I Remember Mama

The photos are of my parents while on their trip of a lifetime to Hawaii and at home on their 25th wedding anniversary. They look so young. The old picture was taken in 1927. Mama is the little girl in the front row.

Today is the 20th anniversary of my mother's death. She ws only 69 when she died, just 10 years older than I am now. Ruth Doris McLaughlin was born in Everett, MA in 1918 and was brought up in Watertown along with her 5 living brothers and sisters. She had had 2 other sisters, but one died in infancy and the other at the age of 3, just before my mother was born. She did well in school but did not receive any college or technical training after she graduated from high school in 1936. Mama had been athletic and a tennis champion in high school and one of her coaches wanted her to enter training for the Olympics. My grandmother forbad her from doing it, saying she did not want a "muscular daughter." Mama worked as a clerk and a bookkeeper before she married my father, Leo Holland, in 1938. Dad lived right across the street from my mother and he used to watch her coming and going on her dates, which ticked him off to no end. In March, 1940 my brother Leo Jr. was born and my father shipped out with the submarine service a couple of years later during WWII. My mother said that was a hard time for her.

Dad returned safe and sound from the Pacific in 1945. No time was wasted because I was born in 1947, an official, cutting edge baby boomer. When I was 5, my father developed a severe case of osteoporosis. His bones began to break and he spent months at time in the VA hospital in Jamaica Plain while they treated his fractures and tried to figure out the cause . I remember riding the bus from Watertown to Jamaica Plain with my mother a couple of times every week when she went to visit him. She didn't drive (we didn't own a car until I was 12), so the MTA was the only way to get around. We moved to a brand new housing project in East Watertown in 1953 and lived there until I was 13. My Dad began to drink heavily during the '50's. Life was not easy, but my aunts, uncles, and both sets of grandparents were close by and I always felt secure and loved. Despite all the problems that beset them, my parents stayed together. My brother and I are ever grateful for that. Mama worked outside the home all throughout my childhood, at a time when women were expected to stay home and care for their families. I think that was a good thing--she needed a diversion from her problems, a stimulus for her excellent mind, and money for the family. She set me a great example of industriousness and hard work, and went through it all with a wonderful sense of humor.

By 1968 my brother and I were settled and in our own homes and the grandchildren began to arrive. Mama adored them all, even when they drove her around the bend. Life got better for my parents and they lived a quiet life. looking forward to their annual two- week vacation on Cape Cod. In 1984 my mother suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm which ended her life as she knew it. After months in a hospital and rehab, and two neurosurgeries, she finally ended up at Fairview Nursing Home in Hudson, NH. My father retired, sold his business, and moved to NH to be near his wife. Dad would go to Fairview each day just after breakfast, and stay with her until she was ready to go to bed for the night. Mama was alert, but had almost a total personality change. Instead of being edgy and bright, she became sweet, happy, and docile. Two years later she was diagnosed with lung cancer and died in her sleep a few months after the diagnosis. An easy ending for such a dread disease.

I still miss her very much. I miss the Saturday morning gossip sessions on the phone, her arrival at the bus station in Nashua when she came for a visit with us, her counsel, her big smile, her complaints about her nose and her feet, and being the only one at the dinner table who didn't have brown eyes. I miss her fire engine red toenails, the blue rinse in her hair, and the way her green eyes crinkled up and disappeared when she laughed. I miss her love for my children, her talk about her job and the folks in Harvard Square, her pride in my brother and his family, and
her devotion and utter, unending love for my father.

I love you Mama. Sweet dreams.