I sat, held her hand, and watched her eyes become beautiful in new ways.
In Memory
My mother was a dancer. Some summers, as a kid, she didn’t have shoes.
She moved to town and went to high school.
After that, she went away to Kingston and became a nurse.
She wanted to become a nurse ever since she was a kid, because of two women who used to live down the road. They were both nurses and they made these amazing little sandwiches that involved peanut butter, mashed banana and a loaf of bread cut sideways. They came out as little mouth-sized spirals. After having them for first time, Mom knew that she wanted to be a nurse.
Somewhere in there and after that, she met Donald Malcolm Harrison - Massy to his friends. They easily caught each other’s eye.
That’s how they became my mother and father.
I’d say that they were my brother’s parents too, but I still have other theories as to where John came from.
Mom graduated from nurse’s training in 1958 - at least that’s what it says on the tiara that she keeps hidden away.
Early on in her career as a registered nurse, she worked with mental patients – a job that just barely prepared her for the task of eventually living with four men… My father, my grandfather, my brother and I.
Jaki Ryder, Jaki Harrison – Mom; she was mother to us all who lived at or passed through 18 Victoria Street. Even the cats. Maybe even especially the cats.
There was a time before John & I came around, a time Mom and Dad referred to as B.C., or “Before Children”. That was a time of travel and of golf – Jamaica, Mexico, France – anywhere Mom would look good on a beach.
And Mom was beautiful. Movie-star beautiful. Anyone with a memory or a photograph can attest to that.
When John came around, in 1965, that pretty much put an end to their leisure time. Thankfully, they had a very good second act, when they were able to travel again - years later - where they were both retired.
Keeping in mind that I didn’t arrive until 1968, and that I am more than likely a little hung-over right now, please forgive me if I have any of these details wrong.
I’m trying to avoid specifics here anyway. I figure that the fewer people I mention, the less likely I give anyone the offence of being left out.
The first Doctor that I could ever remember was Dr. Ryan, a mild mannered Irish physician of the military extraction. Mom worked as his office nurse and go-to-girl for just about the same number of years as she did the next former-military Irish Doctor she would eventually come to help manage.
Mom’s third act came in the form of being a patron of the arts, lover of fine wine and good books - along with enthusiastically participating in Tai Chi and yoga. She loved to read and she loved music. She liked opera, but not all opera. She never listened to pop music; she always preferred a bittersweet torch-song to anything else.
Mom had all the luck in the world to have a fourth act. Not everybody gets one of those. She found another partner-in-crime in John A.
They were on their way to touching the four corners of the earth together.
And I just don’t know if anyone could ask for more than that.
