Looking back

It's interesting how limited our vision of our parents is, even if we think we know them very well, have them all figured out.

When my mother passed away two years ago, my younger sister sent me most of Mother's old pictures, since J is "not a picture person," and she knew I was. I have gone through the box a number of times, including when I was pulling pictures of my younger self to go into the Melody photo album that my mother had started for me, and never finished. However, just the other day I began a serious effort to re-do Mother's own old photo album -- the kind with black pages -- which had several pictures of her first wedding still attached, and some small, old snapshots, but from which most of the photos had long since become detached. I made the administrative decision to untie the album, put the wedding pix more toward the back, and fill the earlier pages with the pictures of her at two and six (would never have known that was my mother) , at 12 (yes, by then she was Gary), of her in her little Scotch lassie outfit, which was the costume of the pep squad at her high school, where she twirled baton, eventually becoming drum majorette, of her as football queen, beaming alongside her high school sweetheart who had been elected Football King.

I have said numerous times that my mother was beautiful, but it was only in looking through these pictures that I saw how true that really was. I remember perfectly well that I never thought of her as beautiful when I was young. She was just mother, who could be very strict, did not hesitate to spank, but who was wonderful to you when you were sick, whom I was mortified by when I was in junior high because she was so much younger than most girls' mothers (she had me when she was 18, making her only 31 when I was 13), and did young things like lie out in the back yard in shorts and a tiny halter, sunbathing.

In these pictures I see not only her beauty -- which became dramatic when her youthful blond/light brown hair turned a darker brown, and was eventually helped along by Lady Clairol -- but her vitality, her humor, her sense of fun. Most of the pictures were taken at family gatherings, because family was always very much at the center of my mother's life. You see her being playful with her old uncle, who is smiling despite himself. You see her crossing her eyes in the picture that was taken by a professional photographer at a nightclub she, my father, her brother and his wife, and one of my father's best friends visited in Juarez, Mexico. You see her hamming it up with three other ladies in front of a table that is beautifully laid for cake and coffee -- my mother had excellent taste, and always knew how to make things look "nice". In another photo she's laughingly feeding cake to a woman who is obviously just as pregnant as she is (the woman was the wife of one of my father's friends, whom I have a bare memory of); and then there they are, lying on the floor -- still laughing -- with the obvious remains of a party all around them -- cake plates, cluttered ash trays, champagne bottle and glasses (back in those days they didn't know you weren't supposed to drink, or smoke, when you were pregnant. Since my mother did both during all five of her pregnancies, I suppose it's a wonder my siblings and I aren't in worse shape than we are.)

To me the true irony of my mother's beauty is that she had three daughters, none of whom came close to her in looks. Mother used to say about all of her children that if she didn't know she'd had us, she wouldn't think we were hers, and it was true; we all took after our fathers (and there were two fathers involved, since my mother married twice.) I used to say that the only things I'd inherited from my mother were a flat chest, and a temper.

From the time I was about fifteen my mother and I did not get along. I was too independent-minded, and Mother was too determined that I was going to "mind." In today's parlance, I think it's safe to say that my mother was a control freak. She initially hated with a passion the man I fell in love with and married -- but then, none of her children's chosen partners was ever good enough. With time her religiosity and tendency to be judgmental increased, making her less pleasant to be around. All of this colored how I "saw" my mother. But oh the wonder of photography: I can look back now, and see her as she was, as I never saw her before. And experience a little enlightenment.

On a lighter note

But we mustn't fail to mention my mother's wonderful enchiladas, potato salad, and biscuits!

When I was growing up my mother wasn't a particularly good cook -- vegetables inevitably came out of a can, salad was lettuce/ tomatoes/mayonnaise, Campbell's soup got used a lot -- but there were a few winners, like the items mentioned above, and she was a great baker. We always liked it when she didn't have to work, because we would come home from school to the smells of her delicious cookies, pies and cakes. She made the best fudge I've ever tasted, with a slightly grainy texture. Back in the days when you could still hand out homemade goodies to trick-or-treaters, she would go to the trouble of making her fudge, or pop corn balls or Rice Krispies squares. At Christmas there were the good old-fashioned cookies shaped like Christmas trees and Santa Clauses, bells and reindeer, which she would let us help "paint." And on Easter morning we had the most elaborately colored hardboiled eggs to find, which she would have been up until 2 a.m. decorating (remember her artistic bent).

Every now and then a case of Let's-Move-the-Furniture would descend on Mother. I think she would just get bored, and decide the couch should go over there instead, the girls' room would work better if the beds were arranged thus and so, etc. In the piece that I and my siblings put together for the pastor to read at her memorial service, my brother said that sometimes they would come home to find their bedrooms were no longer even in the same room where they'd been in the morning! This would have been after I went to live with my father and stepmother at 17 -- I can remember coming home to a whole new look to my room, but not to an entirely different room.

