1963 - the honeymooner

There’s a black and white photograph of mom from their honeymoon. Or, rather, an image of the woman who would eventually be my mother. While I’m sure she knew that children were to be the fruits of their marital activities, children like us were probably the last thing on her mind. Parents to be inevitably envision offspring of incredible fortitude, intelligence and discipline. Our mewling midnight demands for food and poopy diapers are but the first of decades of disappointment. We fight in the backseat of the car, complain of the heat when we should be enjoying the fair, hide makeup in our purses, drop out of school and get pregnant.

Mom did what she was supposed to do. She’s comfortably dressed in easy fitting capris and a pullover shirt. It’s easy to tell that she’s petite and in good shape, but she’s not sexy. Sexy was just not part of who she was brought up to be. Her Catholic parents raised a proper young woman who entered her marriage as a virgin. On her wedding night she bled and my father was pleased.

There’s very little about the little woman in this photo that I recognize as mom. She never grew fat but her form went through some warping and mishappening with work and childbearing. Her legs were never curvy, but this woman’s shins don’t show any of the thick veins I remember. She’s wearing a neat little watch on her wrist, which was probably the one I used to see in her bureau drawer. The purse in her arm is surprisingly small. I guess the purses didn’t begin to grow until later. The only feature on this woman I recognize and to this day would identify as truly my mother’s are the hands. They’re large, boney, and ready to do work.

They went to Michigan for their honeymoon. Michigan? Isn’t that the state that people try to leave, now? They came back early because of some parade that dad insisted on playing in. But the woman in this photograph, on her honeymoon, is a good girl. It’s 1963. She’s 23 years old – late for getting married back then. The look on her face is that of a purposeful hope that knows only its dreams of the future. She’s confident in her fairytale. She is a stranger compared to the thin, crooked backed, graying woman I know now as mom. Her comportment bears no resemblance to the woman who would warn me “never get married – you’re life is OVER when you get married!” She doesn’t look like she would be proud of me or much approve of what comes out of my mouth. She doesn’t look like someone who’d be my friend at all as I’m sure she’d have been astonished to think a rebellious artist would possibly come from her loins.

Two weeks after this picture is taken the woman in the photo would sit in her mother’s kitchen and confess “this was a mistake.” Too late. The babies were coming.