Yesterday, my siblings and I put on an 80th Birthday Bash for our mother. This was not a surprise, but rather a "you better be doing this for me" event that was orchestrated by Mom's guilt-induced tactics at every family occasion for the past year.
Given our collective meager budget, we opted for the church basement -- a place growing up where you were subject to every occasion that was to be commemorated: baptisms; confirmations; birthdays; anniversaries; graduations; holidays.
This basement conjured up a lot of memories for me, most of which were of the sacreligious variety: making out with Billy Campbell (eww, bad acne and goofy glasses) in the choir room closet, behind the gowns; drinking Boone's farm wine and smoking pot with my sister and other assorted youth group hoodlums in the room where old hymnals were put to weather and die. The place still had that musty smell mixed with old women's cheap perfume and moth balls.
We dressed it up as best as we could, having to resort to the same old rickety folding chairs as I remember 4 decades ago and putting disposable tablecloths and pink rose centerpieces over the very worn, rectangular tables that were literally on their last aluminum legs.
I can remember my sister and I being servers for the quarterly Ham dinners for the Men's group of the church and when we were in that very kitchen yesterday, the same dishes, platter trays and archaic coffee urns were still in use.
In fact, not a blessed thing (pun intended) had changed.
What was, however, resurrected for me was the joy and merriment of being with loved ones in this institution that I am well aware saved my Mother, giving her the strength she needed in order to keep our alcoholic home in some assemblance of order. I looked around the room at the many church members who literally watched me grow up right in front of their eyes. I wondered if they really knew the inside scoop of what was happening in our home, esp the suited man that would dutifully sit next to his wife on the end of the church pew, reeking of stale beer from the night before. These folks were my mother's anchors.
A number of people came up to me yesterday to tell me about how special my mother is, how she was a 2nd mom to them or how generous she has been with her time. I really took this in and did not experience the kind of contraction I may have in the past from that little one's perspective of feeling like she did not get this or did not see this. These are my mother's people, her true family -- just as I have found in my own spiritual community and in my AA fellowship.
I recognize that this Church was indeed (and perhaps still is) my mother's salvation. This is her Home.
Happy Birthday Mom. May you continue to age gracefully and healthily in God's loving arms.
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