Mom's Got Our Back -- And We Have Hers

"Tell Mama all about it
Tell Mama what you need
Tell Mama what you want
And I'll make everything alright."

"Tell Mama," sung by Etta James

Has it really been ten years?

Ten years ago this morning I got a phone call I dreaded but knew was coming.

"Mom died this morning," my older sister said. "You have to come home NOW!"

After a five-year battle with Alzheimer's disease and later an aggressive lung cancer, my mother passed away in her sleep. She was 64.

The last time I saw her was three days before she passed. She was in bed, weak but still recognizing Dad and the kids, even though she couldn't say our names. My younger sister and I were on the bed on both sides. I softly sang Louis Prima's "Jump, Jive and Wail." Mom smiled. Before I left to drive home to Fairfield, I kissed Mom on her forehead and said goodbye.

"Thank you, baby," she said. Those were her last words to me.

There are bits and pieces that stand out in my mind about Mom. There is a black-and-white Polaroid photo of Mom at home in her housecoat surrounded by her six kids. The many records and cassette tapes of her favorite music, from Luther (He needs no last name!) to Sam Cooke, Aretha, the Pattis, Marvin, Billy Ocean. When Dad got saved in the mid-1960s, records and radio music were banned from the house. But Mom made a way. When Dad was at work or at church, Mom would play her records or turn on the radio. She bought me my first record -- "Friendship Train" by Gladys Knight and the Pips.

Her children also inherited her love of dance. Mom could boogie and didn't care who knew it. While cooking dinner or washing dishes, she would play her music while shaking her ample groove thing with that sly smile.

I also remember is Mom coming to rescue us kids when we were in trouble. I had flunked out of college at the end of my freshman year. I was a basket case. Mom took it upon herself to talk to the dean of the college of letters and sciences. She dressed in a navy blazer and skirt with a white ruffled blouse and drove to the university. Three hours later, she said he will let me in if I get at least a 3.5 GPA in the classes I take in the fall. I got a 4.0.

What stands out most was Mom's unconditional love for her children and grandchildren. She would care for her youngest grandson while he was attending elementary school in her neighborhood. She took us adult children in when we needed a place to stay until we could get on her feet.

Shortly after she was diagnosed as being in the early stage of Alzheimer's, she was washing dishes. I told Mom that eventually she would forget who her children are. She looked up from the sink.

"I'll never forget you," she said. "You're my child."

She didn't forget who we were. She kept her promise.

Mom has always had our back. And we'll always have hers.

Writing Diva