There's a celebration of my sister Martha's life in my hometown tonight, and even though I had a multitude of excuses not to go (some good, some weak), I am shocked by the amount of regret I'm wallowing in right now. I like to think at 53 years old I know my own mind, but I guess it's still got a few tricks up its brain-sleeve.
The event is at the Silver Derby, which is a little piano bar that Martha and my Mom loved to go to in the A.D. era (After Dad.) There was a 'little old lady' (Mom's term) named Jean Miller who played piano and the patrons would sing along. Mom had a savant-level gift for remembering song lyrics, and Jean knew endless songs, to the point where Mom could say "Play my kids, Jean" and she'd do ten songs in a row, one each with reference to Leslie, Melissa, Amy, Martha, Ellen, Craig, Sam, Ben, Margie, and Jim. I'm sure Ben probably got "Benny and the Jets" but I always hoped it was Michael Jackson's song to the rat.
Was it weird for an adult daughter to go to the bar with her recently-widowed mother? Probably. Was it even weirder when they both started dating people they met at the bar? Totally. With the exception of one very sweet gay man who became Mom's bosom buddy, the folks they brought home from "the Derby" were ..... how do I say this? Without also spontaneously combusting from the self-burn?
The men they brought home from the Derby were dull, unattractive, horny, and often humorless, but they knew a woman suffering from sepulchral self-esteem issues when they saw one, so glommed on to Martha and my Mom. Who were in turn so unbelievably flattered to be noticed that they forgave all manner of personality defects. I learned at the feet of masters, yo.
I'm not begrudging them, I promise. The only reason I never went to the Derby was that I moved out before I was old enough to go. I love the idea of them standing around a piano singing their hearts out and I'm jealous I never got to join them. Hell, I coulda met one of my ex-husbands there.
Martha was my first musical guru. She was eleven years older than me, and she had a record player and a ton of records in her little room on the third floor, and never minded me coming up to visit and put records on, lying on her floor, poring over album covers and liner notes, both of us singing along to Jackson Browne or Warren Zevon or Queen. We loved singing in the car together, never once worrying about whether we sounded good.
In fact, some of the best memories of my family are of singing together. Legend says that when the first five daughters were in the car with Dad, he would ask them to sing "Edelweiss" and then cry like a baby. Mom was always singing in the kitchen. One of my earliest memories is sitting on her lap while she taught me how to sing "Hey, Good Lookin'". Tradition dictated that we sing two songs on the way to Grampa and Granny's house, the first "Bumpy Road" triggered when Dad turned onto the gravel part of Beckwith Drive. I can't remember the second one, but for vague references to pudding and hats. Sam, the most musical of all of us, was the conductor of some fantastic spontaneous hootenannies, banging away on the gutted player piano singing Eno's "Drivin' Me Backwards" while Thurman the Dog howled along. Even though Mom was absolutely opposed to my going to college so far away, as we prepared for the dauntingly long road trip to take me there, she requested I learn a few songs to sing to her on the way. I serenaded her with "Subterranean Homesick Blues", Syd Barrett's "The Effervescing Elephant", my very poor rendition of "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits, and plenty more. I would give my left earlobe to hear her sing "Scotch and Soda" again.
At Mom's funeral, when Jim (the youngest, so last in line) walked up to put his rose on the pile, he sang one of the songs Mom used to delight us with when we were little, "You are the B-E-S-T Best" and I had to type that four times because my eyes are leaking. Frickin' baby.
So I guess I really am sorry not to be there tonight. A bunch of people standing around singing, no solos, no showboating, just pure shared enjoyment is a magnificent tribute to Martha, and to our family as a whole. The choir is getting smaller, but I hope like hell we can still sing together at least one more time.
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