Mom's Day - The 10 Secrets of Being Mary

I was thinking about the best advice I ever received and I realized that what had stood the test of time was more actions than words.

My mom's actions, throughout her life, set forth a template for how to live life to the fullest.

On this Mother's Day I thought I'd share a few of her secrets.

When my mom passed away a few years ago I was asked by my siblings to give the eulogy.

I talked to my brothers and my sister and compiled a list of their memories and mine. She inhabited her body and mind fully, delighted in mystery, used the scientific method, showed me that my family was bigger than I thought, taught me that I was born in a wealth without bounds, showed me true grit, and silently advised me to shut up and hold tight.

At the funeral I thought I'd make it just about up to the introduction and break down. I could feel my body rebelling against me, legs shaking, chest heaving for air as I walked to the front of the chapel. As I looked down on her casket, out on our family and friends (some I had not seen since childhood), up at the light streaming through the stained glass, over at her little brother. I knew I'd be fine. She deserved a good word in honor of her shining life and love.

I took a deep breath and told the world about growing up with Mary Margaret McManus as my mom.

The 10 secrets of being Mary

1 that light in her eyes.

She had a playful intelligence that couldn't be dimmed. She would laugh and smile and play word games and when we'd sit around the dinner table we'd always learn new words, my dad would write them down and puzzle over them (he acting the naive blue collar mechanic, she the patient teacher). She loved sharing her knowledge. Even when her body was more burden than fortress her mind was alight, her eyes would shine.

2 the scientific method (the family as experimental medium)

My mom was a scientist, a researcher and later a school teacher. We were her most ambitious experiment. We drank tang, mixed powdered milk, ate moon bars used by astronauts, invented meatzas (the carnivore's pizza that shuns the idea of crust and just makes it all meat and sauce all the way through). She was doing something right, each child grew to be bigger and more strapping than the last (oldest was 5'10", second was 5'11", third... well, fourth was 6'4" and fifth was 6'5" and some change). We were a red headed culture that grew far past our petri dish. We learned from her that science was power, that knowledge held the key, and that the world was open to us.

3 keys to the kingdom

It was a little thing, I didn't even remember it until my sister brought it up. My mom had the keys to everyone's house in the neighborhood and they hung on the wall in our kitchen. Even when the kid down the street that I was currently in a heated war with over some world shaking childhood slight, even when he would come to our door, locked out of his home, perfect moment for revenge... no words were said... I gave him the keys under the universal sign of neutrality and peace that was my mother's will. I learned that the community was just a bigger part of the family (I wish I could be just a bit more like my mom, I fear that I channel her mother more than her sometimes with a fiery glare and desire to spit steel bits of caustic humor when I should just chill... I'm working on it though).

4 mi casa es su casa or the six degrees of Mary McManus

We were wealthy beyond imagination because we had a place to call our own, a house, a home. She loved to meet new people, she invited them home and if they needed a place to stay for a night to lay there weary heads or a week or a year, they could stay. We didn't lock the doors until everyone was home and safe for the night. She opened her arms wide (and she had long arms, which you'd know if you ever cracked wise or punched your little brother in the back seat of the car when she was driving).

5 wealth without bounds

I thought the powdered milk was just a part of the experiment, the straining of clumps between our teeth a little game my mom would play on us to test our courage. I thought everyone walked the alleys to find furniture for the porch, parts for the cars. I just assumed we were rich without bounds. We had encyclopedias, books covered every open space on walls from floor to ceiling, we had tools like clothes irons and garbage bags to build epic inflatable fortress cities that spanned the entire first floor of the house on steamy summer days. We had things that could cut things and things that could put them back together in new and odd ways, and a basement full of oscilloscopes and vacuum tubes and cigar box theremins and hovercrafts and other Popular Mechanic wonders that brimmed with adventure (when they weren't blazing from some mishap... firemen not far behind).

I think with the engine parts in the living room and the rocket powered skateboards and VWs with no bodies (or physical means of support for such things as steering wheels and seats) cruising the streets as we dreamed of sand dunes, we were actually more like the poor white trash black sheep of the neighborhood. We never knew it, we never doubted for a moment that this was what it was to be rich without bounds.

6 a glass of water and a little reverse psychology

When I was about four I threw a temper tantrum and would not, could not, stop. My mom grabbed a big glass of water and said "stop now or you will be very wet my friend," and I kicked and screamed and cried and she threw that water in my face and I stopped. She had a way of raising children that said everything was alright. You could do no wrong, but if you stepped over the line you would get wet. I laughed a bit when my son was three and a half years old and throwing a tantrum and without thinking I grabbed a giant glass of water and said "Stop now or you will be very wet my friend." I have now proven that it works in two successive experiments in which the subjects have never exhibited tantrums of that sort again. If you're tracking this of course it is all part of number 2, the scientific method. As an aside, her brother contacted me later and told me that there had been three such experiments, as he had performed it on his eldest child to grand effect as well.

