I can still remember the tears of relief that were rolling down my face in 1989 when Mom came back from a religious retreat with words of encouragement. "I talked to a priest about what you are going through," She said, "And he said some things you'll be happy to hear." Every parent has their challenges. One of Mom's had to be my OCD, especially before we knew it was OCD. The intrusive thoughts that I shared with her were very disturbing and she must have felt overwhelmed hearing about them, not knowing what to make of them, but she never faltered in providing encouragement and support. As I listened to her talk about her conversation with the priest, I was deeply moved by the acceptance and understanding that I felt coming from both of them.
Today I remember my mother, Marcia Salmons Myers, on the day of her birth. She was the second of five children - and the oldest daughter - born to Mary and Albert Salmons on August 20, 1934. She got her name from a book that her father was reading in the waiting room of the hospital while her mother was giving birth to her. Marcia - it was the name of one of the characters in the story. Pop-pop had never heard of that name before and he thought it was just beautiful! A beautiful name for a beautiful baby, but the crying that came from that beautiful baby at night was so bad that Pop-pop once had to go out to sleep in the car! I think the crying finally stopped when the doctor suggested that they change the time of her bath.
2442 Boehmann's Street in East Falls, Pennsylvania - that is where she grew up with her family and a dog named Zipper. She had a brother Al who was a year older than she was, and three younger siblings - Bea, Barbara and Johnny. Everyone called her "Marcy". She and her siblings used to listen to the radio because they didn't yet have television. There were no swimming pools, so the kids cooled off by dunking themselves into barrels or large buckets that were filled with water. Mom took dance lessons and fell in love with dancing. Nana would take each child out for a special trip on their birthday and they got to spend time alone with her. On Mom's birthday, she and Nana went shopping downtown and had lobster tail for lunch.
Mom had a strict grandmother, a prim and proper English woman named Emily Morris. Emily used to say things like, "Children should be seen and not heard." Emily spoke in a distinctive way, annunciating every syllable while she was speaking. Mom became quite skilled at doing "Emily imitations", and whenever she wanted to be firm and make herself absolutely clear about something, Emily's voice emerged as her own. It sort of gave her a reputation for being a really tough Mom. What most people didn't understand was that her bark was much worse than her bite.
Mom's childhood was not all sunshine and rainbows. She carried a great deal of trauma into her adult life because of things that happened when she was young. She and some of the other children in the family were violated by an uncle who was a pedophile. She was violated again as a teenager by a dentist while she was in the dentist chair, and she was never able to go to the dentist again. Sometimes even her home was not a peaceful place. Nana had Bipolar Disorder and back in those days, they didn't know how to properly treat it. Nana's mental illness could wreak havoc on the whole family. Nana would sometimes isolate in her bedroom. She would sometimes try to kill herself (literally) and would be in and out of the hospital. When Nana was out of commission, Mom became responsible for the younger children, and was unable to fully be a child herself. Even as a grown woman with children of her own, Mom was sometimes being asked to go over and take care of her mother, who was "sick" again.
While the difficult parts of her childhood left her with a lot of scars, they also helped her develop a sense of strength that few people had. She was able to take control of difficult situations. She was able to cope with things that would overwhelm others. She was able to face and talk about things that no one else wanted to deal with or speak about. She was also able to walk with people through their pain even when the path lead her into the twilight zone.
In high school, Mom and her cousin Kaye began to notice boys. Mom went out with a boy named Jack Forsythe and Kaye was seeing someone by the name of Bob Myers. I don't know when or how Mom and Kaye switched dates. I just know that Mom had her eyes on Dad quite a while before he asked her out. She said that she was once looking in at him through a classroom door and heard the teacher say, "Don't let us keep you awake, Mr. Myers", and Dad replied, "Don't worry, you won't." (Dad really hated school). One year when Mom was blowing out the candles on her birthday cake, she made the wish that she would be dating Bob Myers by the time she celebrated her next birthday. Well, you know how they say "Watch what you wish for because you just might get it!"
Dad's proposal left a lot to be desired. "Why don't you and I get married?" He said casually to Mom, and so they did at the tender ages of 17 and 18. They got married on Labor Day, thinking that people would have no problem attending the wedding because it was on a National Holiday. Mom may have come to regret choosing that date because her biggest complaint about Dad was that he never stopped working. By the way, Kaye and Jack got married, too!
The early part of Mom and Dad's marriage was full of hardship. Mom talked about eating SPAM over and over because it was cheap. She and Dad used to drop in to visit her parents, hoping that they would ask them to stay for supper. Mom soon became pregnant with my older brother, Jos, and her labor with him was a nightmare. Some of the women in the Salmons family inherited a male pelvis, and Mom was one of them. They didn't discover this until after hours and hours of unsuccessful labor, when they finally did a C-section. My older brother Al came along two years later. After his birth, the doctor told Mom that she wouldn't be able to have any more children. There was just too much damage done to her womb. It was recommended that Mom get a hysterectomy. Mom was unwilling to do that. The doctor then had a hissy-fit, saying "Well don't blame me when..." and she started to make dire predictions. Twelve years later, Mom brought me into the world.
Mom did everything she could to make my life as easy and interesting as possible. Every day she drove over to my Elementary school in McKeansburg to pick me up, so I could be home in five minutes instead of having to sit on the bus for nearly an hour. After I became interested in "Little House on the Prairie", she bought Barbie and Ken dolls and mini-barbies and dressed them all in 1870's clothing. Then she turned a box into a house with furniture and another box into a school/church and put everything under the tree on Christmas Eve in 1974. She could have made millions working for Patel.
Lypo-sarcoma - that's what they called the malignant tumor Mom had in her knee that they had to remove in 1980. Mom had to drag her leg around right after the surgery. The following spring she had to get radiation treatments on the knee. All the other patients had drivers. Mom drove herself back and forth to the hospital which was all the way down in Reading.
The following year, Mom had worked her leg muscles to the point at which she was able to begin teaching dance - and that's when the "Marca Dance Studio" was born. She started teaching dance to earn the tuition money for me to attend Nativity, but she continued to teach until 2002. She began doing it to help me but continued because she loved it.
In her post-teaching years, Mom channeled her love into caring for stray cats. She had turned the dance studio into a shelter for them and spent hours each day feeding them and cleaning up after them and ended the day by singing to them. Those cats knew that they were loved.
Throughout my entire life. Mom set a daily example of the best virtues. One time when she and I were standing in line at Leiby's, waiting for a booth, she noticed a lady behind us who was walking with a cane. "Dorothy, let this lady go before us." She said, "She is walking with a cane." Sometimes its the little things that make the biggest impression.
It would take a whole novel - one the size of "War and Peace" - to write about all the ways in which she comforted, encouraged and inspired me throughout my life. She was a woman with incredible strength, ingenuity, compassion and faith. She always saw the best in people and gave what little she had to help those who had less. I may never be the woman that she was, but if I can pass on a little bit of the goodness that she passed on to me, my life will have been worth living.
Happy Heavenly Birthday, Mom!
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