My mom worked at a five and dime lunch counter in Atlanta when such places in other towns didn’t allow Black folks to eat there. A Black woman customer took a liking to my mom and said they had an opening at the garment factory where she worked; it paid a little more. She took it. And was a life-long ILGWU member – always look for the union label.
That kind woman became ill on the job and was rushed to a hospital where she died. My mom took time off and went to the funeral. Her colleagues asked didn’t she feel strange being the only white person there; she gave them a typical response: “I didn’t notice. I was grieving for my friend.”
Because of her, it never occurred to me to treat minorities any different than anyone else. Once I asked her why she was different than some of the parents of my school friends. “I grew up on a sharecropper farm. The only kids near were two Black girls. They were my friends. They were poor just like us. The only difference was their color.”
My mom passed away today. She was 92.
She had quite a sense of humor. The nurses kept me up to date. Earlier this week, one called and said, “I loved your mom. She was a very funny person. It was hard to see her health decline.”
The word they use nowadays is “transitioned.” When they told me that, all I could think of what her reaction would be, “Does that mean she died?” would be her response. And I laughed today. So many memories are laughter and how she could put the pompous in their place with a seemingly innocent question or observation.
When her mom, herself a hilarious woman, um, eh, transitioned we sat on the floor surrounded by a sea of bills and insurance checks. It was confusing. She suggested we just randomly attach checks to bills and see what happened. Surprising, they all got paid.
Unlike her sometimes shy and introverted overly private son, she was outgoing and super friendly. If she were at my place and someone from the White House called, my mom had no hesitation to shoot the breeze with the caller. Everybody knew her. Those that didn’t weren’t strangers for long. I was with her in a grocery line not long ago when a stranger told her, “You have beautiful blue eyes.” She did, indeed.
Moms have a knack for knowing when you need them. During 9/11 coverage I feared we had lost a reporter. As if on cue, the phone rang. She asked whether I was all right then if “your people” are all right. The only time I ever cried on duty, I thought we lost someone in the building collapse. “She’ll be fine,” she assured me. And she was. Other times when friends passed on I would call her first. How strange it is not to have her reassure me today.
I wanted her to see some of the world with me. That’s when I found out she couldn’t get a passport because of an error on her birth certificate. Her name is Mildred. But the doctor who delivered her was also the town drunk and her certificate says her name is “Sadie.” I called her Sadie when it was just the two of us. That cracked her up.
When her friends would say she must be so proud of her son, she responded, “I just wanted him to be honest and make a difference in people’s lives. I don’t care what he does for work.” To be sure, it didn’t matter.
I was at NBC to do a morning gig when Rachael Maddow wanted me to hang around ‘til 9 pm to do her MSNBC show. NBC gave me an office so I could work and I went down the list of things on the agenda, one being calling my mom. She asked where I was and I told her NBC in New York. She didn’t ask why or if I were going to be on TV. No, her question was “Have you seen Brian Williams yet?” She was a news junkie, especially newspapers.
An avid gardener, she passed out the bounty among neighbors and friends and canned the rest which she passed out among neighbors and friends. Her church often asked her to bake for special occasions. Once leaving the place one fellow member remarked, “I guess we should call you the pie lady.” She said, “Yeah, well, whatever.”
She worked in the garment industry the rest of her career, winding up in charge of the outlet store. At 70, I asked her if she ever planned to retire. “If I do they will close the store and the people down the road will never get new clothes.” Down the road was a public housing project, mostly minorities.
I think she spent her working life paying tribute to the woman who helped her get out the lunch counter so long ago. I like to think somewhere in the great beyond they’re laughing and getting caught up.
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