I See You, Mom

During the heat of the lockdown, when we were all cleaning out closets and filling bags for Good Will, my sister came across a withered satin box tied closed with a gold ribbon. 

In it were torn ticket stubs, a post card, a horse racing page from a 1950s newspaper, a Valentines card, a typed Dorothy Parker poem and...dozens of handwritten love letters written and sent between my (now deceased) parents. My dad was 24 and in the Navy at the time. My Mom was a 22 and living in Brooklyn with her parents. The rubber band holding the them together was barely hanging on. 

$3.80 for a balcony seat!!!

More about the letters later. 😳

Also in the box were drawings. Many of them. By my mother. Drawings of young glamorous starlets with tiny waists, 1940s coifed hair, full lips and impossibly long eyelashes. They were strangers to me. 

Who were these women. What do they represent? Why so many of the same-ish girl? 

When I was little I vaguely remember my mother doodling faces but I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. My mind was on ‘Can I go out and play’ and ‘Do I have to”?  

I can’t help but wonder especially with Mother’s Day approaching, do we really see our mothers for all they are? Do they give us passes for not getting to know them better because after all, they are (and always will be) the grown-ups in the room — wanting us to live our lives to the fullest and not be so concerned with theirs? At least that’s the way my Mom was. 

I showed the drawings to my husband Adam who said…they all look like her. In a way, he was right. This is the look my mom aspired to when she was in her 20’s. And she succeeded. I have photographs to prove it. 

I might have taken more notice of her skills if she had continued drawing as I got older. But she didn’t. Why did she stop? Was she bracing for my sister and I to become teenagers? 

Or was it because she took a part-time bookkeeping job to supplement my father’s humble income and didn’t have as much time on her hands for her own goals? 

Or did she lose heart when her face surrendered to gravity and her body eclipsed the age it was even possible to remotely resemble this prototype? 

All I know is she saved the drawings. That means they meant something to her. Was is a metaphor for hanging on to what she might have been? Maybe she had aspirations of becoming a fashion illustrator or a Mad Men ad-woman. My mother is someone who I never thought of as having any regret. But who knows. Maybe I don’t want to know. 

Anyway Mom…if you’re listening…I found the satin box with your beautiful women. I see them and so I see you. They are lovely, Mom. And I’ll keep them safe and cherish them forever. Whoever they are. I thought about finding them a new studier box… Bed Bath Beyond has plenty to choose from. But that satin one is what you chose…it’s where you wanted them to reside. 

We understand each other a little better from what we leave behind don’t we? And it makes me sad to put them away where no one will ever see them. So I’ll make sure to hand them down to granddaughters (one of whom draws amazing faces of women as well, hmm wonder where she got that from! ) and hopefully they will be able to make sense in their own hearts and minds of this part of you you left behind.

And, I’m sharing some right here on this thing I call a blog.  

Oh and about those letters! In case you’re wondering…yes I read a few. Ok…more than a few. I was reluctant at first. They were private and personal. Would my mother and father want anyone, much less their daughter, to hear what they had to say to each other in the heat of courtship? Then again perhaps they would want to share and be remembered for how true their love was. I took a chance. 

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