hurting runs off my shoulder

My mother passed away in November 1988, when I was sixteen years old. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it, but those thoughts tend to be more about the social and familiar upheavals that came in the wake of her death, rather than of my mother as a person.

I’ve spent decades coming to grips with my relationship with my father and the way in which he loomed large as both a positive and negative role model during my formative years. With my mother, though, it’s different. I can joke about being my father’s son (which can be the blackest of black humor, indeed), but the question of what it means to be the son of Ruthann Weiss has never been decisively resolved.

This is partially due to the passing of time, and the richness and vibrancy of my memories of the woman gradually fading over the years. I can remember specific events and incidents, but the overall picture of who my mother was as a person has gotten hazy. There was a degree of deliberate intent in that; right after my mother passed away, I made a conscious decision to pardon her shortcomings and problematic aspects of her personality. Which brings me to the other reason why I can’t get a decent handle on the role my mother played in shaping my life: her last eight years on earth were a downward spiral of obsessive behavior that crossed the line into outright insanity near the end.

As much as I tried to bury the memories related to her slide into increasing erratic and dysfunctional behavior, they still remain the strongest impressions I have, and color the rest of my memories, good and bad, of her. It confounds my attempts to piece together an accurate picture of who she was and what she meant to me, except…

…I remember something that happened a few weeks before her death. I was in my room drifting in and out of sleep. The house was cold, which may or may not have been because we stiffed the oil people one too many times (again). My mother came into my room. She was a little unsteady on her feet -- but not completely blitzed on port wine -- and said “You must be cold.” She took my army surplus jacket off the doorknob and spread it over me like a blanket, kissed me on the forehead, then trundled off upstairs.

Sometimes a single recollection can be more than enough.

Roger McGuinn – It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (from the Easy Rider OST, 1969) – I posted this track before, on the anniversary of my mother’s death, but what the hell. My mom gave/lent me this record, and a turntable to play it with (which I still own, but is in dire need of a new stylus) when I was fourteen.

Me First and The Gimme Gimmes – Sweet Caroline (from Have a Ball, 1997) – My mom loved Neil Diamond (and Rod McKuen – I think there’s a correlation there), which led to some really miserable times when I discovered that his genius was not universally appreciated by my Kiss-loving peers in primary school.