I was walking into Lowe's the other day. A father and his two young sons were walking out. He was probably mid-forties. The kids were maybe eight and ten.
I'm in that phase between the real heavy lifting of book writing when I pay more than normal attention to the world around me. My wife has to repeat herself less (she might disagree). I notice things. Forty-thousand words and two hundred pages from now I might as well be living on another planet. But for the time being I am firmly planted in the here and now — or as close as I am capable.
One of the little boys said nothing at all. For the purpose of our story, he might as well not have been there, other than the fact that his presence broadened the impact of the event which had just taken place. "Why did you call that woman Karen," the older child asked his dad. "Was her name Karen?"
As much as I would have loved to have stuck around to hear his answer, I had to keep walking. My amazement would have been too obvious. And as I kept going, a tinge of sadness came over me: I had missed what sounded like an amazing in-store confrontation. I had an image of that guy getting cross enough with a fellow customer to actually launch a socially-conscious insult in front of his two young and apparently innocent children. What outrageous thing did she say to cause that? And what was her response? Because, I mean, if she was truly a "Karen" in the truest sense of the term, she would have had a doozy of a comeback.
I will never know.
My mom was a Karen, though back when I was a kid they used terms like "handful" or "difficult" or perhaps even "bitch" behind her back. She did not know her place, or even recognize that such a thing existed. She was also not racist or uptight, in the way that some consider the modern definition.
I mention this great coincidence because my mom died four years ago today. This is not a warm and fuzzy homage to the memory of Rosemary Hope Fitzgerald Dugard. We had our wars. I am finally at the point where I sometimes miss her. I made my peace in her final days, sitting on the edge of her bed at the board and care to get every last bit of animosity off my chest. She lived deep inside her mind by then, so I'm not sure my apology/therapy moment made it past the outer barriers of her awareness.
But that Karen comment, along with today's anniversary, made me look back at those many times she spoke her mind — loudly, I should add. To this day, I make sure the windows are closed when an argument starts, thinking of all those times my mom's screaming ricocheted through the neighborhood. Her outspoken behavior always embarrassed me. But I now have to admit that her temper was often in defense of us kids. She was our greatest advocate, at a time when no one used that word. That year my dad was off fighting the Vietnam War must have been horrible for her, all alone with five young children. She could be extremely anxious. My mom was also pretty handy with the wooden spoon or just the back of her hand, though that is another blog post for another day. Let's just say that for a woman standing 5'4" she had amazing strength.
But I'm starting to miss my mom. I find myself doing things she did, like reading the paper cover to cover each morning and cutting out interesting stories — only instead of scissors, I take a picture with my phone and send it to the individual who might find it most interesting. I have her quick temper. I share her fascination with the most arcane trivia. I obsess about food. Every time I look at a rose bush, I hear her voice, because she knew the name and best ways to fertilize every type of rose. In my more eccentric moments, Calene tells me I'm acting like my mother. It used to be an insult. Now I think it's pretty cool.
Late in life, before the dementia, my mom developed a passion for the f-bomb. Not all the time, but precisely as the word should be used — sparingly, for devastating effect. I'm surprised it took her so long to pick up the habit. She was a woman who spoke her mind without a filter, always in the Boston accent that she never lost, even after forty years living in California. She would have crushed that guy in Lowe's.
Four years in, I'm starting to miss my mom.