Mother’s Eulogy_2015
A few years back, on our Mother’s birthday, I wrote this piece about Minnie. Truthfully, on an occasion as solemn as this, no tribute could ever fully capture the journey of her life.
Our mother has just reached eighty-six. She is hardly a typical octogenarian; she still throws baseballs overhand to Zeus, my sister Monica’s Rottweiler, for a game of fetch. By any standard, that is remarkable. Then again, nothing about Minnie has ever been ordinary.
She is a force of nature, the one in charge. No Leave it to Beaver June Cleaver figure; she has no patience for the Norman Rockwell ideal. Minnie is far more independent, far more passionate, and unapologetically less submissive.
In short, she is a woman ahead of her time, a spitfire. A woman who does not mourn the past; a woman who bridged generational divides and led the family long before feminism was defined, embraced, and accepted as a social norm.
Our mother was raised on Riverside Drive, a largely Latino neighborhood in west Tucson, Arizona. Minnie quickly came to understand that, at the time, the Westside of town held few opportunities for her.
She learned early how to handle hardship and grew adept at adapting to whatever circumstances arose. She came to see that life favored those who welcomed its challenges.
She absorbed her formative years fully, instinctively knowing that youth passes quickly and understanding that her surroundings and circumstances would shape her fate.
Never one to waver, she pressed forward, put down roots on Valencia Road at the far southern edge of town, and soon after began her family.
Back then, Valencia was a rough, caliche-rutted two-lane dirt road that led to the Santa Cruz River and the Papago Indian reservation – and, as our mother understood, to places far beyond.
To Minnie, Valencia was a buffer, a dry, creosote- and shrub-filled moat that shielded her family from outside intrusions, a boundary from which to launch her children toward their futures.
As I have grown older, I find myself recalling Mother more often. I remember how she wore her favorite straw sunbonnet while caring for the red, white, and pink roses that bordered our front yard. Countless cars would pass along our guardian highway. Without fail, as if drawn by some magnetic pull, they would slow to a crawl and make a U-turn toward Minnie’s house of flowers.
Women of every age would step out of fancy cars and cross the cultural divide that was Valencia to talk with Minnie about her roses. Somehow they all seemed out of place in the desert, their fair hair glinting in the sun; all pleasantly plump, their pale skin flushed red, dressed alike in drab, muted cotton skirts.
I bring up Mother’s roses and Valencia to make this point: Minnie knew where and how to grow things. She took hard ground and made it bloom.
She planted and nurtured; she cared for the things that brought life. She is our family’s Tree of Life. And true to the proverb that a tree should not be judged by the flower it shows, but by the fruit it bears, Minnie gave birth to – and served as a surrogate mother to – family members and friends too numerous to name.
I fondly recall how she would shatter the stillness of hot, dry summer evenings by turning up the stereo to dance with my sisters, Gloria, Cecelia, Linda, and baby Barbara. Each took turns leading and following, swinging and twirling to a musical mix of Pérez Prado, Glenn Miller, and Motown. A mother and her daughters, steeped in music, wonder, and discovery, savoring the moment and one another. More than ten years later, she was still swinging – frequenting clubs to watch and listen to my brother Dan’s rock & roll band.
Another memory that never fades is when we would visit our Abuela and Minnie, and my sisters would gently braid our Yaqui grandmother’s regal, floor-length silver hair. They hovered over her the way devoted Indian princesses might attend a mythological, matriarchal deity.
To see Nana seated like royalty on her throne – a simple, spindly-legged chair in the middle of a humble adobe home – encircled by Mother and her daughters’ embraces is a memory I treasure and return to often.
Then there was the night I invited my high-school friends over for an all-night poker game. Of course Minnie joined in, and in her one-of-a-kind way – through humor, calculated small talk, and the occasional ace-high bluff – she worked out how best to bet against every player at the table.
When it came to competition, no matter the age or gender, Minnie showed no mercy. She took their money without a hint of regret and, on one occasion, even reduced a friend of mine to tears.
As she laid down yet another winning hand and reached to pull in the pot, one of the youngest players, bemoaning his luck, let out an involuntary sigh, a tear visible in one eye.
