Memories of Mom | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Kathy Manos Penn is a native of the “Big Apple,” who settled in the “Peach City” – Atlanta. A former English teacher now happily retired from a corporate career in communications, she writes a weekly column for the Dunwoody Crier. Read her blogs and purchase her book, “The Ink Penn: Celebrating the Magic in the Everyday” on her website theinkpenn.com.

    It's been several years since my mom passed away, and I think of her often still, but especially around Mother's Day. We either took her out for her day or had her over for dinner, so there's always a bit of a hole in Mother's Day weekend nowadays. When I'm with my sisters, we laugh about the "Momisms" we've inherited or what she would have said about any given situation. Reminiscing together always makes us smile, and I'm smiling now as I sit alone in front of my computer.

    Mother loved her two-legged family and her though she was less than pleased that we three girls never gave her any grandkids. I can just imagine her thinking, "Three daughters-three. You'd think I'd get one grandchild out of 'em."

    Beyond her love of family, both two-legged and four-legged, three things come to mind when I think of my Mom: music, the color purple, and reading.

    Music was a constant. I have vivid memories of Mother playing Elvis and Broadway tunes on her red Victrola when we lived in NYC. When we got a stereo, it was music from the 40s, 50s, and 60s, so we grew up with Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and others. Frank was the all-time favorite, and my sister Lisa and I loved him as much as Mom did.

    We all watched Elvis's Hawaii special the night it premiered, and it must have made quite the impression on my sister Pamela, as she later purchased the video collection of the Elvis concerts. Mom kept up with the latest rock and roll, and the eight-track tapes in the car back then were of her choosing: The Lovin Spoonful, Neil Diamond, Tom Jones and more.

    Next is the color purple. Mom had clothes in every shade-lavender, lilac, deep purple--you name it. She had purple jackets, sweaters, nightgowns, and even pocketbooks. We three daughters gave her an amethyst necklace for her 70th birthday, and she was tickled pink-not purple. That love of purple made my assigned role as fashion consultant pretty easy. Mother enjoyed shopping and dressing stylishly, and if you could find the latest fashion in purple, you had it made.

    And, finally, Mom was a reader, more so later in life when she had more free time. When I was a child, it was Mom who read the Golden Books to me. In NYC, it was a big treat to pick up a Golden Book at the small local grocer. When I wasn't bringing books home from the school library, Mom was taking me to the public library to pick out books I could read, or she could read to me. I was recently talking about my childhood book collection−all picked out by Mother: Dr. Seuss, The Bobbsey Twins, Heidi, The Five Little Peppers, and Nancy Drew.

    Later in life, Mom and I shared mystery books, that is until Pamela gave Mom a Kindle. After that, Mom turned up her nose at "real" books. I'd offer her a book, and she'd say, "I don't need it, Kathy Jean; I can get it on my Kindle."

    Ah yes. Memories are good but not as good as the real thing. If you've lost your mom, you know what I mean; if not, may you always remember to love and cherish her.