Let’s do something different today. Rather than talking about Mom’s death 25 years ago, let’s talk about her life, and an event in her youth, 50 years before her death, that perhaps helps us understand her a little better. In 1939, when she was 6, The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow was released. I am not sure when she first went to see it but the movie and the song capture much of Mom.
The movie marks the transition of cinema from black and white to color. For mom the visual splendor of Oz remained with her long after her vision had faded. The audio splendor of Over the Rainbow never left her. And the narrative of that song points at many aspects of Mom’s soul: dreams come true, life after death, unwavering faith.
So let me share a memory of my mother with you. Mom is at her piano, playing, “by ear,” with family and friends gathered around her. She played Chopin, Broadway, Gershwin, perhaps even Over the Rainbow. She’d take requests. She played the piano the way she lived her life. With gusto, conviction, passion, and love.
By the time her children were sitting around the piano listening to her play, her vision had faded, she saw at best some faint shadows, so she played by ear. Many, many pianists play by ear, and there are those of us too lazy to practice reading music, and playing be ear can be an easy way out. But for mom it was not just that she played by ear…
As a young child and into her late teen years, Mom studied piano, took lessons, and loved every minute of it. She read music. She loved playing sheet music and often went with her father (Gramps, Bapa) to buy newly released songs, including Over the Rainbow! All of that was shaken to its core and sorely tested as she began, at 17, to lose her vision. Soon she could no longer “read” music, she had to feel the music and play what she heard. Unable to “see” the notes with her eyes, she had to feel them. Play them. Even while losing her sight she found a way to adapt rather than quit and continued to play the instrument she loved. To the best of her ability, Mom, indeed, Mom’s family, lived by that creed.
As a young girl Mom saw her father, an extraordinarily strong man physically, a man with willpower and character in abundance, the son of German immigrants with perhaps just a touch of stubbornness, struggle against a crippling accident that robbed him not only of his sight but of many of his dreams. But Mom saw more, much more. She watched her father’s daily refusal to let the loss of his sight stop him from living as full a life as possible. She also watched as her father sensed, listened, and perceived much that the sighted could not see no matter how good their eyesight.
She also saw her mother, a woman forced by circumstance to find a way to make a living for her family. This woman, her mother, our Grandmother, had earlier refused to let her father’s behavior permanently separate her from her siblings. Nor did she allow that terrible accident to destroy her chance to build a family with her husband. Mom saw two parents who, though dealt a bad hand at the card game of life, not only did not fold the hand but played it for all it was worth.
So Mom was surrounded by this quiet determination in her home. It is no surprise, then, that she grew into a young woman with character, willpower, and determination. Of course a word of caution here. It was not good to be on the wrong side of Mom’s character, willpower and determination! I’ve often said that 9 years after Mom died I finally learned to tell her “no.” Disagreeing with Mom and her convictions was not for the faint of heart.
Mom also enjoyed an enormous well of faith and here I mean religious faith. How do I explain Mom’s faith? Well, on one level, Mom certainly was convinced that there was a special place, a technicolor paradise, over the rainbow. But Mom’s faith was much more than a belief in Oz (the afterlife or heaven). She was grounded in the values, traditions and practices of her faith and Church. Mom was serious in a way hard to explain today about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned. And praying. She lived what she believed.
*Over the Rainbow* captures some of Mom’s spirituality.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true
Mom had big dreams, and many questioned how those dreams could come true as her sight continued to fade away. Nazareth College, marriage, and making a family, somehow they all did come true. Not without a fair amount of suffering and sacrifice, but they really did come true.
So today rather than simply remembering the day Mom went Over the Rainbow 25 years ago, let’s remember Mom’s life, how she lived it, her spirit and soul so captured by a song and a movie, released 75 years ago. A woman who saw much that those with sight did not. A woman of faith, character and determination, of strong opinions, who lived her values, loved her family and her Church, and who’s spirit remains with us today.
If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow who oh why can’t I?