my mother...

post script

I thank each of you for your kind comments, thoughts and prayers for the loss of my mother.  Your love and support was very comforting to me, thank you.  

We live in the Monadnock area of New Hampshire, i.e. mountains, as opposed to the seacoast. The other day while raking the grass area in front of the stone wall at the road I found behind one of our huge antique maples a seashell.  A seashell... just sitting there.  This is an area that Dan mows regularly and we tend to, but there it was, out of the blue, and definitely out of its natural environment... a seashell.  A sign from my mother, born and raised in Hawaii, who loved the ocean and the beach??  I brought it to Dan and showed him and said "Mama,"  and he said "oh, I've found two in the last couple of weeks."  He hadn't mentioned it to me as it didn't resonate with him, but he had saved them and went to retrieve them for me.  They too, were in bizarre places on our property just sitting there like they had been gently placed.  A sign from my mother?  Of course they are.  In ten years of tending to the farmhouse I (we) have never found a seashell - ever.  I think my mother knew that I would try to write it off, so she placed two in Dan's path, so that I would know without a shadow of a doubt that she was here visiting.  She never made to New Hampshire, never saw our farmhouse, but now she has and that makes my heart happy. 

Much love,

xxojoan

My mother died last Friday.  

She was 91 years old,  three months shy of 92.  This is one of my favorite recent photos of her taken last Christmas at my cousin Kim's house.  My sister and nephew had planned a trip to visit her last week.  My mother was excited to have them take her shopping and take her to Ulta so she could buy some makeup and nail polish!  Instead they arrived for her final hours. She was sharp as a tack and lucid until the last week when her health failed her.  She died peacefully listening to a tape of her late second husband, Tim (her high school sweetheart whom she reconnected with at a reunion after my father's death twenty four years ago), singing songs and playing the ukulele expressly to her. My mother was born and raised in Hawaii, and Tim grew up there.  You might remember a blog post I did on my mother being a child in Honolulu when Pearl Harbor happened (here)  Per her request, her ashes and Tim's ashes will be spread together in their beloved Hawaii.

I attribute, as I told my mother many times, my design aesthetic to her.  My childhood home, albeit modest, didn't look like my friend's homes.  I didn't know, nor think much about the "why" until I was in my twenties, but it was different because it was decorated with antiques (she had many antique Chinese porcelain pieces which she learned to love and value from her own mother) and collections and things that meant something special to her.  It just had a certain je ne sais quoi that my friend's homes didn't have with everything being brand-new inside of them.                                                                                                                                                                    

I learned about the love of houses from my mother, because she loved hers.

My mother taught me that you didn't have to have money to have a pretty house.  Since my sisters are eleven and twelve years older than me I basically had my mother to myself growing up in the 60's.  Several times a week we would walk to a decorative shop called Gizmo's in San Antonio.  At 5 and 6 years old I learned the power of interiors and have magical memories of the big spiral staircase and indoor fountain at Gizmo's and all the beautiful "do-dads" (as I grew up calling decorative items) and how happy my mother was shopping for her home.  She taught me how to collect.  She collected Blue Danube, which was a gift to her children and my father as we always knew what to get her for birthdays and Christmas.   She taught me patience in design, that a home is an ongoing project.  I remember as a child her putting two porcelain ducks on layaway at Ethan Allen, and how it felt every month when we went to make a payment.  I always felt very fancy walking through the store and imagining living there  I realized at an early age how I felt different just being in a beautifully designed space.  One weekend in college I came home to find that she had had a contractor take part of the living room to create a huge walk-in pantry off of the kitchen. If you ask any of her grandchildren what their favorite place in their grandparent's house was- they would all state the Pantry!  I learned from her example that you kept your home pretty, neat and clean.  She loved vacuums.  I love vacuums!  One Christmas when I was in college she gave me my first vacuum- I was over the moon!  I came back to school to all my sorority sisters talking about the clothes and purses and jewelry they got for Christmas and I was going on and on about my vacuum!!  They thought I was nuts-  ha!  My mother taught me by example early on that you kept kleenexes  and other utilitarian things in drawers not out on the counter.  That you fold the towel after you use it in the bathroom.  That you set the table for every meal and you use cloth napkins.  That you use her bamboo flatware that she had brought with her from Hawaii every summer.   That you ALWAYS light the wick of a new candle even just for a second to give it a used look.  An unlit wick on a candle is a huge pet peeve of mine to this day:)  She gave me my love of fishing floats!  She had found several at the beach in Hawaii growing up.  She loved to paint and my love of landscape oil paintings comes from her no doubt.  She taught me how to garden and my love of being outside and tending to the yard and garden. She always had a beautiful yard.  She taught me to always.... always write thank you notes.  

So, I write this post as a thank you note to my mother.  Thank you Mama for teaching me the importance and love of home.

Miss you Mama...