That Was my Mom

This is the 10^th Mother’s Day spent without my mother; the 10^th Mother’s Day I’ll have looked back at the mother I lost…another day to remember the other 364 days each year that I remember her on.

When loving daughter Anna Jarvis campaigned to get an official Mother’s Day holiday established in 1907-10, she hoped to provide a special day of reflection and togetherness for sons and daughters everywhere to honor their beloved mothers. She herself had spent many years devoted to taking care of her ill mother, and from my understanding, regretted--despite time spent--not having spent more time with her mother throughout her life. I can relate. I was 37 when I lost my mother, after 2 years of taking care of her throughout her cancer. 37 years old, and far too young to lose a mother. No matter how much time I’d spent with her throughout my life, no matter the time spent with her as caretaker, I still wished I’d spent more time with her. Its human nature I suppose; no matter how much, it’s still never enough.

I had spent so much of my life with her—even when far apart we were still close. More than once when I was a teenager, she had explained to me that she was my best friend. So busy running around with my friends at the time, I hadn’t admitted, or accepted, that she was my best friend. I mean, she was my mother sure, and would do anything for me, and would always be there as a shoulder to lean on and an ear to listen, a heart to love and a mind to advise, but she wasn’t my own age like my friends, and there were some things I just couldn’t share with her like with them. Hey, I was a teenager, what can I say? But she WAS my best friend. It took me until she died before I outwardly stated it; it was at her funeral when I told everyone present that she had been the greatest friend I’d ever had, the greatest friend I ever could have had. If only I had told her that before she died. Or maybe I had done so, I just hadn’t realized it.

           

She was such an enormously special lady. She was a loving and dedicated mother; she had been a wonderful wife when my father was alive; she was a friend, teacher, and mentor in so many ways to so many people--she was a Cub Scout den mother, she was a nursery school teacher and taught her students arts and crafts, basic reading, sharing, dancing, stories, and using their imagination; and she was a friend to so many of my friends growing up and in my adult years. I had always been proud of that, that my friends trusted her enough to tell her just about anything, that they confided in her; that even those who had trouble talking with their own parents were always able to go to her. She had big ears, even bigger shoulders, yet still not as big as her heart.

That was my mom.

When I was 14 and in a coma, and my father was across the hall in Intensive Care, she had to be strong for both of us. When people asked her how she held it together without falling to pieces, she told them “What alternative did I have?”

That was my mom.

When I had to learn how to walk again, no matter how tired or pained I was, how ready I may have been to give up, she wouldn’t let me.

That was my mom.

She suffered with arthritis and back pains through all her years and never let it stop her, and she pushed me just as hard to believe in myself and keep going.

That was my mom.

When I went back to school after my head injury with acquired learning disabilities, and teachers and officials grew tired and wanted to give up on me, she wouldn’t let them and fought tooth and nail for as long as it took.

That was my mom.

She loved me and led me to believe that I was worthy to be loved and to love myself; she loved others, and led them to love themselves too.

That was my mom.

She was a fantastic cook—some of my friends still bring up her magnificent stuffed shells. For a Jewish momma, she was one heck of an Italian cook! What did she love even more than eating good food? Cooking and sharing her special dishes with others!

That was my mom.

No matter what I did, no matter what I went through, no matter what mistakes I made or regrets I had, she always forgave me, she always helped me face the days both good and bad.

That was my mom.

When I was 19 and in a stupid move of recklessness wrecked my car, who did I call? Who was there for me right away, didn’t make me feel any worse, and later got me to overcome my nervousness of getting behind the wheel again?

That was my mom.

Who gave me my artistic talent, inspired me to enjoy art and writing, and showed me how proud she was when I graduated from high school and college?

That was my mom.

Who did I call when I had great things to report, sad things to fear, mistakes to confess, good plans to be made, or needed important advice? Not Ghostbusters!

That was my mom.

I told her on the last Mother’s Day, five months before she passed, that she was an inspiration and an embodiment of strength and courage.

That was my mom to the letter.

At the end, when her doctors told me she had 3-4 days left to live, she lived for 19.

That was my mom.

On her last night in hospice, with her already comatose, I told her of how I had been reflecting on my life up to that point, of how looking back, she had been a part of every good thing I could remember; and that of every bad thing she had been there too, helping me endure and get through it. I reminded her of her role with the Cub Scouts, with her nursery school and all the kids who loved and looked up to her, of the friends—both mine and hers--who she had helped, and all the people she had touched since.  Those were the memories she left behind, the legacy, the testament of her life. That was how proud I was to have had her for my mother and how blessed I was to have had her in my life.

Yes, that was my mom, and that was what I told her on that evening in October of 2004. Could she hear me, understand me? I believe she did. It was the greatest thing I had ever told her, five minutes before she died. I suspect she was waiting to hear that from me, before she let go and moved onward.

