Mother

My mother, Ruth Ketcham Beye, died on 28 May 1954.  She had called her doctor to complain of something, told him it was no big deal, and suggested he come by at the end of his working day for a drink, and a little examination.  He found her lying dead of a heart attack, stretched out on the living room sofa, with a small table holding two glasses, a bottle of whiskey, and a silver bowl filled with melting ice cubes.  The television was turned on to the Army-McCarthy hearings.  She was born October 17, 1892 so her formative years coincided with the Edwardian era.  If the first World War had not changed the serenity and security of her class, then the death of her first husband, newly married, in the influenza epidemic of 1918 would have done it for her personally.  She had little better luck next time around, as her second husband was killed in an automobile accident, after sixteen years of marriage, leaving her with six living issue.  Still I can remember the mother of a classmate sneering when I suggested my mother had had a hard time of it, "about time she had a bit of bad luck!"  True enough, she had a staff of five or so persons whom she was able to retain as a widow; although she did not work outside the home or keep house, she had a large establishment to oversee, and shortly after my father's death, she was elected to the public school board, where she served as president for at least a decade.   She was a rather snobbish ambitious woman whose children for the most part disappointed her.  Two daughters married Jews, something she took very hard, although one was on the surface of things quite rich, and she spent time in their Palm Beach establishment, presumably basking in the sun if not in her son-in-law with his to her distinctly foreign aura.  Her brilliant oldest daughter lived in what she considered a slum in New York City, wrote poetry, and was quick to tell her mother how much she despised what she stood for.  Her youngest daughter had to get married to a man whose parents were the simplest of working class people.  The worst was perhaps myself, a flamboyant queer notorious throughout the town.  I don't think she made any of us six feel acceptable.  I remember her once crying out to me "You're all failures."  The best thing I guess was that she departed this life when we were all still relatively young, and we had years and years to live free of her judgement, at least openly expressed, although of course what we repressed and carried with us took its toll.  She was 44 when Daddy died, 54 when the money ran out and she moved to a smaller house, and commenced to do her own housekeeping.  Poor thing, all the children had decamped except for the fruitcake son, who at least was an amusing cocktail hour companion for a widow, even if she had to overlook the derisive remarks directed at him, even in her company when they drove together through the downtown.  She never complained really, never explained.  She died at 62, when I was in Cambridge at Harvard Graduate School.  I was married, something inexplicable she never chose to bring up.  In fact the saddest thing of my life is that she died when I was so young, and I had never had the chance to bring anything up with her.  What was she like, what were the struggles of her life?  What were the joys?  Did she love Daddy?  Marry him because the other guy, her high school sweetheart had died?  How sad that she never got to see her children triumphing in their own individual ways as they went into mature adulthood.  We never knew her, she never knew us; as for Daddy, well, for me he really never existed.  Now here we are, the survivors, aged 90, 89, 87, and 83.  She and Daddy, they were so young!  My God, my own children are in their mid fifties!