Mom

by Dave Isay

  You were always consistent. You didn’t have one rule one day and another the next—and you were loving at the same time, there was never any doubt that you loved us.

  Dot: I really loved and tried to understand each child. You can’t give every kid the same thing. The two boys, David and Joe, couldn’t be more different, but look what happens when they see each other—you see what they do? They embrace and kiss each other—and they’re not ashamed to do that. They change their nephews’ diapers. It was like, This is what you do as a family member—it doesn’t matter who you are. And I think I would say that about all my children.

  One of the things that I remember is you and David called me “Lady.” It was, “Lady, Lady,” and one of the cutest things you told me was, “You know, Lady, my mother had red shoes.” You were three and a half. Do you remember that?

  Kim: I do remember that. [laughs]

  Dot: We were very careful about using the word “step-mother,” because we’re a very united family. And half really doesn’t work for me, either. [laughs] Maybe that’s why we blended so well, because we didn’t say,Well, that’s your mom and that’s your dad. It was: This is my brother.This is my sister.This is my mother. This is my father. Maybe that sounds a little like bragging, but I really believe that’s why.

  You know, I do regret that my first marriage didn’t work. I wish that I could’ve made that marriage a success. But then I think, Gee, all I would have is Mona and that little family—and look what I have now!

  Just recently, someone said to me that one thing they love is coming into my house and looking at those nine pictures over the piano. They would say, “Now, wait a minute, which one is yours? Which ones are Ronnie’s and which ones are the ones you had together?” They wouldn’t know the difference. Somebody said, “All I remember is nine pictures on the wall.” I think that that’s the secret of what made us a good family. And that would be, I think, my greatest success. My family. All of you.

  Recorded in New York, New York, on August 19, 2009.

  LOURDES VILLANUEVA, 49 speaks with her son, ROGER VILLANUEVA JR., 30

  Lourdes Villanueva: I always felt that I was blessed because I was born right at the border. We lived on the Mexico side of the river, and for years my dad went to Texas to work during the week, and Friday he would come home. So that’s how it went for several years, until we had a hurricane that destroyed everything. At the time, he was working in Mississippi, and it was not very easy for him to get back to us. He said, “No more of this. We will be together as a family through thick and thin, and we’re just going to have to make it work.” This, of course, began our journey, first into Texas and then all over the country, picking crops.

  When we started traveling, we always saw it as an adventure. I never felt we were poor or Oh, poor me. It was like, We’re going to go to a different place.We’re going to meet new people and do a different type of work. That’s something that I have to thank my parents for. They always made us feel good about what we were doing—it was something that needed to be done, and we just happened to be the ones to do it.

  Neither one of my parents had an education. They were very hardworking people. My dad was always like, “You don’t really need to go to school. You need to work—if you’re a hard worker, then that’s all you need.” My mother was the one that said, “No.You need to go to school!” Everywhere we went, even if we were going to be there for four weeks or six weeks picking the crops, she would make sure that they enrolled us in school.

  I started to go to school in Texas. The whole town were Mexicans, but Spanish was not allowed in the schools. They used to have little playground patrols, which were supposed to turn you in if you were speaking Spanish. I didn’t know English, but I was still going to talk, so I was always in trouble. My mother had to come get me because they let her know that I was being bad, speaking Spanish. Finally one day my poor mom said, “Please, don’t talk any more—I can’t keep picking you up!”

  The ninth grade was when you started working for credits to graduate, and we never stayed in one place long enough. So after two years of trying to compile some credits, I thought, I’m going to be in the ninth grade forever!You know, I was sixteen, so why even bother? So I dropped out of the ninth grade, and I got married at eighteen and had you.

  You pretty much grew up in the back of the pickup truck. On my breaks, I’d come and change your diaper and do whatever needed to be done so that I could continue working. There was you, and then Anna, and when Oscar came along, Barbara from the migrant workers’ agency asked me, “What are you going to do?” “What do you mean what am I going to do? I’m a grown woman and I’m raising my children.” “Well, you should go back to school.” I remember thinking, If you only knew—we work all day, and we work all night, and we move everywhere, so what do you mean “go to school”? But it was that little seed—Maybe there’s something there.

  Your father and I agreed that we wanted our kids to finish school and go to college. That meant we had to hurry up and save some money so that you could go to school in one place. So when you started kindergarten, we thought we would stop moving. Of course, it didn’t work out like that—we had a big freeze and there was no work, so we still had to travel. But we had that goal to stop moving so that you guys could go to school.

  I knew that we didn’t have wealth to leave you guys. So I always thought that my responsibility was to leave you a legacy of honesty, integrity, and education—and that was why I shoved it down your throat from day one, to all three of you. I would always say, “You need to do what I didn’t do, which is finish your education.”

  Roger Villanueva: You always said that you were going to lead by example and that you weren’t just going to tell us what to do. I remember when you went back and got your GED. You had three kids in the back of the truck and you were in the fields, but during break times you had your books out and you would be studying instead of having lunch. Dad was the one to take care of us and cook for us when you were out four or five hours a night getting your GED.