Christopher Reeve, known so well for his role as Superman, after years struggling to recover from his paralysis, died about a week prior to my mom. At her funeral I told the gathered mourners when I gave her eulogy: “We’ve lost two superheroes this week.”

And indeed we had. She was SuperMa…and she WAS strength and courage.

That was my Mom.

Boola and the Birdcage

I had a noisy friend, so noisy it was absurd. All day long his chirps were heard. His name was Boola; Boola was a bird.

Boola was my old roommate’s cockatiel. His home within the home was his cage in front of the living room window.  At the beginning of our acquaintance he normally kept to himself in the comforting enclosure of the cage, chirping away happily through most of each day. It was his safety zone, his security blanket where he was most comfortable and relaxed, and he became nervous and skittish when I approached the cage, if even to change his water and food.

My roommate opened the cage door for Boola every day for a while, and though he explored the living room and kitchen for a short time each day—each time lasting longer and longer—he never strayed far from his comfortable territory, his cage. When he was ready to return, or something made him nervous, he made his way quickly back to the cage; back to his comfort zone.

Boola always eyed me when I went by, wary of my presence, yet somewhat curious about me.
I often opened the cage and tried to coax him out, or urge him to remain out when I neared him, but he wouldn’t have any of that. He wanted to play it safe instead and not take chances.

Day by day, bit by bit, he ventured out of his safety zone and explored further and further from the cage—and closer and closer to me, yet if I took a step in his direction he became skittish and backed away. He would only approach by his will alone, and only as much as he felt ready. Closer and closer he came, across the room, up to my bedroom door, into the room, but still measuring the distance between us even as I whistled and coaxed him further.

Coming closer, one step at a time.

One day, suddenly and with no warning, he was ready. He made his way into my room and trotted up to me as I sat at my desk, climbed my leg and torso, and perched himself on my shoulder. There he went, and there he sat, day after day from that point on, comfortable and content to be sitting on my shoulder and picking at my beard or face

“Help! I’m being eaten alive by a flesh eating bird! Oh noes!”

When I walked through the living room to the kitchen, or my bedroom, he rushed bravely out of the open cage and flapped happily, flying across the room to land on my shoulder.  It seemed to be the one place he desired most to be, and he was never afraid of me again.

I told others:
“I once had a friend who I gave my shoulder to lean on, and in response he crapped all over me. Still, I enjoyed letting him have my shoulder, I just had to change my shirt after every time I spent with him.” ~Me

On reflection, many times have I been Boola in the bird cage, staying put where I was rather than venturing out; staying safe, holding still and remaining in my comfort zone. A job I hated, a relationship I wasn’t completely happy in, situations that didn’t fully suit me; places I remained in rather than venture out of the cage to seek better pastures.

I thought about the old man in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, who after spending so much of his adult life behind bars, in a prison cage, he feared early release and acted out so as to be sentenced to more time in the cage. When he was finally released and pushed back into the outside world, he feared too much the uncertain world outside of his comfort zone, his own chosen cage. Unable or unwilling to adapt, out of fear, past experience, or simply lack of confidence, he took his own life as a free man. He ended his life due to his fear of how to face his freedom. But was he really a free man outside of his former prison? No, he was still in his cage, the cage of his own design, caged by his fear and lack of confidence in his ability to start over.

There are those with a phobia of leaving their house, terrified of what might happen to them outside of their safety zone. Their fear of the bad that (probably won’t) might happen outweighs any thoughts of the good they might experience, and it keeps them caged, holding them back from experiencing a life of freedom. They live like Boola, caged by a comfort zone they caged themselves in, literally terrified of opening the door.

How many times have you caged yourself by fear, lack of confidence in your abilities, and refusal to try new things, to improve your life? Have you checked the lock on the door? That’s right; there isn’t a lock there at all. In many cases, the door stays closed because we haven’t pushed ourselves enough to push it open.

I see a lot of people in cages, held back by inhibitions or fear of the unknown. I also see people who appear to be out of cages, going about their lives happy and stable, but yet never truly free. They believe themselves free, subservient to no one, as that invisible cage of their subconscious yet holds them back from what they really want in life; what they’re truly capable of.


And Boola, my beloved friend Boola, how did he finally resolve his fear of unfamiliar surroundings and of exploring new ventures? Well, one day my roommate left the front door open to bring stuff in, forgetting that the cage was open too. Boola saw the inviting blue sky which he’d only formerly seen through the adjacent window, and answered the call. He flapped hard and soared off into the free air and open sky, never to be seen or heard from again. No letters, no phone calls, no hand-written notes by carrier pigeon; not a peep heard, and no word from Boola the bird. He finally overcame his fear, his inhibitions, and freed himself in the process.

