In public my mom was a prim and proper Christian woman, no foul language and never a disparaging word about anyone. But once home you would be shocked at the number of racial, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and pejorative terms this proper ‘Christian’ woman knew. Even misogynistic. Here was a woman who had worked in the defense industry in the 1950’s, ran a business, and in 1965 was the first single-woman to adopt a child (me), and yet she believed that women should not run corporations or be in public office.
She had several boxes of Republican campaign memorabilia, buttons, bumper stickers and newspaper clippings. Pictures of Nixon, Goldwater and Reagan adorned the wall next to a portrait of Jesus. In 1947 the age of 16 my mom moved to California with her family from Des Moines, Iowa, and brought with them their conservative Christian values. Democrat was a bad word in our house. Although there were words she was willing to utter.
I’m embarrassed to admit that when I was younger I tended to parrot her. That changed when I started my own life away from home, joining the military, going to college, working and getting married. Though I still saw my mom and called her regularly, I had started to change. Her ideals were no longer mine. When I found out I was going to be a dad I had a moment of reflection, I wanted better for him. I knew that we wanted my mom to be part of our son’s life, but I was concerned about her influence.
By this time in our lives we no longer spoke of politics, though every time I called her or went to her house I could hear her right-wing broadcasts on the radio or television. She’d turn them off when I’d call or come over. I accepted what she was and knew that she could never be turned away from the dark side!
In her final years my mom lost her house due to her poor money management, so I leased an apartment for her nearby. I talked to her on the phone regularly, and we saw her a couple of times a week. Every Wednesday after my son got out of elementary school we picked her up and took her out to dinner. We always asked her where she wanted to go, she would smile and say she didn’t know and then asked my son who always replied enthusiastically “Sizzler.” This was a local restaurant chain famous for their soup and salad bar. My son loved the Kids Bar where he could load up on chicken nuggets and fries. There were only a couple of times my mom made disparaging comments about someone in the restaurant within ear shot of my son and got a stern look from me. But for the most part she followed our rules.
My mom died in 2003 when my son was just eight years old. She loved him, and I was happy that he spent time with her and had a chance to get to know his ‘Gram.’ But strangely, I’m thankful that she didn’t live to witness the political turmoil of the last two decades. Had she lived to 2009 she would have been outraged to see Barack Obama sworn in as President, I think it would have pushed her over the edge. Were she alive today she’d own a red hat and would be spewing hate, lies and conspiracy theories. And if she were alive today we would be estranged.
There was a time when people kept their hate private, but times have changed. Since 2016 people with these tendencies have been empowered, enabled to say the quiet part out loud. I’ve had no choice but to cut ties with a number of toxic friends and family members in recent years. According to a survey by the Cornell Family Reconciliation Project some one-quarter of adults reported being estranged from a family member, and I know that were she alive today that my mom would be one of them.
I signed the order to remove my mom from life support after a failed surgical procedure, the cancer had spread too far. There was no need for her to come out of the anesthesia. It took almost an hour for her heart to stop beating. She was 72, I loved her until the end. We decided not to have our young son come and say goodbye to her in the hospital, not wanting him to see her like that. Wanting him to remember only the good. Today he is a father himself. He has only happy memories of his Gram, and that’s how it should be.
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