Madonna
One Day At A Time, two p.m. meeting. I'm sitting here
with my youngest son. A warm veggie pocket slips around in my
hand as I try to get some nourishment. This Sunday, this group--
my group-- will celebrate it's twentieth anniversery. Because
of the five convenient meetings a day, the Day At A Time group
has been nicknamed the Accident Room of A.A. By accident or fate,
I sit here today. The chair person's name is Jay. He has been
sober about twenty-two months. Recently, he had a resentment against
a member of the group. He found himself isolating and watching
soap operas. He stayed away from meetings for almost two months.
One day he hit bottom and found the strength to open up to his
mother. She told him that he was in bad space.and to get himself
back to those meetings. "My mother also used a four-letter word,"
he said. "Not her style, but most effective." Then he paused and
said, "She is the one person I know that loves me unconditionally."
Responses to the chairperson came first from a black man who said
he was 36 years old and never stayed straight long enough to confide
in his mother. Every time he got out of prison, the bag took first
place. This morning, a friend of his was found dead in his car.
In the past he had never been able to accept death without picking
up. He'd been working for months now without taking a day off,
and after hearing this news, he finds that he cannot go to work.
He wants to get high. He went instead to his mother's grave where
recently he had a two hundred dollar headstone placed on it. He
told us of his talking with her and he felt she too had sent him
to this meeting today. Tears were in my eyes. I hadn't heard a
story with such impact since old Elmer-- a park bum, a hopeless
drunk, who sobered up late in life-- was allowed to put a wreath
on his mother's grave. Elmer was like a character from the book,
A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN; After being a total disgrace to his
mother for all of those years, and then being asked to put the
wreath on his mother's grave, this was like attaining sainthood
for him. There were all men in the room except for myself and
one young woman in the back with a young son. After hearing these
men express their feelings about their mothers--some dead, some
alive-- I raised my own hand to express my feeling as a mother
of three sons. First I said how impressed I was that they had
seen the wisdom in turning to the Madonna part of their mothers.
Then I tried to explain to them that a woman is a human being.
As a young woman, she is in the Contessa part of her life, her
sexuality is in full bloom. In bringing up her young, she is more
warrior-like, looking more Amazon. In maturity, she is truly Madonna.
Therefore, when the son goes to her, burdened with life's demons,
she anoints him with unconditional love, a truly spiritual experience.
Without any musical instruments, the black soul, the blue-eyed
soul could be heard loud and clear by those who in their hour
of need had turned to their own mothers. My role as mother has
been a painful one at many times, but today, listening to all
these young men, all things are clear. Lastnight in Vegas, another
young man about 25 years old, was defeated in the 11th round.
When the reporters asked him what his plans for the future were,
he broke down, you knew he was crying even with those black eyes
covered with sunglasses. He answered the best he could: "I don't
know. I'm just going to go home, and talk to my father."
Tolstoy, the Russian novelist, at age 76:
"I longed to press myself against some loving, sympathetic being,
to shed tears of love and affection, and to feel myself being
consoled."
"Yes, my dear mother whom I never called by that name, since I
couldn't talk. Yes, she is my highest conception of pure love--not
a cold, or divine, but a warm , earthly, maternal love. This is
what attracts my bitter, weary soul. Mummy dear, caress me.."
Tolstoy died in October, 1910, at age eighty-two calling for Mama.
Copyright R. Mahoney
8-Nov-88
