Thursday - Georgia On My Mind
Mar. 15th, 2007 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreYesterday as I was driving into town to visit a friend, I found myself thinking about Georgia, who was my father's secretary when I was a kid, at least until he had to give her a promotion because my mother told him to. When I think of Georgia, I also think of Georgia's baby, who would be in her twenties by now, and the not-quite finished gift my family gave her when she was born.
Back before people in corporations had computers at their desks and voicemail on their phones, anyone with any clout at all had a secretary to do their typing and take their calls. My mother made friends with all of my father's secretaries. She called my father at the office several times a day, and if he wasn't available, she would start a conversation with his secretary, instead. Usually, a long conversation. She knew all about the secretaries' families, their plans, their likes and dislikes, and they learned all about hers. Looking back, I wonder how these women ever got any work done when they spent so much time talking to my mother on the phone. On some days I doubt they did, but it's not like their boss could chastise them that when it was his own wife's fault.
Georgia was a divorced single mother in her mid-30's when she came to work for my father in the late 70's. She threw her husband out after he came home from the Vietnam War and joined the Nation of Islam. His new religion wouldn't have been a problem for her, she said, if he had not insisted that she join it, too, and dress "modestly." He wanted her to wear a long-sleeved caftan that covered her from neck to ankle, and to keep her hair covered with a scarf.
"Ruby," she told my mother, "Can you see me dressed like that? Because I sure can't!" Georgia liked to dress up and feel pretty, and the husband who told her she couldn't wasn't her husband for long after that.
It turned out that raising two kids on her own proved difficult for her on a secretary's pay and she had to take a second job in a local shop to make ends meet. She left her job at my father's office and immediately went to work behind the counter at a store. It seemed that on her first day there, however, that everyone she knew from her first job came in and asked about why she was there. She told my mother all about it on the phone the next day
"Ray," my mother told my father, "Can't you do something to help her? She has two kids she's raising all by herself. How is she going to take care of them if she's working two jobs?"
So when a higher-paying position became available in my father's department, he trained Georgia to do it and promoted her. As grateful as she was to my father, Georgia knew that her real benefactor was my mother, and she never forgot it.
My mother still kept in touch with Georgia even if she didn't answer my father's phone anymore. Early in 1984, Georgia married her second husband when she discovered she was pregnant. She was not pleased, as she was in her late 30's by then and had long before had a tubal ligation. Apparently, her tubes came un-ligated. She was furious at the physician who had performed the surgery.
"Georgia wasn't very nice when she was talking about her doctor," my father told my mother, "She called him that word that black people sometimes use."
My mother choked on a laugh. I asked what word they were talking about.
"She accused him of being naughty with his own mother," my mom whispered. She, herself did not use strong language, so she was trying to describe the word without having to actually say it. At the tender age of 14, it took me a moment or two to figure out that Georgia had called her doctor a "motherf-cker." We had cable TV, so I'd heard the term on HBO.
My mother was a skilled seamstress, and that summer she began work on a little quilt as a gift for Georgia's baby. It would be stripped in pastel yellows and greens, with a decorated circus elephant standing on a ball in the middle of it. The quilt was about halfway finished when we learned that my mother's cancer was no longer in remission. She set the project aside and began an aggressive regime of chemotherapy that made her so sick that she couldn't function. Her deterioration was fast, and she died in early October, a few weeks before Georgia's little girl was born. My father felt obliged to mention the quilt to Georgia and explain that it was not finished. He thought she should know that my mother was thinking of her and her baby. Georgia told him that she still wanted the quilt, incomplete as it was, and that she would finish it herself.
There is a period after a death where people are reluctant to part with anything that the departed one has ever touched, and we were in that stage. It still seems, in those early weeks, that a mistake might have been made, and that the person might still somehow return to you. The quilt was like a beacon of sorts. We had the idea that by keeping it around, it might entice my mother to come back and complete what she started. Sending it off to be finished by someone else was acknowledging that my mother was truly never coming home.
"I don't want to give it to her," my father said.
"Me, neither," I agreed, "But we have to. It's not really ours. It belongs to the baby."
And so I gathered up the quilt, only half sewn together around it's batting, with all the colored threads she was using and the wide satin ribbon that was meant to go around the border, and put them in a bag. A threaded needle still hung from the middle, where my mother had been sewing the stitches around the silly cartoon elephant. It looked like she had paused in her work to do something else, like maybe answer the phone, and would be back to pick up where she left off any minute. That's what I wanted to believe when I looked it at. It seemed obscene to wrap a gift that wasn't actually made yet, so we didn't. We gave it to Georgia in a plastic shopping bag, with all of its components.
I still think that bout that little half-made present, and I wonder if Georgia really did finish it, or if she wanted it for the same reason we did - just to have it. My father offered to buy her another gift, something already made and ready to use, but she told him not to bother. She said the quilt was plenty, and even sent a thank you note for it.
I still think about that quilt. When my mother started work on it I really didn't like it all that much. I thought the elephant motif was kind of silly. Now I would pay anything to see it again, that last gift that my mother ever made for anyone, even if it still isn't finished.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Back before people in corporations had computers at their desks and voicemail on their phones, anyone with any clout at all had a secretary to do their typing and take their calls. My mother made friends with all of my father's secretaries. She called my father at the office several times a day, and if he wasn't available, she would start a conversation with his secretary, instead. Usually, a long conversation. She knew all about the secretaries' families, their plans, their likes and dislikes, and they learned all about hers. Looking back, I wonder how these women ever got any work done when they spent so much time talking to my mother on the phone. On some days I doubt they did, but it's not like their boss could chastise them that when it was his own wife's fault.
