14. Canning Tomatoes with Mom

When she was younger she looked just like the actress Susan Hayward.  She had auburn hair and hazel eyes that flashed when she was angry.  She was the center of attention wherever she went.  She loved to sing and dance and she was good at both.  More than anything, she loved to laugh.  She was a woman who made her own way in the world.  She was a feminist before anyone coined the term, a woman ahead of her time.  She was my mother. 

She fought for everything in her life.  She fought her way out of the brutality and ignorance that was the south in the fifties.  She left an alcoholic husband and moved her children north.  She was never afraid of work and considered earning a living an honorable thing. She only had an eighth grade education but that was an accomplishment.  She educated herself and learned to speak without the southern accent that made her sound ignorant.  The only job she could get was as a waitress but she made the most of that.  For most of my life she worked a split shift.  Going in for the lunch crowd and then taking a few hours to rest up and make dinner for us kids and then going back for the night shift. 

My mother was a wonderful cook.  She would hang out with the chiefs at the fancy restaurants where she worked and then try out the recipes at home.  When I was small she would put supper on the stove while I was at school and then "rest her eyes" on the sofa.  Later she would kiss me goodnight while I was still eating dinner.  She was crisp and clean and smelled of perfume and cigarettes. And she was loving and kind but busy and troubled and lonely sometimes.  When she left, the house was painfully empty and I never finished my dinner.  Later I'd fall asleep watching the Donna Reed show on television. 

My mother actually lived the dream for awhile after she married my stepfather.  He adored her and called her his vivacious little firecracker. He had a good job with a national food company and made enough money that she finally able to quit work.  She loved being a full time homemaker and she was good at it.  She learned to cook fancy dinners and when we moved to a little house in the suburbs she decorated it by making curtains and slipcovers.  She was “house proud" of that little house.  During the summer she'd work in the garden planting tomatoes and roses.  Or she’d go for coffee to chat with the neighbors.  My step-father was a serious bowler and they joined a bowling league. In fact we all learned to bowl.  Every Friday night we’d all go bowling and then have dinner at Scottie's Restaurant. Then on Saturday night, my Mom and my stepfather would go out dancing.  They practiced dancing in the living room as we all watched. My step-father taught Mom to waltz and fox trot and even tango.  They had parties with business friends and drank martinis. At Christmas, we had a huge Christmas party with all the kinfolk.  She cooked for days making special cookies and breads.  She remodeled the kitchen once, moving the stove and building an island in the center of the kitchen. She was an innovator.  She was like no one else’s Mom. 

I think she was happy then.  But it didn't last for long.  She was diagnosed with a tumor and a gas tank explosion rattled my stepfather's brain.  He was not the man she married after that. He was not the man any of us had grown to love after that.  The financial troubles forced us to move to the poor side of town.  It all took its toll.  They were never the same.  But I like to remember her before all that.  Looking like Susan Hayward.  Being happy and dancing in the living room with my stepfather. 

 

It was my Mother who taught me to hold on to the good times, to take a mental picture and hold it in my mind.  Keep it safe.  Like a book of photographs that I can flip through, I have all these memories safely tucked away because my mother taught me to savor the goodness in life.  She said to treasure those and try to let go of the pain.  And because of that, I remember an August in the "it's not the heat it's the humidity" Michigan Summer learning to can tomatoes with my mother.

My daughter was a toddler and my son was only a few months old when my mother showed up with bushel baskets full of red ripe tomatoes.  She’d been to the farmers market a got a deal on ripe tomatoes.  Not the supermarket kind that taste like watermelon rind, all meat and no flavor. But the good kind that smelled like summer heat.   She walked in the house with the tomatoes and said, "I got some juicy tomatoes!  Let's can us some good tastin’ maters!".  Heat or no heat, I was delighted! I had always wanted to learn to can but most of all I was loved working with my Mom. 

Unlike a lot of people nowadays, my Mom was not afraid of work, didn’t feel demeaned by it.  She embraced it like it was pleasure seeking.  She lived to learn new skills and saw each challenge as a chance for conquest.  When I was by her side as her able assistant, I was in paradise.  Whether we were planting roses, painting kitchen cupboards or canning tomatoes I loved working with my Mom.

We spent the day together, two women in the kitchen.  She showed me how to prepare the tomatoes and then the proper way to blanch them.  She showed me how to sterilize the jars and how to check the seal. The tiny kitchen was sweltering by the time we were done but we made dozens of jars of tomatoes, beautiful, delicious tomatoes.  As we worked together I didn’t realize that the bonus would be that I'd enjoy the taste of those tomatoes for years.  They became a special treat at our house.  You could use them in the sauce for Lasagna or Spaghetti or eat them all alone as a meal.  Either way they were delicious.  Those tomatoes were like little jars of sunshine from that long hot August.  They were treasure.  Opening them not only meant the sweetest tomatoes you ever tasted, but the sweetest memory – safely locked inside a jar.

I don't have very many good memories of my mother because for most of my life she struggled with mental illness. At her worst, she was mean crazy. Something would trigger the buried anger in her and it took over her life. When she was at her worst, she slid her false teeth around in her mouth, clinched her fists, stomped her foot hard and came at you like a freight train. You would be caught like a deer in the headlights.  No matter how old you were, you would be a child again. She was a force to be reckoned with. 

But that's not who she wanted to be and that's not how she started out  It took a great deal of brutality to create the woman I grew up with.  That's why I treasure the good memories I have of her.  That's when the person she could have been comes through making it all the more bittersweet. That's why I will always remember the taste of those canned tomatoes and the woman who taught me to can.  Who taught me how to love music, how to make fried chicken, and how to laugh out loud.  She taught me other things too.  Things I've spent a lifetime trying to unlearn.  But she gave better than she got and that's the best any of us can do. 

One morning I got a call from the Hospice nurse at the hospital where my Mom was.  My Mom wasn't expected to make it through the night and she offered to let me talk to her.  She said, "She's in a coma - but you don't know how much she's aware of and maybe there are things you want to tell her."  She was right. 

I talked to her for a while.  I told her I remembered how much she loved a good joke.  I would call her up whenever I heard a really good dirty joke and make her laugh.  Sometimes she'd scold me for my off color humor - but she laughed just the same.  I told her that my earliest memories are of the sound of her singing.  She wasn't a great singer but she loved to sing.  I remember old gospels and Grand Ole Opery tunes along with some Platters and Nat King Cole.  She was eclectic in her music.  I told her I remember that summer when we canned tomatoes.  Standing over the stove in the heat of a Michigan August and filling those jars with those plump red tomatoes. I told her I remember learning all about roses from her.  Working out in the yard with her to protect the new plants and nurture them till they could stand alone.  I told her I remember lots of good things.  I told her I know how hard she fought.  I told her I knew she was tired.  I told her that we would be alright and that she could rest now.  She didn't have to fight anymore. I told her that we would remember the best of her.  We'd let go of the hurtful memories.   I told her I loved her.  I told her goodbye.

About a half an hour later the same nurse called to say that my mother had died peacefully shortly after I spoke to her.  She thought my Mom was waiting to say goodbye to her daughters before she let go.  I believe her. 

That was on Mother's Day 2007.  I think of her everyday.

There are lots of women like my Mom.  They're never rich or famous and most of the time their own families don't really appreciate the road they've traveled.  So for all those women, like my mother, who worked their way out of poverty and brutality, I will celebrate you.  Thank you from all your children but especially your daughters.  Thank you for that spark that you passed on.  And thank you for the sweet taste of canned tomatoes. 

Goodnight Mama.  Sleep easy now.