Realizing Minnie had seen, he sank deep into his chair and mumbled apologetically, “No…no…Mrs. Wilson, I’m alright, (cough, cough) there’s too much smoke in here, I just got something in my eye.” Nice try, pal. He never lived it down.
We played all night until every chip was gone. I remember the morning sun pouring through the kitchen window, lighting up the dining room table scattered with coins, bills, and cigarettes.
I recall Minnie bending over the table to collect the last of her winnings. She turned to each of us, smiled, and whispered, “Boys – never underestimate a woman.”
Trust me. I haven’t since.
But my most treasured memory of Minnie comes from when I was eight years old. Every day after school I had to walk down a neighborhood alley to get home, and every day the local bully would be waiting there to taunt and terrorize me.
One day my childhood tormentor burst from the bushes, tackled me to the ground, and proceeded to beat me soundly. Battered and bruised, I limped home and told Mom.
Now Minnie, being Minnie, told me in no uncertain terms to go back into the alley and face the bully again. She wiped the tears from my face with a flour-caked dishcloth (she was making tortillas at the time) and gently pushed me out the back door.
I shuffled back into the alley to face the bully once more. To this day I wish I could say I gave that boy a beating, but the truth is he whipped me again.
But strangely, this time the beating did not hurt. I learned that getting thoroughly beaten was no big deal.
I got up, nose bloodied but unafraid, refusing to admit defeat. In that one moment, Minnie taught me to face my fears, to take a stand, to pick myself up. And, most importantly, she taught me never – and I mean never – to walk down an alley alone.
I haven’t since.
My younger brother Ric and sister Barbara can confirm the time Minnie caught them sharing a toke without warning and, just as unexpectedly, decided to join in. According to my siblings, she was last seen that day sitting cross-legged on the living room carpet, smiling sheepishly, only half-coherent, listening to Springsteen, and snacking on chips and bean dip.
You see, Minnie is not afraid to test her boundaries. She experiments on many levels; her life, after all, has been a series of risks taken and odds overcome.
So when I watched my baby sister Monica’s video of Mom pitching a baseball to Zeus the Rottweiler, I thought, “Eighty-six? What is this woman made of?” And the whole time I watched, Don Henley’s song “I Will Not Go Quietly” kept playing in my head.
“Too many tire tracks in the sands of time
Yeah, I’m gonna tear it up
Gonna trash it up
Gonna round it up
Gonna rip it up
I will not lie down
I ain’t no tiger
I ain’t no little lamb
Suppose you tell me
Who do you think I think I am?
I will not go quietly
I will not lie down
I’m brave enough to be crazy
I’m strong enough to be weak
I see all these heroes with feet of clay
Whose mighty ships have sprung a leak
And I want you to tell me darlin’ Just what do you believe in now?”
Well, Mom. We, your children, believe in a higher revelation. That would be you.
We, too, will not go quietly. We will not lie down.
Happy eighty-sixth, and many more – and please, Mom – give Zeus a break.
Frederico Wilson currently serves as owner and President of an International Fluid Power Procurement and Sourcing Company; he is the founder of a non-profit organization (still in development) and a blogger at mestizoblog.com, where he writes about multicultural perspectives and issues. A USAF veteran (environmental/missile inspection specialist), he has also worked domestically and internationally in the airline, telecommunications, sales, and financial securities industries. Originally from Arizona, he is a lifelong student of cultural anthropology and applied behavioral science. He attended Arizona Western and the University of Arizona and holds numerous military technical and corporate management certifications and licenses.
His heritage is mixed Mexican, Indian (Yaqui Tribe), Euro-Iberian, and Cornish Celtic. He lives, works, and writes in the Seattle, Washington metropolitan area.
He is perhaps best captured by a quote attributed to Anthony Bourdain, recalling the preparation of a Burgundy wine-based rooster dish.
“So, they take this big, tough, nasty-ass rooster, too old to grill, too tough to roast. Marinate and simmer the shit out of it, before it’s tasty.”
Frederico is the author of a new book, Escaping Culture: Finding your place in the world. Learn more at his website: mestizoblog.com