Mom Had Blue Kleenex
by djl 7/31/2021
Mom had blue Kleenex. It had to be blue or it wouldn’t work. Lovely color, that blue. I liked it myself. Pretty hard to find, so I’d purchase it for her by the columns of boxes, warehouse fashion. We found it at the Joint Base Commissary, the dwindling last place to find it. Back then it was beyond my imagination how anyone could romp through facial tissues at that rate, but I’d heard elders get pretty leaky, and now that I am one, it’s true . But Kleenex is no longer blue.
Dad had a coffee mug named Fred. Dad's name was Duane. It was white milk glass with red checker print like a tablecloth. It said “Fred” on it and was part of his hand for decades. There are pictures to prove it. He drank instant. Got me started on that at my age of 15. Sunrise instant coffee; they don’t make it anymore. Just looking at the label made me love Dad and our sharing of the sacrament.
Mom’s life was effervescent. The cup runneth over kind. She had theatrical behavior in her personal life that matched her skills in directing high school plays; Drama Teacher was a perfect title. She wore it like a crown. English Teacher and Piano Teacher were her other prominent hats. When she was with us four kids, she wore the “Let’s Get Oblong and Have Our Knees Removed” hat. It was from George Carlin’s Humor Hat Shop, and she had a collection of those.
Mom and Dad moved around like Gypsies, but we had the six of us, and sometimes that felt like a whole town, complete with all the drama, fighting and celebration anyone could ever want to fill the hours of the days and feel exceptionally, sometimes excruciatingly alive. Because nomadic life offers endless opportunities for resourcefulness and major life-changing adjustments to accept like-it-or-not, me and my littermates acquired survival skills that would serve us the rest of our lives, which aren’t even over yet, though we’re all pretty old now and Mom and Dad have gone to The Great Beyond, The Grand Library.
Our family was percolating as vivaciously and steadily as any other, with scarcely time to ponder ourselves, who we were to each other, and roll the ponderings around like lozenges in our minds; and because of that, the questions I wish I’d asked my parents weren’t asked then and can’t be now. I can think of a million of them in my spare time, too many to write down even.
“Where did you tie your horse up, Dad, when you got to school?” “How did it feel to play trumpet in the Swing Band when you were 21?” “Did the ladies flirt with you, Trumpetman?” “Were you afraid when you went to Japan during WWII?” “Did you enlist or were you drafted? I don’t even know.” “What was your favorite job: Music Teacher, Choir Director, Sign Painter, Grain Elevator Operator, Insurance Salesman, Catering Hot Truck Owner?”
“How did you turn out so open-minded with such a strict mother, Mom?” “Might it have been your Dad teaching you that?” “Was it the multitude of friends you had whose households you were part of?” “Can you tell me more stories about your Dad and his violin?” “How did it feel to have so many friends all your life, Mom?” “Did we ever tell you how proud we were of you returning to college for your teaching degree?” “What was your favorite part about life with four children?” “Did we tell you we loved you as often as you told us that?” Probably not. But I felt it.
That leads me to the last part of this term paper, for which I’m hoping to get an A+ from my English Teacher, Jean Cothary, and a trumpet fanfare from my Music Teacher, Duane Lalonde. Now being the second-most elder in our pack, I bring these thoughts out of my pocket, along with a snow-white Kleenex for my leakiness and the pocket-sized instrument, my harmonica:
It’s the little things. Blue Kleenex and a coffee cup named Fred. It isn’t where you live, it is the way you live. Family is the spinal cord of the human soul. Humor, music, helping and sharing are the ingredients of a life well lived. Appreciation is the sum of learning + awareness. Passing it along is our true st job of all.
