy and Mama than I ever thought to ask when they were alive.  I am curious about what brought them together, those two strong-minded people who bickered as continuously as Archie and Edith Bunker, but who loved each other as long as they were together.

 

         Daddy lost much of his hair early in life, but his big personality more than compensated.  He made jokes about being bald, rather than being shy about it.  He had the most amazing blue eyes that showed the dazzling intellect that lay within him.  They both could be stubborn to a fault and insisted that we children behave according to their rules.  There was always a soft heart behind Daddy's bluster.  Mama's sharp tongue was offset  by the way she would spend hours after work sewing so that we would have the clothes they couldn't afford to buy in stores.  They both worked long hours at their jobs, then spent time teaching us to read or taking part in school and scouting activities. 

Mama was a really striking young woman and full of fire.  What were their dreams as young people?  Neither of them had more than minimal education post-high school.  Daddy might have been a doctor, perhaps, because he always had a remedy for our minor hurts and illnesses.  He seemed to get by on very little sleep when any of us needed attention, though he rose early each morning to go to his job.  Mama could have the boss almost anywhere, but had limited patience for whiny, sick children.  She still always found time to make the standard curative tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich.

 

               I can't recall that they ever bemoaned their lot in life, whatever the dreams might have been.  Daddy, when told that he had a cancer that would take his life within a year or so, took the news in stride, saying "I've had a good life and a good family."  Mama, too, professed herself "ready to meet her Maker" in her last months before first senility, then death, took her from us.

               Sometimes people ask "if you could have a conversation with anyone in history, who would it be?" I'm sure that I could make choices that would be more sophisticated, but my choice would be to have a couple of hours with Billy and Frances.  It would be a real joy to learn more about the people who made me who I am and to let them know how much they will always mean to me.