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Days of Triumph and Tears:
A Memory of My Mother
Written in 2015
Sometimes we are relieved that our parents aren’t here to endure contemporary society as it crashes into violence and war and danger, where all the virtues and laws we were brought up on, are crumbling like paper under a faucet of liquid bad news. Dad and Mom fought for a kind of dignity and humanity based on honesty above all that doesn’t seem to be important any longer. And nothing of memory is precious or predictable.
So the weekend of June 6, memories of my Mom surged up like a good champagne. It was three years ago that our small family put aside anger and jealousies, and sat around Mother’s bedroom in her colonial mansion as she began to fade away, her three dachshunds cuddled around her feet, knowing better than we did what was happening and when. At 93, her body was just flat done. She wasn’t ill. She was closing down at her own pace, maybe the way we all should end life on earth.
So our family sat there that first Saturday in May three years ago, the TV in the background at a low sound on the day of the Kentucky Derby, which we knew she loved to watch every year. Suddenly, she rose up her head and said, “Get my Derby Hat.” and we all laughed and assured her we would. Was she more conscious than we thought? She knew me. She knew most of us. But she knew her horses. Mother was always up to date on race horses, and for sure on horses in general, as they had been so much a part of her life - from saddle horses to western quarter horses to polo ponies, all of which she had embraced at some point since she was a young socialite teen in Providence, R.I.
This year’s first weekend in June, when once again, another horse of power and hope was attempting to cap off the triple crown at Belmont, I sat in my RelaxABack chair writing on the laptop, stopping my fingers momentarily as the horses burst from the starting gate and flew around the 2500 meter track. I felt, “here we go again” after the failures of the last few years at busting the curse of winning that third silver winners cup - I had been most heartbroken about Smarty Jones (2004) Funny Cide (2003), California Chrome (2014) even the great Northern Dancer in 1964 who became one of the most spectacular breeding stallions in history. On this day, 2015, I was alone, my family shrunk by death and decision, and scattered in residences. I was not making much ado about nothing this particular Saturday afternoon. And then the crowd (on TV) burst into screaming louder than the universe and I saw the yellow and blue colors grab the front with ease and lead the pack, much in the manner my great champion Centaurus had in Uruguay in 1992 attempting to win the Triple Crown at Marones, Uruguay, but wore out and lost by a nose. “I wonder,” I said, as American Pharaoh seemed to be dancing through the dirt like a Baryshnikov, truly in charge, happily ensconced in the wind he was pushing against, and then it seemed, prayer was coming through, and this horse was on his way to fame and fortune, the first to repeat the feat since 1978 when Affirmed accomplished it. Two of the great races he had conquered in slushy mud. This one, at least, showed he could do it in a fast track of dry dirt as well.
 As American Pharaoh crossed the finished line and the Jockey raised his crop in victory as if he too couldn’t believe it, I could feel my Mother, I could feel tears of joy bursting from her eyes as they were from mine and being content that there was finally a hero for whom we could raise a brag and a flag . She would have loved the moment and jockey Espinoza who could not knock a brilliant smile off his face, and really was stunned and couldn’t exactly say how he won the race other than he was on the best horse who took it over and won easily. That’s a champion. No excuses. No let downs. My phone rang, it was my son, who also sounded emotional. What a race, we agreed. We just watched a miracle. My son was 6 years old for the last Triple Crown winner in 1978.
I tried to straighten myself up, as my father would order. He didn’t take well to emotional displays. He would tolerate the momentary races but his addiction was watching polo games on film sent to him by Skee Johnston and others of his polo pals. During the fall season, Dad would sit in his worn chair with the ottoman and watch on a huge TV screen, Sunday Pro Football, for which he had little respect, always with the sound off. He hated the commentators. Anyone with any sense who watched the game could tell what was going on. He had played football at Baylor, but broke his nose three times. Saturdays, when college football reigned, were reserved for his tennis group, so he never got into it. But on Sunday, joining Dad to watch a few quarters of pro ball was about all the time sharing allowed in his fading years.
On this June day of a broken record celebration, neither Mom or Dad were present, and the traditions of the past, the sharing of good things and horses, the five week wait and run for the quest for the Triple Crown, and mother’s spice tea and chicken sandwiches on white bread, have gone. Oh, some of us watch the races passionately, but often in re-runs. For this year’s Derby I was visiting Uruguay, where my then husband and I had enjoyed our own championship racing stable called La Felicidad in the ‘90ties, but now both are deceased. At least my small family, three children and seven grandchildren, are able to enjoy our Grizzlies NBA team, and the superstars of Sunday TV football in season. I also learned to appreciate college football, but have never been able to get excited again about ice hockey (NHL), with which I was very much a part of in 1966-8 when we had the Minnesota North Stars farm team in Memphis, and I was learning the ropes to be a score-keeper and a scout.
On that same weekend of the Belmont extravaganza in New York, however, , at Radio City Music Hall, I watched (again on TV) the Tony Awards. The show was jammed packed with so much talent it was hard to figure out which one was better than the other. Yet, when the performance of the King and I “Shall We Dance” tried to weave its magic, I thought of my mother again. She would have been disappointed at the rather fragile production because we knew well the extraordinary theatrical actress Gertrude Lawrence, who created the role of the teacher along with Yul Brynner, the King of Siam in the original. Lost today was the confidence, the brazenness, the dignity and grace of the great actress who captured Broadway in 1951. She was my godmother and best friends with my grandmother and had visited us in Memphis when I was a child of 3 years old. When she played Anna on Broadway, my grandmother and I were guests, sitting right next to the lauded actress Gloria Swanson, and we all met up behind the curtains at the plays end. A time not forgotten, but closed forever. And no one really cares but those who were a part of it.
We are so short on heroes these days. Even Peyton Manning, LeBron James, Leo Messi and young golfer Jordan Spieth have moments when those around them are out of pocket and fail to be the support they need to be victorious. But they overcome. What’s important is that they don’t lose their cool, their focus, their hopes. Heroes. It’s despicable that touted heroes are Minons, and cartoons, and high paid actors who, in the vein of the Kardashians, cannot pass any kind of microscopic analysis of good example, especially in comparison to war heroes, Superman, police and firemen, and athletes who do the impossible and should have decent character to be copied. At least this horse race event was a boost to a sagging race horse world - a new bloodline, a new spirit, a deserving trainer, and another millionaire horse fancier.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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