Nobody's Mother

Jackie's Story

Nobody’s Mother

Jackie is somebody’s aunt, but nobody’s mother. She has had the joy of sticky, lollipop-lips kisses and squeeze-your-breath-away hugs with dimpled fingers clutching her neck. These pleasures were only borrowed from her brother and his wife, but she savors them as hers alone.

She is not an elderly widow, but an elderly spinster. That is a word that still evokes powerful connotations of being unwanted and rejected, but Jackie was neither. Her lost love died in a long-ago war. She never sought another.

Jackie lives in an apartment building with a lot of ladies and men who shuffle along with walkers and canes and have gray hair and bad hearing. They sometimes forget one another’s names. She is 91 years old and you only make her acquaintance for a few minutes before you find out she is a proud Italian-American. She needs no cane or walker and strides along, ramrod straight, with no assistance. Her hair is white blonde, her makeup, impeccable.

On this day, she sings “Happy Birthday” to a friend and asks if the cake has cannolli filling. She wears bright colors and exquisite vintage jewelry. For forty of her working years she served customers at a Chicago Michigan Avenue jewelry store and is a jewelry expert.

When the birthday song is done and the cake consumed, she shares a hug and some tears with the birthday girl, who is 92. Perhaps they are aware in that moment, without speaking about it, that their future birthday celebrations are limited.

Later today her nephew will pick her up in his car and bring her home for Sunday dinner. He will share his home and his family with her. I am very sure he has fond memories of one who loved him just as his mother did. Now his chldren, another generation with sticky lips and dimpled fingers, know the love of their Aunt Jackie.