  I remember we hated beans and eggs—that’s what we ate every night because that’s all Dad knew how to cook. He’s like, “Well, be happy that you at least have beans and eggs to eat, because there’s a lot of people that don’t even have that.” He used to make us eat everything because he wanted us to appreciate everything that we had. I can remember us stuffing the food under the refrigerator, thinking that you all wouldn’t know, and then we would act like our plates were done.

  After that, I remember you said, “I’m going to go to community college.” I remember you taking a class here and there, and then sometimes work got to the point where you had to drop courses. But the next semester you picked them up again, and I remember times where you had to take the same class over and over again because of something or another. Raising three kids, trying to hold down the house front and your job—you were always on the go, and for you to put school on your plate was just really hard. Just like you’re proud of us, I was just so proud that day that you graduated. It took you a little bit longer—

  Lourdes: I had to hurry up and graduate before you guys did, because I knew you guys were coming right behind me!

  Roger: Yeah, well, I took my detours, but I finally did it. I’m proud, because, like you said, that’s something that nobody can take away from me.

  Lourdes: I think one thing that I owe to my mother is that she felt that you always need to look at the positive side of things and never grow bitter, because sometimes it is easy for people to get discouraged and bitter about things that don’t go right or that you feel are unfair. So I tried to push on you guys that you need to prove yourselves. Don’t just wait for that door to open—you need to open the door and prove that you can do it and do it better. I know that I was a little hard on you guys—

  Roger: I don’t think anybody else loved us enough to give us that tough love. Only the people that really love you look out for you, and that’s why you pushed us. To this
day I still think that had it not been for you pushing me to go to college, to get my education, I don’t think I would have made it. I can honestly tell you that.

  From the bottom of my heart, I’m glad you did everything that you did. If I was to have the option to choose another mother, I would never choose anybody else but you. When I look for my partner, I always say, If my wife can be half the woman that my mother is, I will be okay. I know I’ve never told you that, but that’s the way I feel.

  Recorded in Tampa, Florida, on December 3, 2008.

  MARTHA WELCH MENDEZ, 48 talks to her friend, CATHY NICKELS, 44 about her mother, Ann Hils Welch.

  Martha Welch Mendez: I was born here in Indianapolis, and my father’s family has been here over a hundred years. I have six sisters and six brothers, and the age span is fifteen and a half years. I’m number nine, one of the little kids. My dad had a heart attack when she was pregnant with the last one—my youngest brother never got to meet my dad—so we had that real all-for-one, we’re-all-in-this-together kind of thing. But we were pretty lucky, because my mom was very organized, very on time. She had a schedule: dinner was at 6:00 P.M., rain, shine, snow, no electricity, whatever—you just stuck to the routine. My cousin used to say that his house was the free world and our house was a communist country, because it was just so routine and regimented.

  We had chores. We were responsible for setting the table and cleaning up. My day was Saturday, so I did the Saturday lunch dishes and the Saturday night dishes, and I set the table and helped with dinner. We helped with the laundry, folding the clothes, putting the clothes away, keeping the yard up—we all had chores. Cleaning the bathrooms was my least favorite, as you can imagine with all those people.

  My mom went back to work as a nurse when I was in sixth or seventh grade. About twenty-five years later, she was still working part-time, but things weren’t adding up. She wasn’t acting like herself, so we insisted she go to the doctor. And she kind of dragged her feet. Finally she did go, and they did all kinds of tests, and they ruled everything else out and came with the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, which she didn’t want to believe. She kept saying, “I just hope I don’t have that.” But she had a whole file at home of articles and clippings she had cut out about Alzheimer’s. She knew.

  I think we caught it so early because she was always so on top of everything, and she kept saying things that just didn’t make sense. It was very hard to see that. My sister came to visit with my two nephews and my niece. My nephew got up early, and my mom fed him breakfast. About half an hour later she told him it was time to eat breakfast again. She fed the poor kid four breakfasts that morning—he was too polite to say anything.

  We were fortunate in finding it out early, so we could enjoy her. She hasn’t known us for a long time, though she seems to know that you’re there to see her or that you’re connected to her somehow. I don’t know how to explain that feeling— you’ll be in the dining room and there will be forty-some people there, but she seems to understand that you’re there for her. When my daughter was a baby, I had her sitting in my mom’s lap. My mom had not said my name in several years, not seemed to know who I was, and she leaned down and she kissed my daughter on the top of her head and said, “Martha’s baby.” Which just about floored me.

  One day I went to visit her, and she thought she worked there; she was helping this woman to the bathroom. The woman was asking my mom about how many children she had.Well, it was obvious my mom did not remember, so I said, “Mom, do you remember how many boys you had?” And she said, “No.” I said, “Do you remember how many girls?” And she said “No.” Then she says, “Well, smarty pants, how many kids do I have?” And so I said, “Mom, you have thirteen children.” And she said, “What? Was I crazy??” It was so funny because she had absolutely no idea that that was her life, but she had managed it exceptionally well.

