On St. Patrick’s Day, she usually called me before I got around to calling her. A college
professor, I was too busy teaching classes or attending meetings or . . . something. “Did you
forget you’re Irish?” she’d ask good-naturedly (I never did!), a tinge of wryness coating her
words. “Of course, not, Mom! And top o’ the morning to you, too!” Another favorite line of
hers was “Do I even have a daughter?” Ouch. That meant I was remiss and hadn’t called her in
a week or two. My father’s death had hit her hard. For several years we wondered if, after fifty
years of marriage our mother would be able to go it alone. My siblings and I had many
conversations about how we needed to make sure to stay in close touch, support her, love her.
Except for faithful Maureen, the rest of us lived several states away so those phone calls were
her lifeblood. And now that I think about it, ours.
My gosh, how I miss those calls. The visits home when she stroked and clasped my hands. The
blue eyes that twinkled mischievously when she teased me about being a feminist and a diehard
supporter of Hillary. The unwavering love she displayed for her children, her grandchildren, her
great grandchildren, and her very large and extended Irish Catholic Philly family. The
distressed and lonely teens she so earnestly counseled in the high school bathroom where she
worked as a janitor. (Many tracked her down after she retired at 80 to thank and tell her how
she had saved their life.) No matter the pickles we kids got ourselves into, we could count on
Mom to back us up or bail us out. I can still hear her raucous laugh in the movie theater that
made me squirmin in my seat and shield my eyes. Her endless, meandering stories about people
and their calamities, some of whom she knew well, and others hardly at all. No matter, she had
buckets of empathy to go around, and she enlisted us children in her project.
Every day is a good day to remember Anne Joyce Waites who was Irish from her toes to the tip
of her nose and the crown of her queenly head, but St. Patrick’s Day is an especially good one. I
am not sure why we don’t fully appreciate and see the people we love until after they are gone.
I suppose it is part of the human condition—more hindsight then insight—or at least of my
human condition. Even now, as I write this, I realize it is two days after St. Patrick’s Day. Just a
little slow on the uptake, I guess.
I love remembering you, Mom. Your simple wisdom. Your selflessness. Your kindness. Your
boundless love for others. You were a walking lesson in how to live, and I wish I remembered
you so much and so well when you were still here with us.