Miss Cathy

Miss Cathy is the name the kids in the neighborhood used to call my mom. I think it spoke to the fact that they liked her more than most adults but still needed to add a title of respect. Most people that meet Miss Cathy are usually drawn to her; find her openness engaging and her salty talk fun. She jokes that now everybody wants to call her “mom”.

I wasn’t one of those kids who thought his mom was the “most beautiful in the world”. In fact, I used to always roll my eyes and was a little put off by how often I’d hear that come out of another child’s mouth. I mean, how narcissistic is that? If your mom is “the most beautiful mother in the world” and she made you, then what does that make you? I always thought it was a back-door way of telling the world how beautiful you think YOU are-but hey, that’s just the musing of a ten year old me.

Don’t get me wrong; of course I thought my mom was pretty. After watching “Carmen Jones” at eight years old I fantasized that Miss Cathy looked a little like Dorothy Dandridge on the rare occasions she’d get dressed up and go out for the night.

For the most part, I grew up with awe and tons of respect for my mom. I was aware that she not only treated me like a kid (which was expected and I resented), but there were times when she’d take me into her confidence and afford me some benefit that made me feel grown up.

Now, she’s seventy-two and looks less like a 50’s movie star and more like a little, round, brown ball of “everybody’s grandma” or that “nice, little, old lady that you can tell anything to.” Her skin is unlined, satiny smooth with a little luster from the Vaseline that she uses as a moisturizer and general “all-in-one” beauty treatment. Her complexion is a rich, warm caramel. She weighs one hundred sixty seven pounds and stands about five-five -that’s when she doesn’t let the osteoporosis get the better of her and stoop any over any further. She’s lost about forty pounds since the beginning of the year and now she has a lot of sagging skin and little muscle tone due to a lifetime of not exercising. She has arthritis in her right knee and a new, cobalt steel left knee courtesy of surgery in April. She has diabetes, high blood pressure and her Alzheimer’s is stage one, as is her dementia.

Never much of a fashion plate, I do applaud her creativeness each day as she dresses herself in a variety of outfits just to be here at home working on one of her “projects”. I found that to be a significant change because when she first got here she couldn’t be bothered much to change out of her housedress. Suemi, my sister in law used to complain that she’d wear the same thing at their house for days on end-a sure sign she was depressed.

But now, she greets each day in a different over-sized, tee shirt that I designed a lifetime ago but that she’s kept pristine and like new, paired with a complementary pair of long shorts or pants. She’s even reaching deep in her closet to wear things that she couldn’t for years because of the weight she’d gained. She may not be fashion forward but she wears everything with a certain élan.