Mom

Imogene Dee Summers in 1946

My mother was a gorgeous young woman with the curly black hair and green eyes of her Irish ancestors and the high cheekbones, full lips, and firmly-set jaw of her Cherokee ancestors. She was tall at five foot seven inches, and slender, with good legs and broad shoulders. She also had the voice of an angel. As a girl she sang in church and in the Ann Arbor High School a cappella choir, and years later sang professionally with my dad’s jazz band. I idolized her.

As the teenage bride of a charming, but womanizing young man in his early twenties, Mom gave birth to me four months after her nineteenth birthday. My brother John was born two years later. After repeated abuse that included a pistol whipping once, Mom filed for divorce and custody of her two toddlers. She was fearless.

When I was five Mom married Bill. My birth father was more than happy to give John and me up for adoption by Bill because the agreement they made with the judge wiped out his back child support and alimony payments. No more jail time. Bill gave the three of us—Mom, John, and me—a new last name and we gave him a new first name: Dad. Mom was a survivor.

Mom and Dad were very happy. They had lots of friends and they did lots of things together. They were always smooching when Dad came home from work, and I fantasized that my life would be just like that when I grew up and got married. When I was seven, my brother Grant was born and when I was ten, my brother Keith was born. Mom was my role model.

Dad decided to leave his job at Argus Camera in Ann Arbor and start his own piano tuning and repair business. He worked nights as the piano man in a number of jazz and big band groups and days building his new business. Mom sat for hours at her massive old library-table desk and made piano tuning appointments for Dad. At some point she began singing with Dad’s jazz band, and then she also sat for hours at our grand piano, transposing Dad’s music to a key in which she could sing with the band. She was a trouper.

Mom talked to me about life and people and I could tell her anything. She was never shocked and always gave me the real story about the questions I asked. She was my best friend. Once in ninth grade science class the boys were yucking it up in the row behind me, and I asked them what was so funny. Intending to shock me, one of them told me they were talking about rubbers. This hurled them into fits of teenage boy hooting and sniggering. “What’s that?” I wanted to know. When they wouldn’t tell me, I said, “Fine; I’ll ask my mom.”

“Yeah, right! Go ask your mom,” they sneered.

“I will!” I replied. This drew peals of laughter from them.

As soon as I got to science class the next day one of the boys asked me if I had asked my mom what rubbers are. “Of course I did.”

“Did she tell you?” they wanted to know.

“Of course she did.” They were horrified. I gloated.

After a few years of night club and dinner club gigs, the effect of the long days and late nights began to show and to affect their marriage. They smoked and drank all night while working. We’ve been to those places where an appreciative patron sends a drink over to the piano player or the vocalist; I suspect that Mom and Dad never turned one down. They began to fight all the time, and by day we kids walked and talked softly to keep from waking the sleeping, recovering combatants.

When I left home to attend stewardess training in 1968, my mother was devastated. She had always told me she didn’t know what she would do without me—I was her little helper. She was proud of me and angry at me for deserting her. I was immature enough to think that I could be her friend and rescue her from her prison by sharing my world with her. That, of course, made her resentful. In addition to her alcoholism, she became addicted to Valium and pain killers. Mom continued to decline and our relationship unraveled. During the remainder of her life, she was forced to go through at least three alcohol recovery programs, simply waiting them out until she could get another drink.

When someone is on a pedestal the height at which I placed my mom, it’s a long fall back to Earth. I was angry at her and disappointed. She had taught me that I should not be weak and she had turned out to be weak. Perhaps it was her Irish and Cherokee ancestry that predetermined her fate. No offense is intended here to anyone living or dead of Irish or Native American descent, but both nationalities have the reputation of being prone to alcoholism. Her father was an alcoholic and so was her brother.

Mom was a most human human being. In her youth, she fought hard to save herself and her children from harm and unhappiness. In the end she succumbed to her demons and preferred to numb herself rather than keep fighting. I owe my life to her. She taught me to stand up for myself and to fight for my loved ones. If only she had been able to keep fighting for herself.

I miss you, Mom.
Love,
Donna