Tribute to my mother, Joanne Shechter, 23 July 1926 - 13 January 2011

When my mother died two and a half weeks ago, I knew to expect much of what happened, especially since I was the daughter who was geographically close by. My sister lives in Seattle, WA, so Andi & her partner needed to figure out flights, ground transport, clothes for nearly a week in a much colder climate. I live four blocks from my mother's condo. So with my mother's surrogate step-daughter, I met with the funeral home person, shopped, made calls, tried to comfort my mother's cat while her friends tried to comfort me.

What did surprise me was how quickly I took and found refuge in writing, although why that surprised me I don't know. I've been writing all of my life, from as early as I'm able to remember. So I sat with my notebook, jotting phrases, images.. When Pamela, the Cantor who would lead the funeral service, asked if I would like to say something, I said an immediate yes." What surprised me even more was how quickly and easily I was able to write something new. I hadn't written poetry in years, yet the poem came easily, quickly, although not effortlessly. And here it is, a poem in tribute to my mother, entitled "Petting My Mother's Cat."

Petting My Mother's Cat

Yours was the first face I ever saw
and my voice one of the last you would hear.
In between in the years between
we grew to know each other.
And yet we knew each other
from before the beginning when I –
infinitesimally small – grew
you cradling me your body providing
all I would need.
From infinitesimal to infant
I grew, and you knew my every movement
every turn every kick.
You knew me before I knew there was a “me” to know.
And we both grew from there and
from my emergent birth when, stubborn,
I at first refused to breathe.

Yours was the first face I ever saw –
so beloved so treasured a face for which
my small hands reached.
We each grew from those
earliest years and I learned.
I learned from you many things including,
I learned, my stubbornness. Yes,
I learned my stubbornness from you
and still prefer to call it
determination commitment
even stability.
You taught me and then two of us --
Thanks for my younger sister!! --
your values
of beauty
of justice
of steadfastness.
Where did you think
I derived my politics
if not from you?

Yours was the first face I ever saw
filled with love
with tenderness
with joy
with a fierce intelligence that grew
and a curiosity and thirst to know that opened
like the tulip fields in Holland that you loved.
The very day you died
we’d spent 20 minutes dissecting
the President’s speech the evening before.
You bequeathed all that and more
to your daughters – biological and chosen – and your
chosen grand-children.
As your bio-daughters grew & left home –
as I chose to come of age on another coast –
your surrounded yourself with your chosen family
gathering friends around you and
years later finally marrying Howard.

Yours was the first face I ever saw
and still sought on visits
from New York Berkeley
Cambridge Boston.
It was 37 years before
I returned to settle four short blocks
from you yet in a different city,
still prizing that at-this-point-only-proverbial distance
which even now kept closing.

Yours was the first face I ever saw
and watching I learned from you
your love of music
a love both wide and deep,
from the classics to Gershwin
Kurt Weil, Mahler, Edith Piaf.
So your embrace in the 1980’s of
Holly Near – California feminist radical
political lesbian musician – delighted me
more than you could ever know.
I learned so much from you ~~ cooking and
love of literature; baking and love of poetry;
a terrific sense of style – and finally and
especially love.
And if, in the necessary crises of being-mother –
being-daughter, if I ever doubted,
I never doubted your love.
Lately our connection sat comfortably with us.
We would relax in your den
on your wonderful red couch
with Sam the Cat between us.
Petting Sam and stroking his belly
we would talk about mostly
inconsequential things.
That is where most of life happens,
while petting a cat and talking
about inconsequential things.

Yours was the first face I ever saw and loved
and my voice perhaps the last voice
you heard, a voice telling you
of my love for you, abiding
and always, love.

©Patricia Shechter
16 January 2011

Love and Much Shalom to all,
Pat