BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (May 21, 1997) --
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y mother died today.
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The vacuum created by her death drew our family together in the home we
had moved to more than 45 years ago.
Over
take-out salad and Diet Pepsi we acknowledged how much of an influence, a
force of decency and gentility she had been. We took the towels off the
silver tea service. We ate at the big table in the dining room, but we were
careful to put coasters under the glasses.
She was born Beatrice Aresdakesian in Fresno,
Calif., in 1907 -- it would have been 90 years ago June 22. We were going to
have a party for her at the home of my sister Judy and her husband John.
Ma was from a refugee family that fled Turkey when the Christian Armenians
were being massacred at the turn of the century. She was a farm girl who
married my father almost 66 years ago. They stuck together through thick and
thin. She never looked at another man, nor my father at another woman since.
They worked their way through the Depression and the war.
For lunch Dad took Ma and me to eat at The Sizzler. It was her last meal;
I split the Australian chicken with her. She could only drink a little of the
Diet Pepsi. She didn't want the Texas Toast. But she polished off the potato
and salad. She sat in the patio with Dad this afternoon, holding his hand as
they watched the squirrels and birds in the garden.
About 4 o'clock, Dad knocked on the door as I was editing The Pit.
"Mother has some pain," he said. I went into the house and saw her
slumped on the couch. I called the paramedics. Her blood pressure was 84 over
40. I held her hand. They took her out on a stretcher. I never saw her again.
Dad, who will be 96 in October, said: "I knew it had to come but I
prayed for a little more time. But I have no regrets. I have no guilt. She
had the best medical care. I did the best I could for her. But everywhere I
look I see her hand on everything in this house." Last month he told me:
"We're like one person."
Or did she say it?
My mother died today. I'll never see her in that old blue dress again; but
what I have seen will last forever. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that men are
what their mothers make them. I am a journalist. If Emerson is right, she
made me be one by her strength. She gave me the sense of purpose to fight
oppression, injustice and corruption. Our grandparents fled oppression in
Turkey, and we learned from Ma's example and stories to hold out a helping
hand and resist abuses by petty tyrants.
A Cookeville lawyer the other day said that The Putnam Pit was only a
hobby to me.
Baby, you don't know a damn thing about the gene pool.
We miss you, Mama. As you used to say, "Don't forget to come
back."
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to either the Salvation Army or
the Armenian Missionary Association of America's Orphan/Child Care Fund, 140
Forest Ave., Paramus, NJ 07652. (201) 265-2607.