7 fire and brimstone and indestructible women

Raising a child is pretty complicated stuff. My mom was raised by someone who really knew how to light up the fire and brimstone. My grandmother was a piece of work. I mean that in a wonderfully Irish way. She was an electron microscopist among other things during her life, raised an amazing woman and all her children were wonders to behold from scientists to engineers to captains of industry. My grandmother set the tone and was the template for spit and vinegar, carried a pearl handled .22 and at one point ran a business as a single mom in the male/mob dominated stockyards of Chicago in the 30s. I think I channel my grandmother more than my mom sometimes when dealing with my own child (minus the shillelagh).

I often try to think of how my mom would deal with things. In the same situation that I might just rail at the moon with much gnashing of teeth, she would come up close and say "well friend, what are we going to do about this one," as if she were a co-conspirator. But she was an indestructible woman and I don't think she passed away at all as long as we channel her occasionally as our better nature. Take a bit of her advice.

8 unconditional love

I saw for forty seven odd years how my mom and dad lived together and there was never a question that they were in love, that we were loved. I never heard an argument, never stumbled upon a fight simmering below the surface. It was us against the world and the world wasn't such a bad place.

I remember saying to my mom at 18 that "I don't think I want to go to college, I'm going to Atlanta to hang with a childhood friend, become a roadie for the Police, maybe become a film maker for this channel called MTV that has just been born" and I remember sitting on the porch swing telling her this, knowing that in our family of course you went to college, got a Masters or PhD you must become a scientist and she said "ok, we'll be here, the house will be here. Good luck."

That was how she raised us, she gave us a little room to grow (and knew all about how to exercise catholic guilt). Sure enough 6 months later I was back, hungry for school, not quite ready to face the music of real life (though sporting a fetching bleach blond razor cut flock of seagulls inspired haircut), ready to fail at anything in college rather than have to live the life I had just left in the "hurry up and wait" land of video production. Unconditional love was just a part of being Mary. She would always hold you, no matter what crazy scheme you got up to. A hug would pull you back.

9 the grand adventure and that light in her eyes

Everything was a grand adventure to my mom. When my new wife and my son and I were embarking on a trip to Arizona (from Chicago) and only made it to Springfield, Illinois before the oil rushed out of the engine in a glorious midnight burst of black smoke. I called my mom and dad and 12 hours later there was another car sitting in Springfield (they enlisted my brother and his wife to drive the spare car and of course never left home without a VW towbar kit in the trunk). They would go see a movie and maybe catch a bite to eat, tow the VW back and we would continued on our way. No big deal. Just another weekend adventure.

About a year or two before she passed away I had a chance to have one last adventure with her. We spent some time on a road trip across the country. We had to spring her from some evil doctors in a SWAT operation to save her from a slow decline towards death at the hands of a well meaning but decidedly barbaric hospital establishment on the shores of the Atlantic sea. We carried her across the country. She couldn't walk or even sit up in the car, I had to carry her like a child from car to wheelchair to hotel bedroom and back. It was just another grand adventure that she cracked wise about and we had a wonderful time. I struggled with embarrassment and guilt and shame at not coming sooner, not doing more, not beating the doctors to within an inch of their lives for such a sham bit of voodoo. I finally got to show her that I was big enough to hold her up for once. That I wasn't at all embarrassed to carry her and make up for all the times that she had carried me.

10 shut up and hold tight (squeeze til they squeak)

Now I should just shut up and hold someone, because that was her most basic and profound advice. Just hold them as tight as you can, until they squeak. That's what she would do--did I mention that she was a big woman and had long, strong arms?

I think she held the world, her family, her friends together in her arms more times than I could ever have imagined.

After the burial my mom's little brother came up to me and gave me a hug and thanked me for my words, for the small glimpse into what it was like to be raised by Mary. For sharing what he was too choked up to say.

I came back home adrift. Who would I impress now? What did it matter? I was loose in the world as if the last ropes that had moored me to the surface had been cut free. It would have been easy to just lose it at that point. To walk away from the buzzing noise of a long lifetime stretching out ahead of me with no anchor. I couldn't work up the energy to care about much of anything for months.

Of course if I told my mom about such small self-centered and pitiable thoughts she'd have just smiled and given me a hug. She'd have said "well friend..."