A Message From Mom.....

This is an actual note my mother sent to me more than a few years ago. She was just beginning to show signs of Bipolar Disorder and up until this point we always looked at our mother as an enigmatic elf-like creature that was not like any other on our block. I was living in a " deficiency " apartment in NYC and life in Hell's Kitchen was strange enough for me there. My next door neighbor wore a flannel shirt wrapped around her entire face and head each and every time she left her apartment. There was a deaf homeless woman who would bang on an old non-working electric piano wearing a moth eaten faux ermine cape and a Burger King crown. On the front of the piano was a sign written in what appeared to be either fingernail polish or blood that read," I Rote thiss". My mother at this point was one of the most sane people I knew.
My father, an architect and my mother, a musician turned hausfrau, lived in the midwest at the time and were parents to 4 children that had scattered in the wind like milkweed spores around the country. A brother in Vegas, a gay sister in Denver, and a gay brother in Oklahoma City. Yes, 3 gay children out of 4 dispelling the idea that being gay is a choice. In our case the common denominator was terrible cooking and weekly trips to family burial grounds. But these stories are for another time. We were the family that Norman Rockwell forgot to paint. My mom truly enjoyed writing wether it be correspondence or just small stories or verse. I remember one time my sister and I were digging through one of mom's bottomless boxes of photo's and clippings in an attempt to put them in some sort of order. Hundreds of photographs of various family members, some we recognized, others looked like they were either members of Ma Barkers clan or were the next door neighbors of Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln were in there. There were also various photos of grave sites. When we were placing the pictures in file boxes, I asked mom what these photos should be filed under. She thought and said, " Just write down Dead People". My sister then found a poem that mom had written when she was a teenager. It was entitled," I Knew A Little Black Faced Girl". Neither of us said a word but we were both thinking the same thing. When did my mom find the time to be a civil rights activist?
On one hot, sticky July day in the city I received my weekly letter from home. These were usually filled with the minutia of my parents day to day life going from doctors appointments to the grocery store to a doctors appointment to the post office to a doctors appointment etc. Todays letter was shorter than usual but, well..... here it is.


Dear Rocky, What a beautiful day it is here today. I've decided to hang the wash out on the line like grandma used to do but we don't have a clothes line so I just got on a ladder and pinned them to the gutters on the house. It took me awhile but I got everything up there but your dad's socks. I hope they don't blow into the Vandergraffs yard( smiley face).
Your dad and I have been down with colds and the dog is sneezing too. The cat seems to be alright but the parakeet was sneezing as well. I hope we all make it ( smiley face).
How are you doing? Is it hot there? How is school? Are you coming home this summer? what color are your sheets? Let me know.
Well, better go check that laundry. Sure don't want it all over the neighborhood( smiley face).
Sure do love you, buddy. Take care, Mom


P.S. Your sisters girlfriend shot herself in the chest ( frowny face).