“If you love something, set it free; if it comes backs it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was.” ~Richard Bach

Sometimes I wonder about him. Is he happy, is he safe? Does he miss me, my presence, my shoulder; does he miss his home? Then I reflect on the cage and remember where he is now. Free as a bird, free as the sky; he IS home, and he is free.

What cage is holding you back?

Nicknames and Monickers

I was asked recently, indirectly via a friend's status, if I had any nicknames growing up. Indeed I did.As a teen, I was called Prego by some because it was a variation of my real last name. And because I enjoyed the Godfather films and the character Don Corleone, my buddy Steve called me Don Ron in my early teen years.

When I was 17 and 18 I often had my camera with me when I spent my summers at Otter Lake campground in Pennsylvania, taking photos of myself and friends and the things we did. Because of that, somebody called me "Ronnie Kodak" and the name stuck and for years after people called me Ronnie Kodak or Kodak. The name followed me down to Florida when I moved there at 20, and even on the cruise ship I worked and lived on in 1991, my name tag read “Ronnie Kodak”, and my boss called me Kodak all of the time.

That was 30 years ago when I received that nickname and there are friends to this day who still call me Kodak.





What about you? Do you or did you have a nickname? If so, what was it, what did it mean, and how did you get it?

So Many Untold Stories

Everything has a story. I see a ship out at sea, sitting on the horizon, and I wonder what is going on inside. What the crew are doing, what sort of lives do they have waiting at home? So many untold stories are inside there. I look up and see an airplane, that tiny sliver of silver high up in the sky. So many people aboard; what are they doing, where are they going, what are they thinking about at that moment? Are any of them looking out their window, wondering about the people on the ground and what those people are doing? So many untold stories were up there.



I was on a train to Tampa a few years ago, gazing out the window, taking photos of the things I saw. Some things passed by too quickly to snap. At one point we were passing a large field beside the tracks when I noticed a red Firebird in the middle of it. I don’t recall the year or much about it, except that it looked worn and unmaintained. There might have been no engine in it for all I knew, but I had no way of making that determination. I grew curious about it. Whose was it? How did it get into the middle of the field, and why was it left there? I also wondered how many others aboard that train and others like it spotted that Firebird; how many shared the same curiosity about it. Catching sight of that car wasn’t the same as seeing a famous landmark or a particular event, but regardless potentially hundreds if not thousands of people each year shared the same chance as I of catching sight of that abandoned car, a car with an untold story
When we rode through Lakeland I thought it very odd that all the streets were empty. There was no traffic, no people walking around. It wasn’t too early in the day so I don’t have any idea why the city that day seemed like a ghost town but there was a story to tell there, I’m sure.

There is a line of trees outside of where I used to work, and one tree in particular had caught my eye when I daydreamed out the windows.The foliage was full and thick, with what looked like clumps of green where the leaves seemed to be thicker than in other areas. It was just a tree, one among millions across the surface of this world, but that one reminded me of the tiny trees with plastic foliage clumped together that dotted the landscape of my HO-scale train set I had as a child.

(An HO-scale tree. ^ Not the actual tree I had in my train set but one just like it.)

My father had gotten me involved and interested in toy trains, a hobby he equally enjoyed. The train-set sat atop a flat wood board which itself sat atop a pool table when it wasn’t being used, in a spare room in my house that was my playroom. I had a cousin with a bad leg, and once when we were playing pool he tripped and fell so hard against the wall that the plaster broke and his body fell into the space between the walls, causing a gaping hole in the formerly white smooth wall surface. When my father yelled up from downstairs asking what that thud was, I yelled back: “Larry just fell through the wall!”
My father was not too happy about that.

So you see, that tree outside the window of my old job was a storyteller, and those were the stories it reminded me of.


I challenge you to look out your window and tell me what you see. Does it have meaning to you; is there a story there to be told? 

Mr Mojo Rising

All the world is but a stage
Each day of our life, a scripted page
I am good at who I am, I should be a sage

Why do I feel such anxiety, though I see the light?
Even the confident can have their mojo take flight
Hell, even Pavarotti has had stage fright

On the stage of life I could perform in top gear
If I stand by my goals and master my fear
I've had bad luck, but this is the last bad year
A winner is meant to win, and I'm almost there

Hear me out, friend, my message is true
I'll do it; and if I can, so can you
In your heart you know the script, page by page…
So command your performance, and master your stage.


Are you ready?

The Dance of Life

I was at the Bar Mitzvah of my friend’s son three weekends ago. From my table I watched the entertainment crew—comprised of a Master of Ceremonies and one young man and two cute young women-- as they kept the kids and teenagers energized on the dance floor all day. I took note of how at the start the floor was bare and the dance team had to coax the teens out and urge them to dance too. As soon as the teens were dancing along with them, there was fun being had, but they had still had to urge them to come out and dance; the teens still needed to be reminded that it was more fun on the dance floor than at their seats.

