She never held an elected office. She never made a movie, starred in a TV show, or wrote a book. She wasn't a cultural or political icon and she'll never appear in a Who's Who of any sort. She would have been mortified if anyone tried making her day to day life into a reality show. And she never won any awards--though her kids would have voted her Mom of the Year on numerous occasions if such an award existed. But she survived a horrendous auto accident that shattered her leg and wrist, alcoholism (almost thirty years sober at her death), tobacco, and breast cancer--and she would have told you that quitting smoking was the hardest of the four. She watched her husband lose two jobs to mills closing in a slowly dying steel industry, and uprooted her life twice to move across country and state to state to keep the life they knew together going. She later watched him die far too young from lung cancer, and witnessed a daughter losing a son to another horrendous auto accident. Along the way she raised three pretty decent kids, helped nurture eleven incredible grandchildren, and enjoyed four great-grandchildren of whom even bigger things are hoped. Somewhere along the way she found time to make sandwiches weekly for bag lunches for the homeless, baby-sat kids for people looking for work during the Great Recession, lead rosary prayer groups, and kept the cleanest house in recorded human history.
She lived to be eighty-years-old, and most importantly, she was my Mom.
She told me once that "Amazing Grace" was her and my father's favorite hymn to sing when they were at mass, and that's why it's this week's featured tune on Jukebox. After I failed miserably at writing the Great American Novel, I ended up in dire financial straits, and I lived with my Mom for a year while I tried to get back on my feet monetarily. One night while my Mom was cooking dinner I was practicing my guitar, and I picked out "Amazing Grace." She came from the kitchen to watch me play in her family room momentarily, then went back to making dinner, all the while humming along as I continued to play "Amazing Grace." That's the type of thing you recall when someone you've loved since the moment you were born passes away.
The lyrics to "Amazing Grace" were written by John Newton, and the melody, near as I can tell, is from some ancient piece of some sort that I didn't really much care enough about to learn of. I chose the song because my Mom liked it. I chose the version by Rod Stewart from Every Picture Tells a Story because I love the instrumental guitar intro and very few people on this planet sing as beautifully as Rod Stewart did back in the day.
"How sweet the sound," very much indeed.
Thanks for everything, Mom.
Enjoy:
Peace,,
emaycee
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