Ethel Boone Fitzerman

I’m a little bit late for Mother’s Day weekend, but Ethel would have most certainly forgiven me. She forgave me everything, along with my brother. We did plenty of things that caused her irritation, but on the most basic level we could do no wrong. She had a gift for rapid processing and clean forigveness. She was honest, direct, and named her disappointments. It meant that we always knew what irked her, but it was over the moment she said it. I wish that I could say that about myself. My grudges are as dear to me as avocado toasts. I eat them for lunch for years at a stretch.

I regret to say that Ethel was not always this way. In our elementary school years, she was wound very tightly and prone to explosions of wrathtful uhappiness. She, herself, was a selective homemaker, at war with food and the weight gains it brought, but careful with the material goods of her life. Yet, the house was never quite clean enough, thanks to the carelessness of two active sons. It meant that Fridays were a predictable ordeal. With the help of Martha, the woman who cleaned for us, she tidied the house in preparation for the Sabbath, but inevitably one of us would mess things up. Both of us remember her impatience and irritibility.

I think that all of this was displaced frustration. She was a worldly woman trapped in domesticity, who wanted to get out and work for a living. She had very little interest in the rituals of her society and took no pleasure in the routines of the fifties: luncheons for ladies, shopping, and dinner parties. Generally speaking, my father bought her clothes and she chose from what he laid out on the bed. Eventually she put all of this behind her and settled into a university degree program. I give my father a great deal of credit for supporting the aspirations of his powerful wife.

It turned out that this was the right course for both of them. Her earnings eased their financial pressures and gave them a margin for both travel and savings. It was also the right course for my brother and me. She modeled a kind of restless productivity and affirmed the value of individual achievement. Her tensions abated and she flourished as a mother, attentive but no longer manic and overbearing. It led directly to her successes as a grandmother where she gradually became warmer, sweeter, and more indulgent.

What I want most to say is that she was never finished. She continued to unfold until the day she died, sending out messages of strength and resilience. If I wish anything at all, it’s that she were still among the living. I think I would know how to be a better son, but that is material for another day.

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