  CATHY NICKELS (left) AND MARTHA WELCH MENDEZ (right)

  Recorded in Indianapolis, Indiana, on September 22, 2007.

  SHARON CAPRA, 54

  Sharon Capra: My husband went into the air force in 1976, and soon after I got pregnant with my firstborn son, Tony. Eleven other siblings came after that, and I’ll say their names right now: Jason, James, Michael, Rachel, Sarah, Joseph, Jacob, Danielle, Joanna, Julia, and Emily.

  My husband was a missile launch officer and he also did OSI [Office of Special Investigations], and so he was gone a lot, and many times Tony was the oldest in the home. He liked to be the man of the house. He would take the dog for a walk when he was four—I don’t know if the dog walked him or he walked the dog. And he was always wanting to do the big guy stuff—you know, take the trash out—all you saw was the trash can, you didn’t see the kid. [laughs] When I was really busy with the children and Tony was in the car with me, many times I’d pull up to the front of a supermarket or a post office and he would run in there and do all the errands. He thought that it was fun to be a “guy,” you know, to be a man. He really wanted to be like his dad.

  When he was a young child, he would wear his father’s BDUs [battle dress uniforms] and walk around the house and say he was a soldier. That seemed like his career choice from very young on. He would tell me, “Mom, buy me some military books.” He seemed fascinated with war strategy, which seemed boring to me. I said, “Look, can’t I buy you a different book?” and he’d say, “No, it really fascinates me!” So I would. When everything would get crazy in the house, he’d retreat to his bedroom, close the door, and read those books.

  When I would get the children to bed, sometimes he and I would sit up and watch movies and eat popcorn. One time I told him, “You know, I just loved you so much, I wanted to have more children because you were just so great.” He said, “Well, Mom, logically, I think that you should’ve had just me. If you really liked me so much, you didn’t need anybody else!”

  He was very smart and very quick to grasp ideas, but he wanted to always think of ways that he could improve them. I would show him a math problem, and I would say, “This is the formula.” And he’d say, “I bet I could do it in a different way.” So he would try to figure out another way to get around it. At the time it was very frustrating. I thought, Can’t you just do it the way I’m telling you to do it? But he would try to figure out a different way. He’d say, “Mom, you said that it’s not right to do something, but why?” One time, he listened to the radio and heard about homosexuals wanting to be parents, and he said, “You know, I don’t understand why they can’t be just as good parents as a heterosexual couple.” He would challenge me to think outside the box.

  He opened my eyes to the fact that children are not just little mes—they’re their own people, and they have their own opinions. We raised our children to be Christians, but as the years went on I realized that even though I value something, my children have to decide what their values are and how they’re going to define themselves. You can guide and encourage, but eventually they have to make those choices. There were times when I didn’t like it, but that’s what life is about.

  When Tony graduated from high school, he met Angie. I was in labor with my eleventh child, and he came running into my labor room and said, “Mom! Mom, I met the most beautiful woman in the world!” and I said, “Tony, not right now, I’m in labor!” He said, “No, I’ve got to tell you about her! She’s just gorgeous!” I was in labor—I thought, Man, he’s really fallen for this woman.

  Eight months later he married her. He tried to get into the air force because the baby was coming and he needed a job. They said, “You had asthma as a boy, so we can’t let you in”—there was this one little episode where he had a respiratory syndrome. But he kept calling back, and the last time he called they said, “You’ve pestered us enough, and you only had one episode of this when you were two years old, so we’re going to go ahead and let you come in.” He called me up and said, “Mom, I got into the military!” He was really excited.

  When I became a grandma, Tony called me on the phone, and he
goes, “Mom! Mom, listen!” I heard crying, and he goes, “Mom, he’s just so awesome! Mom, he’s so healthy, and his little eyes are just so bright!” He just wouldn’t let him go. He stayed there all day and just held him. He was really happy to be a father.

  Tony decided on EOD, which is explosive ordnance disposal. I was upset, and so was his wife. We wanted him to be safe, to choose a safe career path: How about the library? [laughs] But there was always something in him that was more daring. So when he told us his choice, I thought, Yeah, that’s what he would do. I still didn’t want him to do it, but he wasn’t going to change his mind.

  So that’s what he did, and he really, thoroughly loved it. He did two missions to Afghanistan and two to Iraq. He didn’t like being away from his family, of course—that was his number one priority. By then he had five children, and he loved being with them, but he provided for his family really well and he thought that he was doing what he was supposed to do.

  When he had his own family, our relationship changed—I had to let him go. It was hard, but I let him be who he was, and I was just extremely proud of him. I think that’s probably the miracle of parenting: over time, you think—you know—it’s just a miracle to see who they become as people.

  I didn’t talk to Tony that often when he was in Iraq. A lot of my information would come from his brothers. He would diligently call them—but he didn’t want to worry me. If I wanted to hear anything, I had to hear it from someone else—I’d overhear his brothers talking, but they wouldn’t tell me very much either. I think they were all just trying to protect Mom.