“Sometimes even people who care an awful lot have other things on their mind …”

As many of you have known for years (and as I have spoken of publicly only because my mother gave me her express permission to do so), my mother was a recovering alcoholic. “AA” (Alcoholics Anonymous) has been a tremendous evidence of God’s common grace in her life and truly, her closest friends here in Battle Creek, Michigan are friends she and Charlie made through AA. So we are particularly blessed to have their help and creative generosity in planning the service we will share this coming Saturday morning to honor my mother’s memory:

An Open Memorial Speaker Meeting in Honor of Kathy Kroncke Ford
To be held Saturday, December 22 at 10:30AM, at the Riverside Alano Club
(223 East Michigan, Battle Creek MI 49014)

All are welcome to enjoy a light lunch to follow immediately after the service
In lieu of flowers, donations to the Riverside Alano Club would be appreciated 

The AA parlance we will use for our time together is an “open meeting.” (This means that Kali and I (and others) can attend because open meetings are for anyone, not just people who are wanting to get sober through AA.) There will be standard aspects of every AA meeting (flashing me back to many such experiences attending meetings with my mother when I was just a little child): The Serenity Prayer, “How it Works” from The Big Book, a time of open sharing, The Lord’s Prayer.

In addition, Kali and I are working hard to create a program for the meeting that will include her obituary, some of her poetry, and a request for donations to the Riverside Alano Club (in lieu of flowers). We are also preparing some photo displays, ordering flowers, and ordering/preparing food/drinks/utensils for a lunch to feed 50+ people. So our day was full today and will be Thursday and Friday as well.

I must tell you … I really continue to appreciate your continued prayers and notes both here on the blog and on FaceBook. I am (of course) walking through all of the normal aspects of grief (to be expected). But in addition, since I have been tasked with pulling together a sampling of my mother’s poetry and of gathering / sorting / enlarging, etc. photos, I am also digging through boxes and boxes of, well, the physical representations of my mother’s life.

This is not an easy task.

Sure, some of it is fun—if I felt like really humiliating myself, I’d let you see a letter I wrote her when I was 9 or 10 years old during one of her many institutionalizations. I was, ahem, a little boy crazy and obviously BOUND by the fear of man. Cringe! Plus I have what can only be described as some of THE MOST hideous photos from the late 1970’s. Oh my stars! I looked like a total freak! I would’ve destroyed the photos forever, but there is this morbid curiosity factor that compels me to keep them alive so that my own children can cringe and laugh at them with me. I was U.G.L.Y. (!!) Like 1970’s ugly. And that is just plain funny.

But most of it isn’t funny, it’s hard. Dark. Painful. In order to follow the requests of Charlie and my mother’s closest friends to find (and share) some of her poetry, I have spent hours wading through journal pages from the darkest seasons of her life (which were the darkest seasons of my childhood too) and it is terribly sad to read. So many words! (My mother was a true verbophile and I would guess, at times, hypergraphic as well.) So many thoughts, often disordered, often slurred even in script as it was obvious from one page to the next that she was writing while drinking to excess her favorite alcoholic beverage (scotch). She wrote through great suffering, pain, abandonment, rejection, anger, hatred, and fear. (Who does that remind you of?) She often felt lonely. Despairing. She longed to love and be loved. She rarely felt like she fit in anywhere. (Yes. Yes. I know. I really am my mother’s daughter. I don’t run from that statement anymore. I count it a privilege to be hers. And I am even more grateful to belong to the Lord of Creation.)

There is a lot of cynicism in my mother’s writing and a lot of pride, even to the point of grandiosity. There are repeated suicidal inclinations (especially in her journaling from various detox and mental institutions). There is darkness and rage.

But do you know what else there is? There is great love. My mother hurt deeply because she loved deeply. And all of that love sometimes burst out in sweet, beautiful light. At age 42, I still recall many of her age-appropriate poems for children. I was actually shocked to learn tonight driving to our hotel that my sticky-brained-photographic-memory’d sister, Kali, doesn’t remember them at all. (But sometimes that’s what our experience of our childhood is like—I have no recollection; Kali remembers something perfectly. She has no recollection; I can still see the sights and smell the smells.) And so it was with the “kids”  poems that my mother wrote. The first is my favorite. I could recite it line for line for you even without the old, yellowed papers that still bear the indented strikes of the keys on the typewriter ribbon and paper:

SECRETS

What do you do with a secret
When the excitement starts to grow
And you want to share the happiness
But you don’t want anyone to know
You can tell it to a dandylion
Or whisper it to a teddy bear
But if you really have to tell someone
Mommys always there.

(A little ironic because she probably wrote it when she was away from us again. But I still enjoy the heart of its sweet message.)

The next classic was obviously directed at me because I really was a terrible little child who was just plain AWFUL to my sister and often a perfect example of its title. Even as a child, I appreciate how my mom was using words to help me to express what I was feeling (and helping me to figure out better courses of action than yelling or fighting).

SPOILED BRAT

Mommy’s on the telephone
Daddy’s in the den
The big kids are watching television
And I’m feeling mean again
I asked my mom if she’d like to talk
And daddy to take me for a walk
And the big kids if they’d play a game
But all their answers were the same
NO !!

I know that yelling isn’t right
Neither is starting another fight
‘Cause when I do mean stuff like that
I feel just like a spoiled brat

I just don’t know a better way
Or know the special words to say
To make all these big people see
There’s someone else here
And that someone is “ME” !!!

I’ll close with a “grownup” poem that is more representative of the hundreds of poems I am working through to choose some for the service on Saturday. My mother would often make a hand-written note at the top of a page of poetry, then came the title (in all caps), and then the poem, usually with no indents, paragraphs or punctuation:

Life dries the tearful eyes of youth to allow the sobbing heart its due

PILGRIMS

We know of pain
You and I
The harsh Pain
Of broken promises
Shattered ideals
Barren dreams
The soft pain
Of tenderness
As gentle hands
Brush away tears
Tracing your face
Calming your fears
Yes
We know of pain
You and I.

I don’t know who she was thinking of when she wrote that. Maybe her best friend, Anne P. Maybe her beloved AA sponsor (whom I just spoke with for the first time today when I called to let her know Mom had died). I’m not sure who she was thinking of—but I know that she often thought about a lot of people. She was generous and loving and kind. And she touched a lot of lives. And she was a good friend and a true encourager to me.

I love her and I miss her already. It’s good to be sad and keep crying. That means there was a lot of love and a depth of real relationship. And for that, I am grateful.

OK. Now I’l REALLY close with one more grownup poem. This was just scratched on a sheet of paper in a box. No title. But I love how clear it is and how kind it is.

Thanks again for the prayers and notes!

Much love and g’nite,
Tara B.

If you come to me
And need a friend
And I am harsh
And curt
Please say you need
   to talk
Before you walk away alone
Sometimes even people
Who care an awful lot
Have other things on their mind