Once my sister Ellen sent Mother a painting she'd done of yellow and white flowers which Mother loved and promptly had framed. She then announced in a letter to us all (until the last few years of her life she was very good about writing to her children, either in group or in individual letters, which were often very amusing) that now she had to make a new bedspread and repaper one wall to go with the painting.

Gary was really quite beautiful when she was younger -- I thought she looked like Ava Gardner, my brother thinks she looked like Susan Hayward -- but she was not averse to hamming it up in a photo, crossing her eyes or making some other face. One of my favorite pictures of her was taken in Alaska -- where she lived and worked twice, for a while as a secretary on the North Slope, with one of those unspeakable schedules of ten-hour days for 28 days straight, followed by one week off, which I considered barbarous but which she took in her usual stride -- and there is my normally elegant, perfectly dressed mother in a robe and baseball cap with the bill pushed back, standing at the stove, glancing back over her shoulder with an expression that suggests, "All right, Buster, don't give me any grief."

She could be fun, and funny. There was a strong streak of earthiness in this very proper lady. She liked her scotch, she loved to dance, loved picnics and backyard cookouts, she did a healthy amount of swearing, always stopping short of the 'F' word (when we were kids she washed our mouths out with soap for swearing, which we thought very unfair). She liked television's Judge Judy because she didn't stand for any nonsense. Until the last couple of years of her life she was very alive, full of energy, opinions, projects. The fact that poor health took all of that from her left her depressed, and made us all very sad for her. It was time for the dance to end.

In Tribute

Gary Ellen Tyler Camp Svalberg, July 4, 1928 - Jan. 6, 2010

How do you sum up the woman who was the focal point of your family for all of your almost-63 years?

While my mother could be very gracious, very charming -- and very funny -- basically she was not an easy, comfortable personality. She was quite judgmental, and could be harsh in her judgments. She set extremely high standards for herself, and for others, especially her children; her expectations of perfection proved a true burden for all of us.

But she was someone you absolutely could rely on -- if you needed help you got it, without hesitation, without her considering how it might inconvenience her, how much it might cost her. And this was not just her children: many others can attest to her help in times of trouble. She was the soul of generosity. And she had great courage, great determination. Whatever had to be done was done, and she did not complain.

One of the most dramatic examples of my mother's courage and unflappability in times of crisis (a talent I fear she did not bequeath to her firstborn, since I all too easily fall apart) occurred years ago when someone broke into her apartment one night, while my brother Steven was staying with her, sleeping on the couch. The would-be burglar came in through a window right by Steven's head, waking him. They proceeded to have a stage-whispered conversation in which the guy -- who had a knife -- kept telling Steven to cover his head with his pillow, while Steven kept saying no, I'll do anything else you want, but not that, feeling sure the guy would then stab him. My mother, hearing voices in the living room, came out to investigate, though Steven called out to her to stay in her room. When she realized what was happening she very calmly started talking to the home-invader. She talked to him very politely as if he were a visitor. Said she was sure he didn't want to hurt anyone, and she saw no reason why he shouldn't be able to walk out the door, with no one the worse off. Pointed out to him that they had not turned on the lights, could not identify him. And after about five minutes of her calm, polite -- not pleading, not frightened-sounding -- conversation, the young man left, by way of the front door.

And as an example of her unflagging mind-over-matter determination: when she was visiting me a few years ago, in an effort to keep her from being bored (my mother was one of those people who does not know how to relax; she always had to be doing something constructive), I suggested she paint the blank front covers of some photo albums I had. Mother was always very artistic -- created many a beautiful wreath, centerpiece, and flower arrange-ment in her life -- and in her 50s took up painting seriously, producing several professional-quality paintings before the tremor that developed later made it too difficult for her. Now she insisted that her hands shook too much for her to be able to paint anything.

"Do an abstract," I said. "Just swirl some colors on there so it won't be so blah." Instead, she sat down and painstakingly produced two intricately executed paintings of flowers, and one of butterflies. This was a woman who was not going to let a damn tremor keep her from doing a job "right." She was a woman it was impossible not to respect, to admire, even if one often found her infuriating.

Gary Ellen (which we all sometimes called her, along with Mother, Mom, and mamacita; my youngest sister would call her Gare)...Gary Ellen Svalberg, your firstborn, born to you when you were but 18 1/2 years old, for whom you did so much throughout the course of her life...this daughter whom you never quite understood (having been a drum majorette and football queen when she was in high school, she was very disappointed when I dropped out of my high school pep squad after only a week because I knew I hated football, and thought the whole pep squad business was stupid; likewise, she couldn't understand why I wouldn't let her buy me a white sweater and orange skirt to wear to the football games when I was at the University of Texas -- "Mother," I said, "I will never, never, go to a U.T. football game.")...this daughter, Gary Ellen, salutes you.