The dancers have to get others to move, get them dancing, get them to start having fun. They’re always smiling, always looking cheerful, always looking like they’re having fun—even when they’re not. Sometimes it’s an act, but they couldn’t pull it off if it wasn’t from their heart. Someone has to remind the others that it’s fun so that the others will dance too. So it is with life as well, and it reminded me of how I post inspirational message when I’m inspired, and sometimes when I’m not. I like to remind others to shine and urge them to shine too. Sometimes, I do it to remind myself of that. Quite often, I need it more than they do.
Later I wound up talking to one of the dancers. She was a young kid, maybe 20 years old, maybe 19. I joked with her that after dancing on the job all day the last thing she’d do at night with her friend was go out dancing. She joked back that after dancing all day the only thing she did for fun was sleep. I told her that she reminded me of the Energizer Bunny; she kept going and going and going. She replied that she loved doing what she did, that’s what kept her going; it was fun, so it was easy to stay energized for that long. Then she high-fived me and went back to work leading the kids into more dancing.
I’ll say this about her, that girl had it, she had the inner shine.

Something to Chew On: Symbolisms I Noticed in JAWS

This is a quick blog that I threw together one day with these thoughts fresh in my mind. It is the first of what may be several suppositions about comparisons, symbolism, and contrasts between different scenes, characters, or elements in films, whether intentional by the filmmakers or coincidental.


Let me begin by explaining where and how my thought process began regarding this topic. One day at work I was at my desk eating a muffin, and I was taking small bites so as not to stuff my mouth and be stuck with a mouth full of food when a call came in. This reminded of the hit man Jules in Pulp Fiction, who at the end of the film (which actually took place at the beginning of the story) was eating a muffin in the diner. He took small, careful bites, and chewed slowly, calmly. I just found it interesting to see a killer who lived a life of extreme measures such as stepping into danger, murdering people, and being involved in gunfights, to practice such calm and measured eating habits in his small, slow bites and chews.

 

This reminded me of Quint in the 1975 classic movie Jaws, when he was aboard his boat the Orca waiting for the shark to arrive. He was sitting in his fishing chair with the fishing pole in front of him, slowly, calmly taking tiny nibbles of a cracker, and chewing very slowly. He appeared very calm, patient, and peaceful. Obviously he had done that before and was well seasoned and experienced.


Later in the film at the Quint’s battle against the shark came to an end, we saw the shark swinging its head back and forth and chomping wildly with huge bites, while Quint struggled to avoid sliding down the deck into its mouth. When he ultimately did, the bite that the shark took resulted in an agonizing death and a bloody end for the vengeful shark hunter.

 

Now, what I made notice of may be silly, but the comparison between Quint’s small, slow, methodical bites, and the shark’s huge, fast, wild bites was a blaring contrast to me. I realize of course that the cracker scene was meant to display Quint’s experience and calm patience, while doing something he excelled at, though I can’t help but think that it was filmed and included for the visual contrast; as well as the irony of the shark hunter who so calmly and slowly ate the cracker while hunting the shark, then being eaten so quickly and violently by the same shark.

 


What do you think?
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------



I shall end this blog with a few interesting bits of Jaws trivia for you to take a bite out of:

1-The producers of the film have admitted that had they read the novel that the film is based on, had they read it more than once, they would not have made the film knowing how difficult the filming would be.

2-Along the same lines, author Peter Benchley went on to say that if he had known about the actual behavior of sharks, he would have never written the novel.

3-Robert Shaw had a bad drinking problem that translated over to problems on the set, and through numerous failed takes he kept messing up the USS Indianapolis scene because, you guessed it, he was drunk (ironically in a sequence where they were supposed to be drunk). They wasted an entire day and still didn't get the scene done, and everyone was upset and Spielberg was upset with Shaw. Later that night, after they had gone home, Shaw called up the director and said he felt lousy and asked for another chance to film the scene. They returned to the set and Shaw, by that time sober, nailed the entire scene in just one take, as well as somewhat ad-libbing which added to the story's effect.

-Quint's descent into obsessive madness, if it could be called that, was very reminiscent of Captain Ahab's obsession to kill the whale in Moby Dick. In fact, Spielberg had wanted to include a pre-hunt scene of Quint watching the film of Moby Dick to further the comparison between the two, but he wasn't able to obtain the rights to use the film. Robert Shaw's dialogue, ironically, was to include him commenting on how fake the whale prop looked in the film.

 

Further trivia: My first viewing of Jaws, when I was six years old, frightened me so badly that I developed a phobia of dark waters and vulnerability from below, an ever present fear that remains with me still. Talk about a movie taking a significant place in one's heart, huh?