Georgia was a divorced single mother in her mid-30's when she came to work for my father in the late 70's. She threw her husband out after he came home from the Vietnam War and joined the Nation of Islam. His new religion wouldn't have been a problem for her, she said, if he had not insisted that she join it, too, and dress "modestly." He wanted her to wear a long-sleeved caftan that covered her from neck to ankle, and to keep her hair covered with a scarf.
"Ruby," she told my mother, "Can you see me dressed like that? Because I sure can't!" Georgia liked to dress up and feel pretty, and the husband who told her she couldn't wasn't her husband for long after that.
It turned out that raising two kids on her own proved difficult for her on a secretary's pay and she had to take a second job in a local shop to make ends meet. She left her job at my father's office and immediately went to work behind the counter at a store. It seemed that on her first day there, however, that everyone she knew from her first job came in and asked about why she was there. She told my mother all about it on the phone the next day
"Ray," my mother told my father, "Can't you do something to help her? She has two kids she's raising all by herself. How is she going to take care of them if she's working two jobs?"
So when a higher-paying position became available in my father's department, he trained Georgia to do it and promoted her. As grateful as she was to my father, Georgia knew that her real benefactor was my mother, and she never forgot it.
My mother still kept in touch with Georgia even if she didn't answer my father's phone anymore. Early in 1984, Georgia married her second husband when she discovered she was pregnant. She was not pleased, as she was in her late 30's by then and had long before had a tubal ligation. Apparently, her tubes came un-ligated. She was furious at the physician who had performed the surgery.
"Georgia wasn't very nice when she was talking about her doctor," my father told my mother, "She called him that word that black people sometimes use."
My mother choked on a laugh. I asked what word they were talking about.
"She accused him of being naughty with his own mother," my mom whispered. She, herself did not use strong language, so she was trying to describe the word without having to actually say it. At the tender age of 14, it took me a moment or two to figure out that Georgia had called her doctor a "motherf-cker." We had cable TV, so I'd heard the term on HBO.
My mother was a skilled seamstress, and that summer she began work on a little quilt as a gift for Georgia's baby. It would be stripped in pastel yellows and greens, with a decorated circus elephant standing on a ball in the middle of it. The quilt was about halfway finished when we learned that my mother's cancer was no longer in remission. She set the project aside and began an aggressive regime of chemotherapy that made her so sick that she couldn't function. Her deterioration was fast, and she died in early October, a few weeks before Georgia's little girl was born. My father felt obliged to mention the quilt to Georgia and explain that it was not finished. He thought she should know that my mother was thinking of her and her baby. Georgia told him that she still wanted the quilt, incomplete as it was, and that she would finish it herself.
There is a period after a death where people are reluctant to part with anything that the departed one has ever touched, and we were in that stage. It still seems, in those early weeks, that a mistake might have been made, and that the person might still somehow return to you. The quilt was like a beacon of sorts. We had the idea that by keeping it around, it might entice my mother to come back and complete what she started. Sending it off to be finished by someone else was acknowledging that my mother was truly never coming home.
"I don't want to give it to her," my father said.
"Me, neither," I agreed, "But we have to. It's not really ours. It belongs to the baby."
And so I gathered up the quilt, only half sewn together around it's batting, with all the colored threads she was using and the wide satin ribbon that was meant to go around the border, and put them in a bag. A threaded needle still hung from the middle, where my mother had been sewing the stitches around the silly cartoon elephant. It looked like she had paused in her work to do something else, like maybe answer the phone, and would be back to pick up where she left off any minute. That's what I wanted to believe when I looked it at. It seemed obscene to wrap a gift that wasn't actually made yet, so we didn't. We gave it to Georgia in a plastic shopping bag, with all of its components.
I still think that bout that little half-made present, and I wonder if Georgia really did finish it, or if she wanted it for the same reason we did - just to have it. My father offered to buy her another gift, something already made and ready to use, but she told him not to bother. She said the quilt was plenty, and even sent a thank you note for it.
I still think about that quilt. When my mother started work on it I really didn't like it all that much. I thought the elephant motif was kind of silly. Now I would pay anything to see it again, that last gift that my mother ever made for anyone, even if it still isn't finished.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-15 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-15 10:57 pm (UTC)I've been reminded of my maternal grandmother. Mom took care of her when she had cancer, even though Mom was pregnant with me. Grandma laid on her back and knit me an afghan, even though it was later found out that she had broken her arm and hadn't told anyone. Man, I have a headache and I whine all day! People aren't built like they used to be. :^P Unfortunately, she died 10 days before I was born.
Maybe there's a way you could track down Georgia and find out what happened to the blanket.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 06:27 pm (UTC)that last gift
Date: 2007-03-15 10:58 pm (UTC)Re: that last gift
Date: 2007-03-16 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-15 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-16 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-17 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-17 09:15 pm (UTC)To Georgia, it was a gift made by a friend who died before she could finish it, which is a little more special. If anyone is still cherishing the quilt, it is the mother and not the child, and I'm okay with that.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-18 06:47 pm (UTC)Or, it'll be stored in her mind, and she can review when she's older :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-17 06:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-17 09:07 pm (UTC)Those first few weeks after a funeral are a strange time, where you still speak of the dead in the present tense and avoid disturbing their personal affects as if they cared. A year later, giving the quilt away would have been an easy decision. It was only in that twilight period, when sympathy cards were still arriving in the mail and the refrigerator was still full of leftover food from the wake, that the choice felt so difficult.