Mom

A mother can have a great impact on what makes a young man tick.

Hannah Spenner, a mental health writer, says a mother influences a person's attachment style, their emotional regulation, empathy, cognitive development and social skills.

There is the helicopter mom, the cool mom, the crunchy mom, the workout mom, the absent mom, the zen mom to name a few according to a google search about mom types.

How a mom impacts a son might be different than how a mom impacts a daughter. But gender aside, if one is lucky enough to have a mom who is there to offer love, one has struck gold. 

In my middle class neighborhood growing up, I had such a mom.    

But my mother had one distinct quality, not listed in the mom category, possibly because some would claim it too superficial. She was the prettiest mom in town; or so my mates claimed.

She spent her working life teaching such esoteric classes as personal appearance and modeling at a women’s college, the second oldest women’s college in the country, later becoming personnel director of the school.

 She wrote a training manual for stewardesses for TWA when all flight attendants were female. How to walk, talk and wear jewelry and put on eyeliner were her specialty topics and seen by the airlines then as needed qualities for the modern day flight attendant of the 1950’s and 60’s. She studied and wrote chapters on poise, generosity and graciousness.

Curly auburn hair, she colored it blond later in life. She had hazel eyes and at 5’ 7’’, she kept her shape until her later years. On the day she died at 96, she was getting ready to see her hairdresser. 

I heard my dad remark more than once, that she had the best legs of any woman in town. Her name was Marion. My dad called her Mary Ann. And I am sure he felt blessed by that chance meeting with her when he was doing flight training during the early years of WWII.  

After the war ended, he wasted no time when mustered out of the Army Air Corps scurrying back to her home in Missouri to propose and marry her in her college sorority.  

For a young boy growing up it didn’t hurt to have a pretty mom when it came to socialization. Back then I didn’t put two and two together, as to the impact of my mom's beauty on whether I had friends, or not.  

Unlike my buddies, who were athletes and were accomplished in academics, I had no crowning achievements, other than being a class officer, and one with less than stellar grades at that. I was a benchwarmer in sports, a perennial observer of my mates rallying up and down the field. 

It was Mikey James who first acclaimed that my mom was pretty. We were 14.

His paper route intersected with mine. He was a good student, humble and would become co-captain of the high school football team and king of the junior class.  

Going to the Catholic school and me, public junior high, we didn't know each other well. But one Fall day, I invited him over to try out the new pool table my dad had brought. 

Bright colored balls clacking out from the basement, my mom called from the top of the stairs, “Pie for you boys? And James Michael, who's your new friend?”

Remembering back about that encounter, she looked a little like Maureen O’Hara, looking down, waiting for Mikey to stick his head upwards, me introducing him.

“Wow McGee! You have a pretty mom,” he proclaimed, intrigued.

In the few short years that followed, the basement with the pool table became a gathering place. Peter Issacs, Derrick Danner, Ralphie Tilborn, Deno Sevier, Griff and Selst and a host of others frequented the home; my mom nearby offering pie and pleasantries; leaving us alone enough to engage in boy bantering. 

My mother was more than a pretty face to my friends. Always, she had an inquiring air about her, asking my mates about their mothers and other matters of their concern.

Freshman year in college, being townies, Peter Issacs and I roomed together at our fraternity house. On a Friday night, dateless, we lay in our bunks, forlorn and weepy because our girlfriends, who were also roommates, had dumped us. 

We wound up back at my home. After a consolatory beer from my dad, Mom, empathic to our current state, said, “You two need to let them go. Don’t go chasing them. Let them do what they want to do.”  

And so we did. 

In all my years being around my mother, from the earliest days, traveling with her to my nursery school, her singing, You are my Sunshine, to the countless chili suppers she prepared for my college friends after Mizzou football games, to the last time I talked to her the night before she died, she was always cheerful. And not unnaturally, but genuinely so.

She had resilience, being a child of the Depression, losing her family home as a school girl to a fire and losing my father to his early death when she was 50. I never heard her complain about her circumstances. She might have reserved that for her close friends.

As her oldest son, we didn’t agree on politics. And she let me know of her disfavor at my choices. She was as stubborn and opinionated, as she was generous, kind and friendly. 

If she had a creed it was: Never ask more from someone than they are willing to give. And when asked to show up, do it. 

If my mom hadn’t been a natural beauty, her disposition would have made her one. 

In the next life, I hope I am lucky enough to have another go around with her.

The names of my mates in this essay have been changed to protect the guilty.

#Mother-SonBond