A recent segment of “CBS Sunday Morning” brought me to tears, which is not an unusual event, as my three children will tell you. There is a skit that plays in my head where a child cries out, “MOM! Dad’s crying again!” The TV show segment featured an interview with singer/songwriter Lionel Ritchie, and one of the songs that my mother would request of me.
The first three of my mother’s children inherited her singing ability. I can remember hearing her softly intoning some spiritual music. We three, two boys and a girl, would sometimes perform at the various churches that my mother attended. The most enthusiastic responses came with our rendition of “Do Lord, Do Remember Me.” While religion did not stick with me, singing did; I never performed professionally, but have been the featured entertainment for my first daughter, especially when her youth group was called upon to deliver some church activity. When asked what her contribution to the group would be, she would say, “My dad’s going to sing.” And I would. My brother never did much singing after our childhood ended, except for a short stint with the singing group we were in while in high school. “The Chancellors” never had any professional engagements, and our one shining moment was singing “What’s Your Name” at the high school talent show. My sister was never paid to sing, either, but she has one of the most magnificent voices you will never hear.
In 1978, I moved from Madera, California to New Albany, Indiana; my bride and I wanted our young daughter to be closer to our families in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The R&B group “The Commodores” released an album that same year that had a song that became popular. I don’t know when my mother first heard “Three Times A Lady,” a song penned and sung by Lionel Ritchie, but on one of my trips from Southern Indiana to Pittsburgh, she asked me to sing the song for her. I fulfilled the request, which became a tradition for the two of us. When I visited with her, she asked me to sing that song. When diabetes took the toes on my mother’s right foot and her left leg to the mid-shin, she gave up on living. Mom had been on kidney dialysis for some time, and she told my sister that she wanted no more medical care. The doctor told my sister that, without dialysis, toxins would build up in Mom’s body and she would grow sleepy until she died. I would drive to Maryland from Missouri to sit with her, and on some of those occasions, she would rise from her coma to ask me: “Joni, sing ‘Three Times A Lady.’” But my car had failed me the day before she died. The next day, as I made my way to Maryland, accompanied by my son, my sister called me to say, “She’s gone.” My son held me in his arms on the side of the road as I cried.
My mother’s physical life ended on June 6th, 2010, but her memory is alive in the hearts of her three surviving children. When I saw the interview with Lionel Ritchie on “CBS Sunday Morning,” I was emotionally catapulted back twelve years to the time that my mother last asked me to sing to her, and I murmured, “Thanks for the time that you’ve given me…” My mother was three times a lady, and when her 40-year-old son fell ill, she nursed me.
I hope that she can hear me singing to her, now: “I love you.”
cjon3acd@att.net